equipping its whole
body. But it is a body of dislocated members, without the vigor of unity
and having little of uniformity but the name. To infuse into this most
important institution the power of which it is susceptible and to make
it available for the defense of the Union at the shortest notice and at
the smallest expense possible of time, of life, and of treasure are
among the benefits to be expected from the persevering deliberations of
Congress.

Among the unequivocal indications of our national prosperity is the
flourishing state of our finances. The revenues of the present year,
from all their principal sources, will exceed the anticipations of the
last. The balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January last was a
little short of $2,000,000, exclusive of two millions and a half, being
the moiety of the loan of five millions authorized by the act of 26th of
May, 1824. The receipts into the Treasury from the 1st of January to the
30th of September, exclusive of the other moiety of the same loan, are
estimated at $16,500,000, and it is expected that those of the current
quarter will exceed $5,000,000, forming an aggregate of receipts of
nearly twenty-two millions, independent of the loan. The expenditures of
the year will not exceed that sum more than two millions. By those
expenditures nearly eight millions of the principal of the public debt
have been discharged. More than a million and a half has been devoted to
the debt of gratitude to the warriors of the Revolution; a nearly equal
sum to the construction of fortifications and the acquisition of
ordnance and other permanent preparations of national defense; half a
million to the gradual increase of the Navy; an equal sum for purchases
of territory from the Indians and payment of annuities to them; and
upward of a million for objects of internal improvement authorized by
special acts of the last Congress. If we add to these $4,000,000 for
payment of interest upon the public debt, there remains a sum of about
seven millions, which have defrayed the whole expense of the
administration of Government in its legislative, executive, and
judiciary departments, including the support of the military and naval
establishments and all the occasional contingencies of a government
coextensive with the Union.

The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported since the
commencement of the year is about twenty-five millions and a half, and
that which will accrue during th