"The balance in the treasury on the first of January last was six millions three hundred and fifty-eight thousand six hundred and eighty-six dollars and eighteen cents. The receipts from that day to the 30th of September last, as near as the returns of them yet received can show, amount to sixteen millions eight hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-one dollars and thirty-two cents. The receipts of the present quarter, estimated at four millions five hundred and fifteen thousand, added to the above, form an aggregate of twenty-one millions four hundred thousand dollars of receipts. The expenditures of the year may perhaps amount to twenty-two millions three hundred thousand dollars, presenting a small excess over the receipts. But of these twenty-two millions, upwards of six have been applied to the discharge of the principal of the public debt; the whole amount of which, approaching seventy-four millions on the first of January last, will on the first day of next year fall short of sixty-seven millions and a half. The balance in the treasury on the first of January next, it is expected, will exceed five millions four hundred and fifty thousand dollars; a sum exceeding that of the first of January, 1825, though falling short of that exhibited on the first of January last."
In this statement the expenditures of the year are shown to exceed the income, and yet to leave a balance, about equal to one fourth of the whole in the treasury at the end of the year; also that the balance was larger at the end of the preceding year, and nearly the same at the end of the year before. And the message might have added, that these balances were about the same at the end of every quarter of every year, and every day of every quarter – all resulting from the impossibility of applying money to objects until there has been time to apply it. Yet in the time of those balances of which Mr. Adams speaks, there was a law to retain two millions in the treasury; and now there is a law to retain six millions; while the current balances, at the rate of a fourth or a fifth of the income, are many times greater than the sum ordered to be retained; and cannot be reduced to that sum, by regular payments from the treasury, until the revenue itself is reduced below the expenditure. This is a financial paradox, sustainable upon reason, proved by facts, and visible in the state of the treasury at all times; yet I have endeavored in vain to establish it; and Congress is as careful as ever to provide an annual income equal to the annual expenditure; and to make permanent provision by law to keep up a reserve in the treasury; which would be there of itself without such law as long as the revenue comes within a fourth or a fifth of the expenditure.
The following members composed the two Houses at this, the first session of the twentieth Congress:
Maine – John Chandler, Albion K. Parris.
New Hampshire – Samuel Bell, Levi Woodbury.
Massachusetts – Nathaniel Silsbee, Daniel Webster.
Connecticut – Samuel A. Foot, Calvin Willey.
Rhode Island – Nehemiah R. Knight, Asher Robbins.
Vermont – Dudley Chase, Horatio Seymour.
New-York – Martin Van Buren, Nathan Sanford.
New Jersey – Mahlon Dickerson, Ephraim Bateman.
Pennsylvania – William Marks, Isaac D. Barnard.
Delaware – Louis M'Lane, Henry M. Ridgeley.
Maryland – Ezekiel F. Chambers, Samuel Smith.
Virginia – Littleton W. Tazewell, John Tyler.
North Carolina – John Branch, Nathaniel Macon.
South Carolina – William Smith, Robert Y. Hayne.
Georgia – John M'Pherson Berrien, Thomas W. Cobb.
Kentucky – Richard M. Johnson, John Rowan.
Tennessee – John H. Eaton, Hugh L. White.
Ohio – William H. Harrison, Benjamin Ruggles.
Louisiana – Dominique Bouligny, Josiah S. Johnston.
Indiana – William Hendricks, James Noble.
Mississippi – Powhatan Ellis, Thomas H. Williams.
Illinois – Elias K. Kane, Jesse B. Thomas.
Alabama – John McKinley, William R. King.
Missouri – David Barton, Thomas H. Benton.
Maine – John Anderson, Samuel Butman, Rufus M'Intire, Jeremiah O'Brien, James W. Ripley, Peleg Sprague, Joseph F. Wingate – 7.
New Hampshire – Ichabod Bartlett, David Barker, jr., Titus Brown, Joseph Healey, Jonathan Harvey, Thomas Whipple, jr. – 6.
Massachusetts – Samuel C. Allen, John Bailey, Isaac C. Bates, B. W. Crowninshield, John Davis, Henry W. Dwight, Edward Everett, Benjamin Gorham, James L. Hodges, John Locke, John Reed, Joseph Richardson, John Varnum – 15.
Rhode Island – Tristam Burges; Dutee J. Pearce – 2.
Connecticut – John Baldwin, Noyes Barber, Ralph J. Ingersoll, Orange Merwin, Elisha Phelps, David Plant – 6.
Vermont – Daniel A. A. Buck, Jonathan Hunt, Rolin C. Mallary, Benjamin Swift, George E. Wales – 5.
New-York – Daniel D. Barnard, George O. Belden, Rudolph Bunner, C. C. Cambreleng, Samuel Chase, John C. Clark, John D. Dickinson, Jonas Earll, jr., Daniel G. Garnsey, Nathaniel Garrow, John I. De Graff, John Hallock, jr., Selah R. Hobbie, Michael Hoffman, Jeromus Johnson, Richard Keese, Henry Markell, H. C. Martindale, Dudley Marvin, John Magee, John Maynard, Thomas J. Oakley, S. Van Rensselaer, Henry R. Storrs, James Strong, John G. Stower, Phineas L. Tracy, John W. Taylor, G. C. Verplanck, Aaron Ward, John J. Wood, Silas Wood, David Woodcock, Silas Wright, jr. – 34.
New Jersey – Lewis Condict, George Holcombe, Isaac Pierson, Samuel Swan, Edge Thompson, Ebenezer Tucker – 6.
Pennsylvania – William Addams, Samuel Anderson, Stephen Barlow, James Buchanan, Richard Coulter, Chauncey Forward, Joseph Fry, jr., Innes Green, Samuel D. Ingham, George Kremer, Adam King, Joseph Lawrence, Daniel H. Miller, Charles Miner, John Mitchell, Samuel M'Kean, Robert Orr, jr., William Ramsay, John Sergeant, James S. Stevenson, John B. Sterigere, Andrew Stewart, Joel B. Sutherland, Espy Van Horn, James Wilson, George Wolf – 26.
Delaware – Kensy Johns, jr. – 1.
Maryland – John Barney, Clement Dorsey, Levin Gale, John Leeds Kerr, Peter Little, Michael C. Sprigg, G. C. Washington, John C. Weems, Ephraim K. Wilson – 9.
Virginia – Mark Alexander, Robert Allen, Wm. S. Archer, Wm. Armstrong, jr., John S. Barbour, Philip P. Barbour, Burwell Bassett, N. H. Claiborne, Thomas Davenport, John Floyd, Isaac Leffler, Lewis Maxwell, Charles F. Mercer, William M'Coy, Thomas Newton, John Randolph, William C. Rives, John Roane, Alexander Smyth, A. Stevenson, John Talliaferro, James Trezvant – 22.
North Carolina – Willis Alston, Daniel L. Barringer, John H. Bryan, Samuel P. Carson, Henry W. Conner, John Culpeper, Thomas H. Hall, Gabriel Holmes, John Long, Lemuel Sawyer, A. H. Shepperd, Daniel Turner, Lewis Williams – 13.
South Carolina – John Carter, Warren R. Davis, William Drayton, James Hamilton, jr., George M'Duffie, William D. Martin, Thomas R. Mitchell, Wm. T. Nuckolls, Starling Tucker – 9.
Georgia – John Floyd, Tomlinson Fort, Charles E. Haynes, George R. Gilmer, Wilson Lumpkin, Wiley Thompson, Richard H. Wilde – 7.
Kentucky – Richard A. Buckner, James Clark, Henry Daniel, Joseph Lecompte, Robert P. Letcher, Chittenden Lyon, Thomas Metcalfe, Robert M'Hatton, Thomas P. Moore, Charles A. Wickliffe, Joel Yancey, Thomas Chilton – 12.
Tennessee – John Bell, John Blair, David Crockett, Robert Desha, Jacob C. Isacks, Pryor Lea, John H. Marable, James C. Mitchell, James K. Polk – 9.
Ohio – Mordecai Bartley, Philemon Beecher, William Creighton, jr., John Davenport, James Findlay, Wm. M'Lean, William Russell, John Sloane, William Stanberry,