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f 6j[t failH B y THOMAS JDK WOLF. EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. Ji; y *t Five Dollars a year. Where the sub !' ,a j .Inn is made for less than a year, at the rate of I tints month. 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I ‘“*l rtiseuieuts or notices, occupying a place between 1 ling matter and advertisements, will be charged ► w ‘'t’ .M u. line for every insertion. glVii ‘ - I PRESIDENT’S message. I fiUow-Citizent of the Senate, I and of the House of Representatives. j ‘l'he Constitution requires that the President I hall from t ' uie t 0 t ‘ me ’ ,10t on *y rocommend I to the consideration of Congress such measures I , i i, e may judge necessary and expedient, but I a f 90 that he shall give information to them of I “he state of the Union. To do this fully in- I yolves exposition of all matters in the actual I oaJition of the country, domestic or foreign, I *hicb essentially concern the general welfare. ■ While performing his constitutional duty in I this respect, the President does not speak uiere- II yto express his personal convictions, but as E J ie executive minister of the government, ena- I bled by his position, and called upon by his I uilicial obligations, to scan with an impartial I eve, the interests of the whole, and of every ( pari of the United States. I Os the condition of the domestic interests of I the Union, its agriculture, mines, manufac- I tures navigation, and commerce, it isnecessa f a y only to say that the internal prosperity of the couutry, its continuous and steady ad- I vaucement in wealth and population, and iu l private as well as public well-being, attest the I wisdom of our institutions, and the predomi- I mint spirit of intelligence and patriotism, I which, notwithstanding occasional irregulari- I ties of opinion or notion, resulting from popu- I ]ar freedom, has distinguished and character [ ired the people of America. In the brief interval between the termination I of the last and the commencement of the pre sent session of Congress, the public mind has been occupied with the care of selecting, for another constitutional term, the President and Vice President of the United States. The determination of the persons, who are of right, or contingently, to preside over the administration of the government, is, under our system, committed to the States and the people. “ e appeal to them, by their voice pronounced in the form of law, to call whom soever they will to the high post of Chief Mag istrate. And thus it is that as the Senators represent the respective States of the Union, and the members of the House of Representatives the several constituencies of each State, so the President represents the aggregate population of the United Sates. Their election of him is the explicit and solemn act of the sole sover eign authority of the Union. It is impossible to misapprehend the great principles, which, by their recent political ac tion, the people of the United States havesnne tioned and announced. They have asserted the constitutional equal ity of each and all of the States of the Union as States; they have affirmed the constitution al equality of each and all of the citizens of the United States as citizens, whatever their religion, wherever their birth, or their resi dence; they have maintained the inviolability of the constitutional rights of the different sec tions of the Union; and they have proclaimed their devoted and unalterable attachment to the Union and to the Constitution, as objects of interest superior to all subjects of local or sectional controversy, as the safe-guard of the rights of all, as the spirit and the essence of the liberty, peace, and greatness of the Repub lic. Iu doing this, tbey have, at the same time, emphatically condemned the idea of organizing, in these United States, mere geographical par ties ; of marshaling in hostile array towards each other the different parts of the country, North or South, East or West. Schemes of this nature, fraught with incal culable mischief, and which the considerate sense of the people has rejected, could have had countenance in no part of the country, had they not been disguised by suggestions plausibie in appearance, acting upon an excit ed state of the public mind, induced by causes temporary in their character, and it is to be hoped transient in their influence. l’erfect liberty of association for political ob jects, and the widest scope of discussion, are the received and ordinary conditions of gov ernment in our country. Our institutions, trained in the spirit of confidence in the intel ligence and integrity of the people, do not for bid citizens either individually or associated together, to attack by writting, speech, or any other method* shortof physical force, the Con stitution and the very existenoe of the Union. Under the shelter of this great liberty, and protected by the laws and usages of the gov ernment they assail, associations have been termed, iu some of the States, of individuals, who, pretending to seek only to prevent the spread of the institution of slavery into the present or future inchoate States of the Union, are really inflamed with desire to change the domestic institution* of existing States. To accomplish thoir objects, they dedicate them selves to the odious task of deprecating the government organization which stands in thoir way, and of calumniating, with indiscriminate invective, not only the citizens of particular States, with whose laws they find fault, but all others of their fellow citizensc throughout the couutry, who do not participate with them in their assaults upon the Constitution, framed and adopted hy our fathers, and claiming for the privileges it has secured, aud the blessings it has conferred, the steady support and grntc lul reverence of their children. They seek an object they well kuow to boa revolutionary one. They are perfectly aware that the change m the relative condition of the white mid black races iu the slaveholding States, which they would promote, i* beyond their lawful authori ty ; that to them is a foreign object ; that it cannot be effected by nuy peaceful instrumen tality of theirs ; that for them, and the States ot which they are citizens, the only path to its accomplishment is through burning cities, and ravaged fields, and slaughtered populations, and all there is most terrible in foreign, com plicated with civil and servile war ; and that the first step in the attempt is the forcible dis ruption of acountry embracing iu its broad bosom a degree of liberty, aud an amount of individual and public prosperity, to which thei e is no parallel in history, and substituting in its place hostile-governments, driven at once and inevitably into mutual devastation and fratri- ft tc lailj jkii. VOL. ll.} cidal carnage, transforming the now peaceful and felicitous brotherhood into a vast perma nent camp of armed men like the rival monar chies of Europe and Asia. Well knowing that such and such only, are the means and conse quence of their plans and purposes, thoy en deavor to prepare the people of the United States for civil war by doingeverything in their power to deprive the Constitution and the laws of moral authority, and to undermine the fab ric of this Union by appeals to passion and sectional prejudice, by indoctrinating its peo ple with reciprocal hatred, and by educating them to stand face to face as enemies, rather than shoulder to shoulder as friends. It is by the agency of such unwarrantable interference, foreign and domestic, that the minds of many, otherwise good citizens, have been so inflamed into the passionate condemna tion of the domestic institutions of the South ern States, as at length to pass insensibly to almost equally passionate hostility towards their fellow citizens of those States, and thus finally to fall into temporary fellowship with the avowed and active enemies of the Constitu tion. Ardently attached to liberty in the ab stract, they do not stop to consider practically how the objects they would attain can be ac complished, nor to reflect that, even if the evil were as great as thoy deem it, they have no remedy to apply, and that it can be only aggravated by their violence and unconstitu tional action. A question, which is one of the most difficult of all the problems of social insti tution, political economy and statesmanship, they treat with unreasoning intemperance of thought and language. Extremes beget ex tremes. Violent attack from the North finds its inevitable consequence in the growth of a spirit of nngry defiance at the South. Thus, in the progress of events we had reached that consummation, which the voice of the people has now so pointedly rebuked, of the attempt, of a portion of the States, by a sectional organ ization aud movement, to usurp the control of the Government of the United States. I confidently believe that the great body of those, who inconsiderately took this fatal step, are sincerely attached to the Constitution and the Union. They would, upon deliberation, shrink with unaffected horror from any con scious act of disunion or civil war. Rut they have entered into a path, which leads nowhere, unless it bo to civil war and disunion, anil which has noother possible outlet. They have proceeded thus far iu that direction in conse quence of the successive stages of their pro gress, having consisted of a series of secondary issues, each of which professed to be confined within constitutional and peaceful limits, but which attempted indirectly what few men were willing to do directly, that is, to act aggres sively against the constitutional rights of near ly one-lialf of the thirty-one States. In the long series of acts of indirect aggres sion, the first was the strenuous agitation, by citizens of the northern States, in Congress and out of it, of the question of negro emanci pation in the southern States. The second step in this path of evil consist ed of acts of the people of the northern States and in several instances of their governments, aimed to facilitate the escape of persons held to service in the southern States, and to pre veut their extradition when reclaimed accord ing to law and in virtue of express provisions of the Constitution. To promote this object, legislative enactments and other means were adopted todake away or defeat rights, which the Constitution solemnly guarantied. In or der to nullify the then existiugact of Congress concerning the extradition of fugitives from service, laws were enacted in many States, forbidding their officers, under the severest penalties, to participate iu the execution of any act of Congress whatever. In this way that system of harmonious co-operation between the authorities of the United States and of the sev eral States, for the maintenance of their com mon institutions, which existed in the early years of the Republic, was destroyed; conflicts of jurisdiction came to be frequent; and Con gress found itself compelled, for the support of the Constitution, and the vindication of its power, to authorise the appointment of new officers charged with the execution of its acts, as if they and the officers of the States were the ministers, respectively, of foreign govern ments in a state of mutual hostility, rather than fellow magistates of a common couutry. peacefully subsisting under the protection of one well-constituted Union. Thus here, also, aggression was followed by re-action: and the attacks upon the Constitution at this point did but serve to raise up new barriers for its de fence and security. The third stage of this unhappy sectional controversy was in connection with thu organ ization of new territorial governments, and the admission of new States into tho Union. When it was proposed to admit the State of Maine, by separatioc of territory from that of Massachusetts, and the State of Missouri, formed of a portion of the territory ceded by France to the United States, representatives in Cos gress objected to the admission of the lat ter, unless with conditions suited to particular views of public policy. The imposition of such a condition was successfully resisted. Rut, at the same period, the question was pre sented of imposing restrictions upon the resi due of the territory ceded by France. The qusstion was, for the time, disposed of by the adoption of a geographical line of limitation. In this connection it should not be forgotten that France, of her own accord, resolved, for considerations of the most far sighted sagaci ty, to cede Louisiana to the United States, and that accession was accepted by the United States, the latter expressly engaged that “the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be in corporated into the Union of the United States and admitted ns soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States, ami in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the enjoyment of their liber ty, property, and tho religion which they pro fess”—that is to say, while it remains in a ter ritorial condition, its inhabitants are main tained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property with a right then to pass into the condition of States on a footing of perfect equality with the original States. The enactment, which cstablishee the re strictive geographical line, was acquiesced in rather than approved by the States of the Union. It stood on the statues book, however, for a number of years: and the people of the respective Ssntes acquiesced iu the re-anact uient of the principle as applied to the State of Texas; and it wns proposed to acquiesce in ita further application to the territory acquir ed by the Uuited States from Mexico. Rut this proposition was successfully resisted by COLUMBUS, GA.. DECEMBER 6. 1856. the representatives from the northern States, who, regardless of the statute line, insisted upon applying restriction to the new territory generally, whether lying north or south of it, thereby repealing it ns a ( legislative compro mise, and, on the part of the North, persistent ly violating the compact, if compact there was. Thereupon this enactment ceased to have binding virtue in any sense, whether as re spects the North or the South ; and so in effect it was treated on tho occasion of the admission of the State of California, and the organization of the Territories of New Mexico, Utah and Washington. Such was the state of this question when the time arrived for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. In the progress of constitutional inquiry and reflec tion, it had now at length come to be seen clearly that Congress does not possess cousti stutional power to impose restrictions of this character upon any present or future State of the Union. In a long series of decisions, on the fullest argument, ami after the most delib erate consideration, the Supreme Court of the United S'ates had linnlly determined this point in every form under which the question could arise, whether a? affecting puplic or private rights—in questions of public domain, of re ligion, of navigation, aud of servitude. The several Statis of the Union are, by force of the Constitution, co-equal in domestic legislative power. Congress cannot change a law of domestic relation in the State of Maine, no more can it in the State of Missouri Any statute which proposes to do this is a mere nullity; it takes away no right, it confers none. It remains on the statute book unre pcaled, it icmains there only as a monument of error, and a beacon of warning to the le gislator and the statesman. To repeal it w ill be ouly to remove imperfection from the stat ute-, without affecting, either in the sense of permission or of prohibition, the act of the States, or of their citizens. Still, when the nominal restriction of this nature, already a dead letter in law, was in terms repealed by the last Congress, iu a clause of the act organizing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, thnt repeal was made the occasion of a widespread and dangerous agitation. It was alleged that the original enactment being a compact of perpetual moral obliga tion, its repeal constituted an odious breach of faith. The act of Congress, while it remains unre penled, more especially if it be constitutional ly valid in the judgment of those public func tionaries whose duty it is to pronounce on that point, is undoubtedly binding on the con science of each good citizen of this Republic. Rut in what sense can it be asserted that the ennetment in question was invested with per petuity and entitled to the respect of a solemn compact ? No distinct contending powers of the government, no separate sections of the Union, treating as such, entered into treaty stipulations on the subject. It was a mere clause of an net of Congress, and like any controverted matter of legislation, received its final shape and passed by compromise of the conflicting opinions or sentiments of members Congress. Rut if it had moral authority over men’s consciences, to whom did this authority attach ? Not those of the North, who had re peatedly refused to coufirm it by extension, and who had zonlously striven to establish other and incompatible regulations upon the subject. And if, as it thus appears, the supposed com pact had no obligatory force as to the North, of course it could not have had nny as to the South, for such compacts must be mutual and of reciprocal obligation. It has not unfrcquently happened that law givers, with undue estimation of the value of tho law they give, or of the view of imparting to it peculiar strength, make it perpetual in terms ; but they cannot thus hind the con science, the judgment and will of those who may succeed them, invested with similar re sponsibilities, and clothed with equal authori ty. More careful investigation may prove the law to he unsound iu principle. Experience may show it to be imperfect in detail and im practicable in execution. And then both rea son and right combine not merely to justify but to require its repeal. The Constitution, supreme as it is over all the departments of the government, legislative, executive and judicial, is open to amendment by its very terms ; and Congress or the States may, in their discretion, propose amendments to it, solemn compact though it iu truth is be tween the sovereign States of the Union. In the present instance a political enactment, which had censed to have legal power or au thority of any kind, was repealed. The posi tion asssutued, that Congress had no moral right to enact such repeal, was strange enough, and singularly so in view of the fact that the argument came from those who openly refused obedience to the existing laws of the laud, having the same popular designation and qual ity as compromise acts—nay, more, who une quivocally disregarded and condemned the most positive and obligatory injunctions of the Constitution itself, and sought, by every means within their reach, to deprive n portion of their fellow-citizens of the equal enjoyment of those rights and privileges guaranteed alike to all by the fundamental compact of our Union The argument ngainst the repeal of the stat ute line ist question, was accompanied by an other of congenial character, and equally with the former destitute of foundation in reason and truth. It was imputed that the measure originated in the conception of extending the limits oi slave labor beyogd those previously assigned to it, nud thnt such was its natural as well as intended effect; and these baseless assumptions were made, in the northern states, the ground of unceasing assault upon consti tutional right. The repeal in terms of a statute, which whs already obsolete, and also null for unconstitu tionnlity could have no influence to obstruct or promote tho propagation of conflicting views of political or special in*#tution. When the act organizing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska was passed, the inherent effect upon that portion of the public domain thus opened legal settlement, was to admit settlers from all the States of the Union alike, each with his canvictions of public policy and pronto inter est, there to found iu their discretion, subject to such limitations as the Constitution and acta of Congress might prescribe, new Stat s, here after to be admitted into the Union. It was a free field, open alike to all, whether the stat ute line of a-sumed restriction were repealed or not. That repeal did not open to free com petition of the diverse opinions aud domestic institutions of a field, which, without such re peal, would have been closed against them ; it found that field of conipetion already open ed in fact and iu law. All the repeal did wai to relieve the statute book of un objectionable enactment, unconstitutional in effect, and inju riou* in terms to a large portion of the |States. Is it the fact, in all the unsettled regions of the United States, if emigration be left free to act in this respect for itself, without legal pro hibitions on either side, slave labor will spon taneously go every where, in preference to free labor? Is it the fact, that the peculiar domestic institutions of the southern States possess relatively so much of vigor, that, wheresoever uu avenue is freely open to all the world, tbey will penetrate to the exclusion of those of the uorthern States ? Is it the fnct, that the former enjoy, compared with the lat ter such irresistibly superior vitality, indepen dent of climate, soil, and ull other accidental circumstances, as to be able to produce the supposed result iu spite of the assumed moral and natural obstacles to its accomplishment, and of the more numerous population of the northern States? The argument of those, who advocate the enactment of the new laws of restriction, mid condemn the repeal of old ones, in effect avers that their particular views of government have no self-extending or self-sustaining power of their own, nud will go nowhere unless forced by act of Congress. And if Congress do but pause for a moment in the policyof stern co ercion ; if it venture to try the experiment of leaving men to judge for themselves what instij tutions will best suit them ; if it be not strnin ed up to perpetual legislative exertion on this point; if Congress proceed thus to net in the very spirit of liberty, it is ut once charged with aiming to extend slave labor into all the new Territories of the Uuited States. Os course, these imputations on the inten tions of Congress iu this respect, conceived as they were iu prejudice, aud disseminated in passion, ure utterly destitute of any justifica tion in the nature of things, nud contrary to all the fundamental doctrines and principles of civil liberty aud self-government. While, therefore, in general, the people of the Northern States have never, at any time, arrogated, for the federal government, the power to interfere directly with the domestic condition of persons in the southern States, hut on the contrary have disavowed all such intentions, and have shrunk from conspicuous affiliation with those few wbo-pursue their fa natical objects avowedly through the contem plated means of revolutionary change of the government, and with acceptance of the ueees sary consequences—a civil and servile war— yet many citizens have suffered themselves to be drawn into one evanescent political issue of agitation after another, appertaining to the same set ol opinions, and which subsided as rapidly as they arose when it came to be Neen, as it uniformly did, that they were incompati ble with the compacts of the Constitution nud the existence of the Union. Thus, when the acts of some of the States to nullify the existing extradition imposed upon Congress the duty of passing anew one, the country was invited by agitators to enter into party organization for its repeal; but that ag itation speedily censed by reason of the im practicability of its object. So, when the stat ute restriction upon the institution of new States, by a geographical line, had been repeal ed, tho country was urged to demand its resto ration, and that project also died almost with its birth. Then foliowed the cry of alarm from the North against imputed southern encroach ments; which cry sprang in reality from the spirit of the revolutionary attack on the do mestic institutions of the South, and, after a troubled existence of a few months, has been rebuked by the voice of a patriotic people. Os this last agitation, one lamentable feature was, that it was carried on at the immediate expense of the peace and happiness of the peo ple of the Territory of Kansas. That was made the battle-field, not so much of op posing factions or interests within itself, ns of the conflicting passions of the whole people of the United States. Revolutionary disorder in Kansas had its origin in projects of interven tion, deliberately arranged by certain members of that Congress, which enacted the law for the organization of the Territory. And when propagandist colonization of Kansas had thus been undertaken in one section of the Union, for the systematic promotion of its peculiar views of policy, there ensued, us a matter of course, a counteraction with opposite views, in other sections of the Union. 1 consequence of these and other incidents, many acts of disorder it is undeniable, have been perpetrated in KansHS, to tho occasional interruption, rather than the permanent sus pensions, of regular government. Aggressive and nios; reprehensible incursions into the Ter ritory were undertaken, both in the N rtli and the .South, and entered it on its northern bor der hy way of lowa, as well ns on the eastern by way of Missouri; and there has existed within it a state of insurrection against the constituted authoiithies, not without counte nance from inconsiderate persons in each of the great sections of the Union. Rut the diffi culties in that Territory have beeu extrava gantly exaggerated for purposes of political ug.tutiou elsewhere. The number and gravity of the acts of violence liuve been magnified partly by statements entirely untrue and part ly hy reiterated accounts of the same rumors or facts. Thus the Territory has been seem ingly filled with extreme violence, when the whole amount of such acts has not been greater than what occasionally passes before us iu sin gle cities, to the regret of all good citize s, but without being regarded as of geuernl or permanent political consequence. Imputed irregularities in the elections had in Kansas, like occasional irregularities of the same description in the States, were beyond the sphere of action of the Executive, lint incident* of acutual violence or of organized obstruction of law, pertinaciously renewed from time to time, have been met as they oc curred, by such meuue as were available and as the circumstances required; and nothing of this character now remains to effect the general peace of the Union. The attempt of a part of the inhabitants of the Territory to erect a revolutionary government, though sed ulously eucouraged aud supplied with pecunia ry aid from active agents of disorder in some of the States, has completely failed. Bodies of armed men, foreign to the Territory, have been prevented from entering or compelled to leave it. Predatory bunds, engaged in acts of rapine, under cover of the existing political disturbances, have been arrested or dispersed. And every well disposed person is now enabled ouce more to devote himself in pence to the pureuits of prosperous industry, for the prose cution of which he undertook to par ticipate in the settlement of the Territory. „ It affords me uniningled satisfaction thus to announce the peaceful condition of thing* in Kansas, especially considering the means to which it was necessary to have recource for the attainment of the end, namely, the em ployment of a part of the military force from its proper duty of defending the country agaiust foreign foes or the savgage* of the frontier, to employ it for the suppression of do mestic insurrection, is, when the exigency oc curs, a matter of the most earnest solicitui *. On this occasion of imperative necessity it has been done with the best results, and my satis faction in the attainment of such results by such means is greatly enhanced by the consid eration, that, through the wisdom and energy of the present Executive of Kansas, and the prudence, firmness and vigilance of the milita ry officers on duty there, trauquility has been restored without one drop of blood having been shed iu its accomplishment by the forces of the Uuited States. Ihe operation ot comparative tranquility in that Territory furnishes the means of observ ing calmly, and appreciating, at their just val ue, the events which have occurred there, and tho discussions of which the government of Territory has been the subject. IV e perceive that controversy concerning its tuture domestic institutions was inevitable; that no human prudence, no form of legisla tion, no wisdou on the part of Congress, could have prevented this. It is idle to suppose that the particular provisions of their organic law were causo of agitation. Those provisions were but the oc casion, or the pretext of an agitation, which was inherent in the nature of things. Con gress legislated upon the subject in such terms us were most consonant with the principle of popular sovereignty, which underlies our go eruinent. It could not have legislated other wise without doing violence to another great principle of our institutions, the impercepti ble rights of equality in the several States. We perceive, also, that sectionvl interests and party passious, have beeu the great impedi ment to the salutary operation of the organic principles adopted, and the chief cause of suc cessive disturbance in Kansas. The assump tion, that, because in the organization of the Territories or Kansu* and Nebraska, Congress abstained from imposing restraints upon them to which certain other Territories had beeu subject, therefore disordn r occurred in the latter Territory, is einplm tcnlly contradicted by the fact that none have occurred iu the for mer. Those disorders were not the conse quence, in Kansas, of the froedom of self-gov ernment conceded to that Territory by Con gress, hut of unjust interference on the part of persons not inhabitants of the Territory. Such interference, wherever it ties exhibited itself, by acts of insurrectionary character, or of obstruction to processes of law, bns been repelled or suppressed, by ad means which the Constitution and the laws place in tho hands of the Executive. In those parts of the United States where, by reason of the inflamed state of the public mind, false rumors and misrepresentations have the greatest currency, it lias been as sumed that it was the duty of the Executive not only to suppress insurrectionary move ments in Kansas, but also to see to the regu larity of local elections. It needs little argu ment to show that the President has no such power. All government in the United States rests substantially upou popular election.— The freedom of elections is liable to be impaired by the intrusion of unlawful ones, by improp er influentes, by violence, or by frnud. But tho people of the United States are themselves the all-sufficient guardians of their own rights; and to suppose that tbey will not remedy, in duo season, any such incidents of civil free dom, is to suppose them to have ceased to be capable of self-government. The President of the U. States has not power to interpose in elections, to see their freedom, to oanvass their votes, or to pass upon their legality in the Territories any more than in the States. If he had any such power the government might be republican in form, but it would be a monarchy in fact; and if be had untaken to exercise it in the case of Kansas, he would have been justly subject to the charge of usur pation, and of violation of the dearest rights of tho people of the United States. Unwise laws, equally with irregularities at elections, are, to periods of great excitement, the occasional incident of even the freest and best political institutions. But all experience demonstrates that in a country like ours, where the right of self constitutiou exists in the completest form, the attempt to remedy un wise legislation by resort to revolution, is to tally out of place ; inasmuch as existing legal institutions afford more prompt and efficacious means for redress of wrong. I confidentially trust that now, when the peaceful condition of Kansas affords opportu nity for calm reflection and wise legislation, either the legislative assembly of the Territo ry, or Congress, will see that no act shall re main on its statute book violative of the pro visions of the Constitution, or subversive of great objects for which that was ordained and established, and will take all othor necessary steps to assure to its inhabitants tho enjoy ment without obstruction or abridgement, of all tbo constitutional rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens of the United States, as contemplated by the arganic law of the Terri tory. Full information in relation to the present events iu this will he found iu the documents communicated herewith from the Departments of State and War. I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury for particular information con cerning the financ *1 condit sn of the govern ment. aud the various branches of the public service connected with the Treasury Depart ment. During the last fiscal year, the receipts from customs were, for the first time, more than sixty-four million dollars, and from all sources seventy three million nine hundred and eigh teen thousand one hundred and forty-one dol lars ; which, with the balance on hand up to the first < f July, 1856, made the totol resources of thu year amount to ninety-two million eight hundred aud fifty thousand one hundred and seventeen dollurs. The expenditures, in cluding three million dollars in tho excutiou of the treaty wtth Mexico, and excluding turns paid on account of public debt, amounted to sixty million one hundred and seventy-two thousand four hundred and one dollars ; and, including the lntter, to seventy-two million nine hundred and forty-eight thousand seven hundred aud ninety-two dollars, the payment on this account bnving amounted to twelve million seven hundred and seventy-six thous and three hundred and ninety dollars. On the 4th of March, 1853, the amount of the public debt was sixty-nine million one hundred and twenty-nine thoueand nine hun dred and thirty-seven dollars. There was a subsequent increase of two million seven hun dred and fifty thousand dollars for tho debt of Texas—making a total of seventy-one million eight hundred and seventy-nine thouaeod nine hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Os tbia the sum es forty-five million five hundred and twenty-five thousand three hundred and bine teen dollars, including the prsmuim, has been discharged, reducing tbodebt toJttirW'adiiHon seven hundred and thirty-seven thbuiiind one {NO. 112.