has so far as was possible been put into operation. It seems to need
amendment which will enable the officers of the Government to prevent the
practice of frauds against the immigrants while on their way and on
their arrival in the ports, so as to secure them here a free choice of
avocations and places of settlement. A liberal disposition toward this
great national policy is manifested by most of the European States, and
ought to be reciprocated on our part by giving the immigrants effective
national protection. I regard our immigrants as one of the principal
replenishing streams which are appointed by Providence to repair the
ravages of internal war and its wastes of national strength and health.
All that is necessary is to secure the flow of that stream in its present
fullness, and to that end the Government must in every way make it
manifest that it neither needs nor designs to impose involuntary military
service upon those who come from other lands to cast their lot in our
country. The financial affairs of the Government have been successfully
administered during the last year. The legislation of the last session of
Congress has beneficially affected the revenues, although sufficient
time has not yet elapsed to experience the full effect of several of the
provisions of the acts of Congress imposing increased taxation.
The receipts during the year from all sources, upon the basis of warrants
signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, including loans and the balance
in the Treasury on the 1st day of July, 1863, were $1,394,196,007.62, and
the aggregate disbursements, upon the same basis, were $1,298,056,101.89,
leaving a balance in the Treasury, as shown by warrants, of
$96,739,905.73.
Deduct from these amounts the amount of the principal of the public debt
redeemed and the amount of issues in substitution therefor, and the
actual cash operations of the Treasury were: receipts, $884,076,646.57;
disbursements, $865,234,087.86; which leaves a cash balance in the
Treasury of $18,842,558.71.
Of the receipts there were derived from customs $102,316,152.99, from
lands $588,333.29, from direct taxes $475,648.96, from internal revenue
$109,741,134.10, from miscellaneous sources $47,511,448.10, and from loans
applied to actual expenditures, including former balance, $623,443,929.13.
There were disbursed for the civil service $27,505,599.46, for pensions
and Indians $7,517,930.97, for the War Department $690,791,842.97, for
the Navy Department $85,733,292.77, for interest on the public debt
$53,685,421.69, making an aggregate of $865,234,087.86, and leaving a
balance in the Treasury of $18,842,558.71, as before stated.
For the actual receipts and disbursements for the first quarter and the
estimated receipts and disbursements for the three remaining quarters of
the current fiscal year, and the general operations of the Treasury in
detail, I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. I
concur with him in the opinion that the proportion of moneys required to
meet the expenses consequent upon the war derived from taxation should
be still further increased; and I earnestly invite your attention to this
subject to the end that there be such additional legislation as shall be
required to meet the just expectations of the Secretary.
The public debt on the first day of July last, as appears by the books
of the Treasury, amounted to $1,740,690,489.49. Probably, should the war
continue for another year, that amount may be increased by not far from
$500,000,000. Held, as it is, for the most part by our own people, it has
become a substantial branch of national, though private, property. For
obvious reasons the more nearly this property can be distributed among
all the people the better. To favor such general distribution, greater
inducements to become owners might, perhaps, with good effect and without
injury be presented to persons of limited means. With this view I suggest
whether it might not be both competent and expedient for Congress to
provide that a limited amount of some future issue of public securities
might be held by any bona fide purchaser exempt from taxation and from
seizure for debt, under such restrictions and limitations as might be
necessary to guard against abuse of so important a privilege. This
would enable every prudent person to set aside a small annuity against a
possible day of want.
Privileges like these would render the possession of such securities to
the amount limited most desirable to every person of small means who might
be able to save enough for the purpose. The great advantage of citizens
being creditors as well as debtors with relation to the public debt is
obvious. Men readily perceive that they can not be much oppressed by a
debt which they owe to themselves.
The public debt on the first day of July last, although somewhat exceeding
the estimate of the Secretary of the Treasury made to Congress at the
commencement of the last session, falls short of the estimate of that
officer made in the preceding December as to its probable amount at the
beginning of this year by the sum of $3,995,097.31. This fact exhibits a
satisfactory condition and conduct of the operations of the Treasury.
The national banking system is proving to be acceptable to capitalists
and to the people. On the twenty-fifth day of November five hundred and
eighty-four national banks had been organized, a considerable number of
which were conversions from State banks. Changes from State systems to the
national system are rapidly taking place, and it is hoped that very soon
there will be in the United States no banks of issue not authorized by
Congress and no bank-note circulation not secured by the Government. That
the Government and the people will derive great benefit from this change
in the banking systems of the country can hardly be questioned. The
national system will create a reliable and permanent influence in support
of the national credit and protect the people against losses in the use of
paper money. Whether or not any further legislation is advisable for the
suppression of State-bank issues, it will be for Congress to determine.
It seems quite clear that the Treasury can not be satisfactorily conducted
unless the Government can exercise a restraining power over the bank-note
circulation of the country.
The report of the Secretary of War and the accompanying documents will
detail the campaigns of the armies in the field since the date of the
last annual message, and also the operations of the several administrative
bureaus of the War Department during the last year. It will also specify
the measures deemed essential for the national defense and to keep up and
supply the requisite military force.
The report of the Secretary of the Navy presents a comprehensive and
satisfactory exhibit of the affairs of that Department and of the naval
service. It is a subject of congratulation and laudable pride to our
countrymen that a Navy of such vast proportions has been organized in so
brief a period and conducted with so much efficiency and success.
The general exhibit of the Navy, including vessels under construction on
the first of December, 1864, shows a total of 671 vessels, carrying 4610
guns, and of 510,396 tons, being an actual increase during the year, over
and above all losses by shipwreck or in battle, of 83 vessels, 167 guns,
and 42,427 tons.
The total number of men at this time in the naval service, including
officers, is about 51,000.
There have been captured by the Navy during the year 324 vessels, and the
whole number of naval captures since hostilities commenced is 1379, of
which 267 are steamers.
The gross proceeds arising from the sale of condemned prize property thus
far reported amount to $14,369,250.51. A large amount of such proceeds is
still under adjudication and yet to be reported.
The total expenditure of the Navy Department of every description,
including the cost of the immense squadrons that have been called into
existence from the fourth of March, 1861, to the first of November, 1864,
is $238,647,262.35.
Your favorable consideration is invited to the various recommendations
of the Secretary of the Navy, especially in regard to a navy-yard and
suitable establishment for the construction and repair of iron vessels and
the machinery and armature for our ships, to which reference was made in
my last annual message.
Your attention is also invited to the views expressed in the report in
relation to the legislation of Congress at its last session in respect to
prize on our inland waters.
I cordially concur in the recommendation of the Secretary as to the
propriety of creating the new rank of vice-admiral in our naval service.
Your attention is invited to the report of the Postmaster-General for
a detailed account of the operations and financial condition of the
Post-Office Department.
The postal revenues for the year ending June 30, 1864, amounted to
$12,438,253.78, and the expenditures to $12,644,786.20, the excess of
expenditures over receipts being $206,532.42.
The views presented by the Postmaster-General on the subject of special
grants by the Government in aid of the establishment of new lines of
ocean mail steamships and the policy he recommends for the development of
increased commercial intercourse with adjacent and neighboring countries
should receive the careful consideration of Congress.
It is of noteworthy interest that the steady expansion of population,
improvement, and governmental institutions over the new and unoccupied
portions of our country have scarcely been checked, much less impeded or
destroyed, by our great civil war, which at first glance would seem to
have absorbed almost the entire energies of the nation.
The organization and admission of the State of Nevada has been completed
in conformity with law, and thus our excellent system is firmly
established in the mountains, which once seemed a barren and uninhabitable
waste between the Atlantic States and those which have grown up on the
coast of the Pacific Ocean.
The Territories of the Union are generally in a condition of prosperity
and rapid growth. Idaho and Montana, by reason of their great distance and
the interruption of communication with them by Indian hostilities,
have been only partially organized; but it is understood that these
difficulties are about to disappear, which will permit their governments,
like those of the others, to go into speedy and full operation.
As intimately connected with and promotive of this material growth of the
nation, I ask the attention of Congress to the valuable information and
important recommendations relating to the public lands, Indian affairs,
the Pacific Railroad, and mineral discoveries contained in the report of
the Secretary of the Interior which is herewith transmitted, and which
report also embraces the subjects of patents, pensions, and other topics
of public interest pertaining to his Department.
The quantity of public land disposed of during the five quarters ending
on the thirtieth of September last was 4,221,342 acres, of which 1,538,614
acres were entered under the homestead law. The remainder was located
with military land warrants, agricultural scrip certified to States for
railroads, and sold for cash. The cash received from sales and location
fees was $1,019,446.
The income from sales during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1864, was
$678,007.21, against $136,077.95 received during the preceding year. The
aggregate number of acres surveyed during the year has been equal to the
quantity disposed of, and there is open to settlement about 133,000,000
acres of surveyed land.
The great enterprise of connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific States by
railways and telegraph lines has been entered upon with a vigor that gives
assurance of success, notwithstanding the embarrassments arising from the
prevailing high prices of materials and labor. The route of the main line
of the road has been definitely located for one hundred miles westward
from the initial point at Omaha City, Nebraska, and a preliminary location
of the Pacific Railroad of California has been made from Sacramento
eastward to the great bend of the Truckee River in Nevada.
Numerous discoveries of gold, silver, and cinnabar mines have been added
to the many heretofore known, and the country occupied by the Sierra
Nevada and Rocky mountains and the subordinate ranges now teems with
enterprising labor, which is richly remunerative. It is believed that the
produce of the mines of precious metals in that region has during the year
reached, if not exceeded, $100,000,000 in value.
It was recommended in my last annual message that our Indian system be
remodeled. Congress at its last session, acting upon the recommendation,
did provide for reorganizing the system in California, and it is believed
that under the present organization the management of the Indians there
will be attended with reasonable success. Much yet remains to be done to
provide for the proper government of the Indians in other parts of the
country, to render it secure for the advancing settler, and to provide for
the welfare of the Indian. The Secretary reiterates his recommendations,
and to them the attention of Congress is invited.
The liberal provisions made by Congress for paying pensions to invalid
soldiers and sailors of the Republic and to the widows, orphans, and
dependent mothers of those who have fallen in battle or died of disease
contracted or of wounds received in the service of their country have been
diligently administered. There have been added to the pension rolls during
the year ending the 30th day of June last the names of 16,770 invalid
soldiers and of 271 disabled seamen, making the present number of army
invalid pensioners 22,767 and of navy invalid pensioners 712.
Of widows, orphans, and mothers 22,198 have been placed on the army
pension rolls and 248 on the navy rolls. The present number of army
pensioners of this class is 25,433 and of navy pensioners 793. At the
beginning of the year the number of Revolutionary pensioners was 1430.
Only twelve of them were soldiers, of whom seven have since died.
The remainder are those who under the law receive pensions because
of relationship to Revolutionary soldiers. During the year ending the
thirtieth of June, 1864, $4,504,616.92 have been paid to pensioners of all
classes.
I cheerfully commend to your continued patronage the benevolent
institutions of the District of Columbia which have hitherto been
established or fostered by Congress, and respectfully refer for
information concerning them and in relation to the Washington Aqueduct,
the Capitol, and other matters of local interest to the report of the
Secretary.
The Agricultural Department, under the supervision of its present
energetic and faithful head, is rapidly commending itself to the great and
vital interest it was created to advance. It is peculiarly the people's
department, in which they feel more directly concerned than in any other.
I commend it to the continued attention and fostering care of Congress.
The war continues. Since the last annual message all the important lines
and positions then occupied by our forces have been maintained and our
arms have steadily advanced, thus liberating the regions left in rear, so
that Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of other States have again
produced reasonably fair crops.
The most remarkable feature in the military operations of the year is
General Sherman's attempted march of three hundred miles directly through
the insurgent region. It tends to show a great increase of our relative
strength that our General-in-Chief should feel able to confront and
hold in check every active force of the enemy, and yet to detach a
well-appointed large army to move on such an expedition. The result not
yet being known, conjecture in regard to it is not here indulged.
Important movements have also occurred during the year to the effect of
molding society for durability in the Union. Although short of complete
success, it is much in the right direction that twelve thousand citizens
in each of the States of Arkansas and Louisiana have organized loyal State
governments, with free constitutions, and are earnestly struggling to
maintain and administer them. The movements in the same direction more
extensive though less definite in Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee,
should not be overlooked. But Maryland presents the example of complete
success. Maryland is secure to liberty and union for all the future. The
genius of rebellion will no more claim Maryland. Like another foul spirit
being driven out, it may seek to tear her, but it will woo her no more.
At the last session of Congress a proposed amendment of the Constitution
abolishing slavery throughout the United States passed the Senate,
but failed for lack of the requisite two-thirds vote in the House of
Representatives. Although the present is the same Congress and nearly the
same members, and without questioning the wisdom or patriotism of those
who stood in opposition, I venture to recommend the reconsideration and
passage of the measure at the present session. Of course the abstract
question is not changed; but an intervening election shows almost
certainly that the next Congress will pass the measure if this does not.
Hence there is only a question of time as to when the proposed amendment
will go to the States for their action. And as it is to so go at all
events, may we not agree that the sooner the better? It is not claimed
that the election has imposed a duty on members to change their views or
their votes any further than, as an additional element to be considered,
their judgment may be affected by it. It is the voice of the people now
for the first time heard upon the question. In a great national crisis
like ours, unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very
desirable, almost indispensable. And yet no approach to such unanimity is
attainable unless some deference shall be paid to the will of the majority
simply because it is the will of the majority. In this case the common end
is the maintenance of the Union, and among the means to secure that end
such will, through the election, is most clearly declared in favor of such
Constitutional amendment.
The most reliable indication of public purpose in this country is derived
through our popular elections. Judging by the recent canvass and its
result, the purpose of the people within the loyal States to maintain the
integrity of the Union was never more firm nor more nearly unanimous than
now. The extraordinary calmness and good order with which the millions
of voters met and mingled at the polls give strong assurance of this.
Not only all those who supported the Union ticket, so called, but a great
majority of the opposing party also may be fairly claimed to entertain and
to be actuated by the same purpose. It is an unanswerable argument to
this effect that no candidate for any office whatever, high or low, has
ventured to seek votes on the avowal that he was for giving up the Union.
There have been much impugning of motives and much heated controversy as
to the proper means and best mode of advancing the Union cause, but on
the distinct issue of Union or no Union the politicians have shown their
instinctive knowledge that there is no diversity among the people. In
affording the people the fair opportunity of showing one to another and to
the world this firmness and unanimity of purpose, the election has been of
vast value to the national cause.
The election has exhibited another fact not less valuable to be known--the
fact that we do not approach exhaustion in the most important branch of
national resources, that of living men. While it is melancholy to reflect
that the war has filled so many graves and carried mourning to so many
hearts, it is some relief to know that, compared with the surviving,
the fallen have been so few. While corps and divisions and brigades and
regiments have formed and fought and dwindled and gone out of existence, a
great majority of the men who composed them are still living. The same is
true of the naval service. The election returns prove this. So many voters
could not else be found. The States regularly holding elections, both now
and four years ago, to wit, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, cast
3,982,011 votes now, against 3,870,222 cast then, showing an aggregate now
of 3,982,011. To this is to be added 33,762 cast now in the new States of
Kansas and Nevada, which States did not vote in 1860, thus swelling the
aggregate to 4,015,773 and the net increase during the three years and a
half of war to 145,551. A table is appended showing particulars. To
this again should be added the number of all soldiers in the field from
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, and
California, who by the laws of those States could not vote away from their
homes, and which number can not be less than 90,000. Nor yet is this all.
The number in organized Territories is triple now what it was four years
ago--while thousands, white and black, join us as the national arms press
back the insurgent lines. So much is shown, affirmatively and negatively,
by the election. It is not material to inquire how the increase has been
produced or to show that it would have been greater but for the war, which
is probably true. The important fact remains demonstrated that we have
more men now than we had when the war began; that we are not exhausted nor
in process of exhaustion; that we are gaining strength and may if need be
maintain the contest indefinitely. [This sentence recognizes the concern
of a guerilla war after the main war finished.]This as to men. Material
resources are now more complete and abundant than ever.
The national resources, then, are unexhausted, and, as we believe,
inexhaustible. The public purpose to re-establish and maintain the
national authority is unchanged, and, as we believe, unchangeable.
The manner of continuing the effort remains to choose. On careful
consideration of all the evidence accessible it seems to me that no
attempt at negotiation with the insurgent leader could result in any good.
He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union, precisely what
we will not and can not give. His declarations to this effect are explicit
and oft repeated. He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no
excuse to deceive ourselves. He can not voluntarily reaccept the Union;
we can not voluntarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct,
simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and
decided by victory. If we yield, we are beaten; if the Southern people
fail him, he is beaten. Either way it would be the victory and defeat
following war. What is true, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause
is not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he can not reaccept
the Union, they can. Some of them, we know, already desire peace and
reunion. The number of such may increase. They can at any moment have
peace simply by laying down their arms and submitting to the national
authority under the Constitution. After so much the Government could not,
if it would, maintain war against them. The loyal people would not sustain
or allow it. If questions should remain, we would adjust them by the
peaceful means of legislation, conference, courts, and votes, operating
only in Constitutional and lawful channels. Some certain, and other
possible, questions are and would be beyond the Executive power to adjust;
as, for instance, the admission of members into Congress and whatever
might require the appropriation of money. The Executive power itself
would be greatly diminished by the cessation of actual war. Pardons
and remissions of forfeitures, however, would still be within Executive
control. In what spirit and temper this control would be exercised can be
fairly judged of by the past.