The writings of James Madison, comprising his public papers and his private correspondence, including numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. |
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TUESDAY JUNE 17. |
 | The writings of James Madison, |  |
TUESDAY JUNE 17.
The day was employed chiefly in considering the Report on the
Journal relative to the Department of Finance[110]
. Some thought
it ought to lie on the files; some that it ought to receive a vote of
approbation, and that the Superintendent, should, for the period
examined, be acquitted of further responsibility. Mr. Gorham
particularly was of that opinion. Finally the Report was entered
on the Journal without any Act of Congress thereon, by a unanimous
concurrence.
The committee commended the conduct of the department and found all
public monies entrusted to continental officers duly accounted for, but that the
States had not accounted for the “specifics by them respectively supplied for
the use of the continent,” and that a number of people who had been entrusted
with public money neglected or refused to settle their accounts and could not be
compelled to do so, because of the want of necessary laws in the States. They
found that the whole sum brought into the public treasury from May 14, 1781,
to January 1, 1783, amounted to $2,726,304, and the whole expenditure
$3,131,046, the expenditures exceeding the receipts in 1782 by $404,713,
“which was supplied by a circulation in the notes of the financier.” They
were ordered to consider what measures might be necessary to compel accounts
being rendered by delinquent persons.—Journals of Congress, iv., 228–241.
| The writings of James Madison, | |