40. ACCOUNTS, Simple.—[continued].
If * * * [there] can be added a simplification of the form of accounts
in the Treasury department, and in the organization
of its officers, so as to bring everything
to a single centre, we might hope to
see the finances of the Union as clear and
intelligible as a merchant's books, so that
every member of Congress, and every man
of any mind in the Union, should be able to
comprehend them, to investigate abuses, and
consequently to control them. Our predecessors
have endeavored by intricacies
of system, and shuffling the investigation
over from one officer to another, to
cover everything from detection. I hope we
shall go in the contrary direction, and that,
by our honest and judicious reformations, we
may be able in the limits of our time, to bring
things back to that simple and intelligible
system, on which they should have been organized
at first.—
To Albert Gallatin. Washington ed. iv, 429.
Ford ed., viii, 141.
(W.
1802)
