2078. DEBT (United States), Reduction of.—[further continued].
The receipts have
amounted to near eighteen millions of dollars,
which with the eight millions and a half in
the treasury at the beginning of the year,
have enabled us * * * to pay two millions
three hundred thousand dollars of the
principal of our funded debt, and left us in
the treasury, on that day, near fourteen millions
of dollars. * * * These payments,
with those made in the six years and a half
preceding, will have extinguished thirty-three
millions five hundred and eighty thousand
dollars of the principal of the funded debt,
being the whole which could be paid or purchased
within the limits of the law and our
contracts; and the amount of principal thus
discharged will have liberated the revenue
from about two millions of dollars of interest,
and added that sum annually to the disposable
surplus.—
Eighth Annual Message. Washington ed. viii, 109.
Ford ed., ix, 224.
(Nov. 1808)
