I shall think it my duty
to lay before you the proceedings and the evidence publicly exhibited on
the arraignment of the principal offenders before the circuit court of
Virginia. You will be enabled to judge whether the defect was in the
testimony, in the law, or in the administration of the law; and wherever
it shall be found, the Legislature alone can apply or originate the
remedy. The framers of our Constitution certainly supposed they had
guarded as well their Government against destruction by treason as their
citizens against oppression under pretense of it, and if these ends are
not attained it is of importance to inquire by what means more effectual
they may be secured.
The accounts of the receipts of revenue during the year ending on the
30th day of September last being not yet made up, a correct statement
will be hereafter transmitted from the Treasury. In the meantime, it is
ascertained that the receipts have amounted to near $16,000,000, which,
with the five millions and a half in the Treasury at the beginning
of the year, have enabled us, after meeting the current demands and
interest incurred, to pay more than four millions of the principal of
our funded debt. These payments, with those of the preceding five and a
half years, have extinguished of the funded debt $25,500,000, being the
whole which could be paid or purchased within the limits of the law and
of our contracts, and have left us in the Treasury $8,500,000.
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