The
limited time allotted me before your adjournment precludes the
possibility of reiterating the facts and arguments by which in preceding
Congresses these claims have been successfully resisted.
The present is a period peculiarly unfavorable for the satisfaction of
claims of so large an amount and, to say the least of them, of so
doubtful a character. There is no surplus in the Treasury. A public debt
of several millions of dollars has been created within the last few
years.
We are engaged in a foreign war, uncertain in its duration and involving
heavy expenditures, to prosecute which Congress has at its present
session authorized a further loan; so that in effect the Government,
should this bill become a law, borrows money and increases the public
debt to pay these claims.
It is true that by the provisions of the bill payment is directed to be
made in land scrip instead of money, but the effect upon the Treasury
will be the same. The public lands constitute one of the sources of
public revenue, and if these claims be paid in land scrip it will from
the date of its issue to a great extent cut off from the Treasury the
annual income from the sales of the public lands, because payments for
lands sold by the Government may be expected to be made in scrip until
it is all redeemed.
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