If in addition to these duties Congress should graduate and reduce the
price of such of the public lands as experience has proved will not
command the price placed upon them by the Government, an additional
annual income to the Treasury of between half a million and a million of
dollars, it is estimated, would be derived from this source. Should both
measures receive the sanction of Congress, the annual amount of public
debt necessary to be contracted during the continuance of the war would
be reduced near $4,000,000. The duties recommended to be levied on tea
and coffee it is proposed shall be limited in their duration to the end
of the war, and until the public debt rendered necessary to be
contracted by it shall be discharged. The amount of the public debt to
be contracted should be limited to the lowest practicable sum, and
should be extinguished as early after the conclusion of the war as the
means of the Treasury will permit.
With this view, it is recommended that as soon as the war shall be over
all the surplus in the Treasury not needed for other indispensable
objects shall constitute a sinking fund and be applied to the purchase
of the funded debt, and that authority be conferred by laws for that
purpose.
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