The purchasers of public lands
are among the most useful of our fellow-citizens, and since the system
of sales for cash alone has been introduced great indulgence has been
justly extended to those who had previously purchased upon credit. The
debt which had been contracted under the credit sales had become
unwieldy, and its extinction was alike advantageous to the purchaser and
to the public. Under the system of sales, matured as it has been by
experience, and adapted to the exigencies of the times, the lands will
continue as they have become, an abundant source of revenue; and when
the pledge of them to the public creditor shall have been redeemed by
the entire discharge of the national debt, the swelling tide of wealth
with which they replenish the common Treasury may be made to reflow in
unfailing streams of improvement from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
The condition of the various branches of the public service resorting
from the Department of War, and their administration during the current
year, will be exhibited in the report of the Secretary of War and the
accompanying documents herewith communicated.
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