At the passage
of that act, of the annual appropriation of ten millions seven were
absorbed in the payment of interest, and not more than three millions
went to reduce the capital of the debt. Of the same ten millions, at
this time scarcely four are applicable to the interest, and upward of
six are effective in melting down the capital. Yet our experience has
proved that a revenue consisting so largely of imposts and tonnage ebbs
and flows to an extraordinary extent, with all the fluctuations incident
to the general commerce of the world. It is within our recollection that
even in the compass of the same last ten years the receipts of the
Treasury were not adequate to the expenditures of the year, and that in
two successive years it was found necessary to resort to loans to meet
the engagements of the nation. The returning tides of the succeeding
years replenished the public coffers until they have again begun to feel
the vicissitude of a decline. To produce these alternations of fullness
and exhaustion the relative operation of abundant or unfruitful seasons,
the regulations of foreign governments, political revolutions, the
prosperous or decaying condition of manufactures, commercial
speculations, and many other causes, not always to be traced, variously
combine.
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