The report
of the board upon this subject is also submitted for your consideration.
In the estimates of appropriations for the ensuing year upward of
$5,000,000 will be submitted for the expenditures to be paid from the
Department of War. Less than two-fifths of this will be applicable to
the maintenance and support of the Army. A million and a half, in the
form of pensions, goes as a scarcely adequate tribute to the services
and sacrifices of a former age, and a more than equal sum invested in
fortifications, or for the preparations of internal improvement,
provides for the quiet, the comfort, and happier existence of the ages
to come. The appropriations to indemnify those unfortunate remnants of
another race unable alike to share in the enjoyments and to exist in the
presence of civilization, though swelling in recent years to a magnitude
burdensome to the Treasury, are generally not without their equivalents
in profitable value, or serve to discharge the Union from engagements
more burdensome than debt.
In like manner the estimate of appropriations for the Navy Department
will present an aggregate sum of upward of $3,000,000.
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