HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 March 1 , 1S 4 S . 
 
 SPEECH . y 
 
 MR. JOHN A. ROCKWELL, 
 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 J. & G. S. Gideon, Printers, Ninth street 
 
 t, Washington, D. C. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 MR. JOHN A. ROCKWELL, 
 
 (OF CONNECTICUT,) 
 
 REPORT OE TPIE SECRETARY OE THE TREASURY 
 
 FINANCES OF THE COUNTRY, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 March 1, 1848. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRINTED BY J. & G. S. GIDEON. 
 
 1S4S. 
 
ed for on the 1st'of July, 1848. If from this amount you deduct the total 
 amount of the two loans authorized, the balance must necessarily be the sum 
 to be provided for at the end of the year. 
 
 In this view of the matter, which I begin by placing it in its most simple 
 form, it is perfectly certain that nothing more in any way can be made out of 
 the loan of $33,000,000 than, if sold at par, the precise amount, or, if sold at a 
 fraction above par, the trilling amount in addition; and no process of ciphering, 
 no combination of figures, no mathematics, either in the Treasury Department 
 or elsewhere, can vary the result. In this view of the subject it is quite un¬ 
 important whether the loan has been negotiated or not, whether it is all in the 
 form 'of money in the Treasury, or in the form of scrip or Treasury notes in 
 the hands of the Secretary, which may be made available for the use of the 
 Treasury. The result is the same; nothing more can be made out of this loan, 
 at par, than the sum of $33,000,000. 
 
 It appears, however, by the report, that the avails of Treasury notes and loans 
 during the year ending July 1, 1847, was $25,079,199.45. It also appears on 
 the other side of the same statement, that there was paid for the “redemption 
 of Treasury notes during the year” the sum of $2,361,397.07, which being de¬ 
 ducted, leaves the net amount of avails of Treasury notes, during the year to be 
 the sum of $23,217,702.38; and if this is deducted from the amount of the 
 two loans, the whole amount of available means from Treasury notes for the 
 present year would be only the sum of $9,782,297.62. 
 
 This was the whole amount of Treasury notes available, at the cud of the fis¬ 
 cal year ending June 30, 1847: If from this you deduct, in the first place, the 
 amount of avails of Treasury notes and loan for the first quarter, less the 
 amount redeemed and returned into the Treasury, you have the whole amount, 
 on the Secretary’s own showing, of the Treasury notes available for the residue 
 of the present fiscal year. 
 
 In order to present the matter at a glance of the eye, I give the statement, 
 as shown by the report of the Secretary, for the two years, in ’a summary pre¬ 
 senting the results of the Secretary’s own figures: 
 
 Actual expenditures for year ending 30th June, 1847, ... $59,451,177 65 
 
 Deduct Treasury notes redeemed, ...... 2,361,397 07 
 
 57,089,780 58 
 
 . Actual expenditures for the quarter ending September 30, 1848, 
 and estimated expenditures for the rest of the year end¬ 
 ing 30th June, 1848,.§58,615,660 07 
 
 Deduct redemption of Treasury notes in the first quarter in 
 table B, contained in statement of expenditures of first 
 
 quarter,. 2,385,329 63 
 
 -- 56,230,330 44 
 
 113,320,111 02 
 
 . Actual receipts durine the year ending 30th June, 1847, exclu¬ 
 sive of loans and notes, - - - ... 35,473,229 45 
 
 Estimated receipts during the year ending 30th June, 1348, ex¬ 
 clusive of amounts of Treasury notes and loans, - - 34,900,000 00 
 
 --- 70,373,229 45 
 
 42,946,SSI 57 
 
 Total amount of loans, - - - •. 33,000,000 00 
 
 Excess of expenditures over receipts on the 1st July, 1848, - ... 9,946,881 57 
 
 By the original statement of the Secretary of the Treasury the 
 
 excess of expenditures over receipts was, - - 15,729,114 27 
 
 Deduct for avails of Treasury notes omitted by mistake, as 
 
 By the corrected statement of the Secretary, ----- 8,814,036 27 
 
7 
 
 not be- as available to the bank as its own promises to pay. There are many 
 other suggestions on this subject which show the utter absurdity of supposing 
 that the paying the bills into the custom-house, instead of specie, at all increases 
 l the available means of the Government. 
 
 If there had not apparently been a dense fog surrounding this subject, a griev¬ 
 ous confusion of ideas, which seems to have been one cause of the successive 
 and almost incredible errors of the Secretary of the Treasury, I should not, most 
 assuredly, have argued so'plain'a proposition. If, however, I am correct thus 
 far, it is not at all necessary for me to proceed one step further to show that 
 there is the mistake to which I have above referred, and which will require an 
 increase of the loan bill some one and a half millions of dollars. 
 
 There have been, however, a succession of blunders on this subject, in part 
 connected with the statements I have already made, and growing out of them, 
 and in part of a separate and distinct character, and showing the error to be far 
 more serious in amount. It is not, in the view I-have taken of the subject, and 
 in order to arrive at the above results, important that we should be successful 
 iii exposing or correcting these blunders. It may, however, be very important, 
 and, in view of the recent advertisement of the Secretary for proposals for five 
 millions of Treasury notes, of the utmost practical interest to expose other and 
 more serious errors. 
 
 The Secretary states the amount of avails of Treasury notes, as I have already 
 shown, during the year 1846 and the first quarter of 1847, and the estimate of 
 avails from the same quarter, as follows: 
 
 Avails of Treasury notes during year ending 30th June, 1847 §25,670,199 45 
 Deduct redemption of Treasury notes during the year -. 2,361,397 07 
 
 ' - -§23,317,802 38 
 
 Avails of Treasury notes for quarter ending 1st October, 1847 6,915,078 00 
 
 Redemption of Treasury notes and interest - 2,385,329 63 
 
 - 4,529,748 37 
 
 Estimated-avails of Treasury notes and loans for year, as in report - - 6,265,294 55 
 
 ' 34,132,845 30 
 
 , Deduct from this amount the amount of loan ----- 33,000,000 00 
 
 §1,132,845 30 
 
 It thus appears that, according to his own showing, there is a greater amount 
 received from this loan, and estimated for, this year, than the whole of the loan 
 by more than a million of dollars. Perceiving this discrepancy, I applied to the 
 Register of the Treasury for an explanation of the difficulty. The result of this 
 he has given me in the following statement: 
 
 Statement explanatory of the Loam ami Treasury Notes authorized by acts of 1846 mid 1847. 
 
 Amount received for Treasury notes and loans, under acts of 1846 and 1847, 
 
 during the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1847, per Secretary’s report - §25,679,199 45 
 Deduct Treasury notes redeemed under acts of 1846 and 1847, being part of the 
 sum of §2,361,397 07, included under the head of reimbursement of Trea¬ 
 sury notes for same year, the difference being for notes redeemed under 
 other acts - - -. 2,167,700 00 
 
 23,511,499 45 
 
 Amount received for Treasury notes and loans during the quarter ending 30lh 
 September, 1847, omitted in the financial statement in Secretary’s report, 
 but contained in the table referred to in that statement - - - 6,915,078 00 
 
 Deduct Treasury notes reimbursed under acts of 1S46 and 1847, being part o 
 the sum of §2,385,329 63, included under the head of redemption of Trea 
 sury notes and interest, in the same quarter, the difference being- for Trea 
 sury notes issued under other acts, and interest 
 
 28,184,227 45 
 
 30,426,577 45 
 f 
 
 - 2,242,350 00 
 
12 
 
 notes available at the end of the first quarter of the present fiscal year to 
 $2,612,772.55, instead of $6,2S5,295.55, as estimated by the Secretary. 
 
 In view also of these corrections, let us see to what result the Secretary is 
 reduced: 
 
 Deduct redeemed ' - 
 
 Avails of Treasury notes, as above 
 Deduct redeemed ‘ - 
 
 Estimated avails of Treasury notes and loan: 
 
 S3C,478,/24 93 
 
 This amount will be varied only by the sum which may have been paid in 
 during- the quarter for other debts due the Government, aside from the customs 
 and public lands, which must be very trifling, and will doubtless he more than 
 counterbalanced by the above sum of $193,697.07, which the Register of the 
 Treasury should have deducted from the amount of notes redeemed during the 
 
 It thus appears that the Secretary, with what he has already received from 
 the thirty-three millions of Treasury notes, and what he estimates for the future, 
 calculates upon about three and a half millions more than the whole amount. 
 The history of these errors is somewhat remarkable. 
 
 1. The Department, on the 19th January, ray that they had omitted, by mis¬ 
 take. a statement of the actual receipts from Treasury notes for the first quarter 
 of this fiscal year, $6,915,07S. 
 
 2. By the report of the Secretary, deducting the receipts from the expendi¬ 
 tures, it appears that the mistake in under-estimatinsr the excess of expenditures 
 is about $1,132,000. 
 
 3. By the. explanatory- statement of the Register of the Treasury, it appears 
 that this excess is about $1,500,000. 
 
 4. By correcting the apparent error in statement in table B of the redemption 
 of Treasury notes, the error in relation to Treasury- notes is shown to be about 
 $3,500,000. If I am wrong in these results I wish to be corrected, and the 
 ■error can be easily shown; but, if I am not, the Secretary is proposing to issue 
 three and a half millions of dollars in Treasury notes, more than he is, as shown 
 by his own report, entitled to issue, and unless a perfectly clear and satisfactory- 
 explanation is given of this whole matter, I shall move that some committee be 
 charged with the duty of making a thorough investigation into this subject, witii 
 power to send for persons and papers. It is a very serious question when the 
 Secretary proposes to re-issue Treasury notes, three and a half millions beyond 
 what he shows himself authorized to re-issue. The excuse that the mode of 
 keeping the accounts is confused, and cannot be understood or explained, is a 
 most alarming one. The question is not as to the best mode of keeping accounts, 
 but it is a practical one. Does the Secretary know how large an amount of 
 Treasury notes he was authorized to issue on the 1st October, ISIS? If so. has 
 he told us truly the amount? If he does not know, upon what principle is it 
 that he proposes to re-issue any given amount? 
 
 The writer from the Treasury Department, in the article in the Union, say-; 
 “ Under this artificial system the accounts may be perfectly clear to the odi¬ 
 cers of the department —at hast to such of them as have been thirty or forty 
 years in office.'" This is a precious confession, and implies that the head qf the 
 Department is really ignorant of its affairs, and that a man must be there thirty 
 or forty years before he can understand any tiling on the subject. These ex¬ 
 cuses are an insult to Congress and the Nation, and if by the aid of these thirty 
 
14 
 
 deficiency. All that he asks is granted, but before one-half of the year is 
 passed, he informs Congress that his calculations were all wrong, and that an 
 additional loan would be required of about eighteen and a half millions of dol¬ 
 lars to meet the expenses of the Government to that time. This communica¬ 
 tion is made to Congress on the .9th of December; but by the time that the com¬ 
 munication is printed in full, on the 19th of January, he informs Congress 
 through the Chief Clerk, that he had made the gross error of more than six 
 millions nine hundred thousand dollars, and that his receipts had been that much 
 more than he was aware of when lie made his report, and that the amount of 
 the loan might be diminished to that extent. There is much parade of the mis¬ 
 take of a clerk in preparing statements, and \ ery unnecessary trouble is ex¬ 
 pended in showing how this error occurred. It is far more remarkable that any 
 man should ever be at the head of the Treasury, that could by any possibility 
 make a mistake in stating his resources at nearly seven millions of dollars short 
 of the true amount. What kind of knowledge must lie have of the finances of 
 the country if he can lose this sum without knowing it, or, which is (lie same 
 thing, in the formal annual official communication to Congress make a statement 
 of ike actual receipts into the Treasury seven millions short of the amount? The 
 error is one which shows an utter ignorance of the affairs of the Department and 
 the state of the finances of the country which is truly alarming. 
 
 In order, however, to show the incompetency of the head of this Department 
 more strikingly, it now appears that his original mistake was not as great as he 
 supposed it was; and in his correction of the former blunder, he lias made 
 
 Mr. Chairman, a most serious question arises : What confidence Ini’, e we in 
 the safety of the funds of the Government? I mean not to charge any dishonesty 
 upon the head of that Department; far from it. But where is the check upon 
 the large number of persons through whose hands, in one form and another, the 
 money, and Treasury notes, and stock certificates pass? What is the system 
 of accountability? Does the Secretary mean to issue, in violation of law, the 
 amount of Treasury notes which he says will be available during the present 
 fiscal year? How many millions of Treasury notes must be lost or stolen in 
 order to enable the Secretary to discover the loss? Why does not the public 
 voice indignantly demand that these matters should be explained, and that the 
 dreaming philosopher at the head of the Treasury, with all his schemes, notions 
 of free trade, and his laborious trifling, should give up his post to a person 
 having some practical skill in the affairs of life—some knowledge of the finances 
 of the" country? The rea=on doubtless is, that the millions upon millions which 
 are squandered, worse than thrown away in this miserable war with Mexico, 
 renders’the public quite indifferent to minor matters. The repeated and suc¬ 
 cessive blunders and counter-blunders of millions of dollars, which would, in 
 any other period of our history, have thrust any Secretary from office, covered 
 him with disgrace, and made him the reproach and by-word of the whole land, 
 is justly considered as only one of the minor enormities of this Administration. 
 This horrible war with Mexico, and, most of all, the nefarious and heathenish 
 principles openly avowed by men occupying responsible stations in the Govern¬ 
 ment—the publicly setting at naught the eternal and unchangeable principles 
 of justice, of right, and of truth, and the control of a superintending Provi¬ 
 dence, the law of the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, and worshipping “ des¬ 
 tiny ”—relying upon superior power, indulging in an unholy thirst for empire— 
 these things may well, as they do, occupy the public mind'; and the extremest 
 confusion and disorder, if nothing worse, in the finances, may well be consid¬ 
 ered as of minor consequence. 
 
 It may be amusing to inquire what has occupied the attention of the learned 
 and laborious Secretary, for he is distinguished for curious learning and the 
 
16 
 
 1 do not mean to be understood to say that the Secretary estimates that this 
 rate of increase is to continue. Indeed he says, in so many words, “ the fu 
 tore per centage of increase may not be so great.” 
 
 It is to be presumed that he had some practical object in view in the state¬ 
 ments above, and in giving us this elaborate calculation. 
 
 I do not charge him with a deliberate purpose to mislead and deceive the 
 public by such exhibits. I am inclined to think it is only the “enthusiasm” 
 that the editor of the Union admired so much; the result of vague, indefinite, 
 visionary schemes and notions, which, on many other occasions, have distin¬ 
 guished the productions of this functionary. 
 
 He follows up this same course of reasoning in table SS, of his report, which 
 is a “statement showing what the tonnage of the United States would be on the 
 30th June, 1857, if, during each of the ten years succeeding the last fiscal year, 
 the percentage of augmentation were the same as during the last fiscal year.” 
 
 This calculation shows the tonnage during the year 1S47 as being $2,839,- 
 046, and the estimated tonnage in 1857 to be"$7,926,377. What can be more 
 insulting to the common sense of the nation than such calculations, were it not 
 that they are too laughable to excite any other feeling than that arising from 
 the ridiculous. 
 
 I am reminded by gentlemen around me, that the Secretary has pursued the 
 
 instances of this kind, and will only add one further extract from his report. 
 On the 22d page he says: