Your very truly,
HORACE PORTER.
To show still further the interest which the leading merchants, bankers and business men of this city took in the movement to re-elect General Grant at that time, the following circular furnishes an excellent and historical record. It constitutes, in a small compass and compact form, a valuable chapter of financial history:
CIRCULAR
Of the Business Men of New York on the Financial Condition of the National Debt of the United States. Further Reduction October 1, 10,327,000 Dollars.
The undersigned, merchants, bankers and business men of New York, respectfully submit the following statements for the information of all parties interested therein:
The Republican candidate for President of the United States is Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who was unanimously named for re-election at Philadelphia, in May last.
At the commencement of Gen. Grant’s first term of office, March 4, 1869, the national debt was $2,525,000,000. On the first day of September, of the present year, there had been paid and cancelled of the principal of this debt, $348,000,000, leaving a balance of principal remaining unpaid at that date, in accordance with the official statement of the Secretary of the Treasury, the sum of $2,177,000,000.
Of this amount, $1,177,000,000 are represented in a funded debt, bearing interest in gold, while $400,000,000 remain unfunded in Treasury circulation.
Up to the close of the last session of Congress, the annual reduction of taxes, as measured by the rates of 1869, had been as follows: