"The state of the public finances will be fully shown by the Secretary of the Treasury, in the report which he will presently lay before you. I will here, however, congratulate you upon their prosperous condition. The revenue received in the present year will not fall short of twenty-seven million seven hundred thousand dollars; and the expenditures for all objects other than the public debt will not exceed fourteen million seven hundred thousand. The payment on account of the principal and interest of the debt, during the year, will exceed sixteen millions and a half of dollars: a greater sum than has been applied to that object, out of the revenue, in any year since the enlargement of the sinking fund, except the two years following immediately thereafter. The amount which will have been applied to the public debt from the 4th of March, 1829, to the 1st of January next, which is less than three years since the administration has been placed in my hands, will exceed forty millions of dollars."
On the subject of government insolvent debtors, the message said:
"In my annual message of December, 1829, I had the honor to recommend the adoption of a more liberal policy than that which then prevailed towards unfortunate debtors to the government; and I deem it my duty again to invite your attention to this subject. Actuated by similar views, Congress at their last session passed an act for the relief of certain insolvent debtors of the United States: but the provisions of that law have not been deemed such as were adequate to that relief to this unfortunate class of our fellow-citizens, which may be safely extended to them. The points in which the law appears to be defective will be particularly communicated by the Secretary of the Treasury: and I take pleasure in recommending such an extension of its provisions as will unfetter the enterprise of a valuable portion of our citizens, and restore to them the means of usefulness to themselves and the community."
Recurring to his previous recommendation in favor of giving the election of President and Vice-President to the direct vote of the people, the message says:
"I have heretofore recommended amendments of the federal constitution giving the election of President and Vice-President to the people, and limiting the service of the former to a single term. So important do I consider these changes in our fundamental law, that I cannot, in accordance with my sense of duty, omit to press them upon the consideration of a new Congress. For my views more at large, as well in relation to these points as to the disqualification of members of Congress to receive an office from a President in whose election they have had an official agency, which I proposed as a substitute, I refer you to my former messages."
And concludes thus in relation to the Bank of the United States:
"Entertaining the opinions heretofore expressed in relation to the Bank of the United States, as at present organized, I felt it my duty, in my former messages, frankly to disclose them, in order that the attention of the legislature and the people should be seasonably directed to that important subject, and that it might be considered and finally disposed of in a manner best calculated to promote the ends of the constitution, and subserve the public interests. Having thus conscientiously discharged a constitutional duty, I deem it proper, on this occasion, without a more particular reference to the views of the subject then expressed, to leave it for the present to the investigation of an enlightened people and their representatives."