WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1844
395
bloodshed. We must therefore expect to suffer in a greater or less degree from the same causes. But even this, in the opinion of the Executive, does not furnish overruling testimony against the policy which he has constantly recommended and which he has had the happiness to see so fully and so satisfactorily tested. The appropriation made by the last Congress for the service of the Indian department for the present year, has been found insufficient to meet the necessary expenditures. An additional sum is therefore respectfully asked, to cover outstanding liabili- ties necessarily incurred-amounting altogether to not more than four thousand dollars. It will appear from the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, that the finances of the country are in the most healthy and prosperous condition. It is believed the receipts from the various sources of revenue will at least equal the expenditures-and per- haps leave a small surplus in the Treasury. The Executive has no hesitation in declaring that this would have been the case to a comparatively large amount, if the recommendations he has so frequen'tly made in relation to the more prompt and certain collection of the revenues, had been responded to by the Hon- orable Congress, by the enactment of the legal provisions deemed absolutly indispensable for this object. It is plainly unjust that the law abiding citizen and faithful officer, shculd be charged with the burthens of government, and the dishonest and unpatriotic be permitted, by the defects of our statutes, to be relieved from the contribution of their fair proportion. Had the necessary laws been passed, as recommended, we should have received from customs, upon our eastern boundary, as is estimated, some seventy five thousand dollars more, annually, than have been collected; making, within the last three years, the sum of two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars, which has been totally lost, and which at this time would enable us to be in a far better state of preparation for the contingencies to which every nation is liable, and for undertaking the various improvements whicfi our situation, as a rising people, makes obligatory upon us. It is only necessary to mention, in order to show the striking propriety of adequate amendments to our revenue laws, that the defalcations which have already occurred in the collection of the direct taxes alone, amount to more than fifty two thousand dollars; and the defalcations of the late collectors of import duties at the two ports of Galveston and San Augustine, reach nearly thirty thousand dollars more. It is obvious, therefore, that the laws must be so improved, by the action of the legislature, as to
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