With a determination, so far as depends
on me, to continue this reduction, I have directed the estimates for
1840 to be subjected to the severest scrutiny and to be limited to the
absolute requirements of the public service. They will be found less
than the expenditures of 1839 by over $5,000,000.
The precautionary measures which will be recommended by the Secretary
of the Treasury to protect faithfully the public credit under the
fluctuations and contingencies to which our receipts and expenditures
are exposed, and especially in a commercial crisis like the present,
are commended to your early attention.
On a former occasion your attention was invited to various
considerations in support of a preemption law in behalf of the settlers
on the public lands, and also of a law graduating the prices for such
lands as had long been in the market unsold in consequence of their
inferior quality. The execution of the act which was passed on the first
subject has been attended with the happiest consequences in quieting
titles and securing improvements to the industrious, and it has also
to a very gratifying extent been exempt from the frauds which were
practiced under previous preemption laws.
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