US Presidency
1828

The payments on account of interest during the current year exceed $ 3,000,000, presenting an aggregate of more than $ 12,000,000 applied during the year to the discharge of the public debt, the whole of which remaining due on 1829 - 01 01 will amount only to $ 58,362,135.78. That the revenue of the ensuing year will not fall short of that received in the one now expiring there are indications which can scarcely prove deceptive. In our country an uniform experience of 40 years has shown that what ever the tariff of duties upon articles imported from abroad has been, the amount of importations has always borne an average value nearly approaching to that of the exports, though occasionally differing in the balance, some times being more and some times less. It is, indeed, a general law of prosperous commerce that the real value of exports should by a small, and only a small, balance exceed that of imports, that balance being a permanent addition to the wealth of the nation.