The bill, should it be approved, will be supplementary to the laws now in force relating to the same subject, but as it contains no repealing clause no provision of those former laws, except such as may be plainly repugnant to the present bill, will be repealed by it.

The existing laws embraced in the above question, and applicable to the subject, are: 

First.  As to duties on goods imported.—­The seventy-fourth section of the collection law of the 2d of March, 1799, the first of which, reenacting in this respect the act of the 31st of July, 1789, provides “that all duties and fees to be collected shall be payable in money of the United States or in foreign gold and silver coins at the following rates,” etc.  The residue of the section, as to rates, has been altered by subsequent laws, and the clause quoted was varied during the existence of the Bank of the United States, the notes of which were expressly made receivable in all payments to the United States, and during the existence of the act making Treasury notes receivable by such act; but in no other respects has it ever been repealed.

Second.  As to public lands.—­The general land law of the 10th of May, 1800, section 5, provided that no lands should be sold, “at either public or private sale, for less than $2 per acre, and payment may be made for the same by all purchasers either in specie or in evidences of the public debt of the United States, at the rates prescribed” by a prior law.  This provision was varied by the acts relative to Treasury notes and the Bank of the United States in like manner as above mentioned.  The second section of the general land law of the 24th of April, 1820, abrogated the allowance of credits on the sale of public lands after the its day of July then next; required every purchaser at public sale to make complete payment on the day of purchase, and the purchaser at private sale to produce to the register a receipt from the Treasurer of the United States or from the receiver of the district for the amount of the purchase money.  The proviso to the fourth section of the same law enacted, in respect to reverted lands and lands remaining unsold, that they should not be sold for less price than $1.25 per acre, “nor on any other terms than that of cash payment.”  This latter act has been further modified by the allowing Virginia land scrip to be received in payment for public lands.

Third.  As to both duties and lands.—­The joint resolution of the 30th of April, 1816, provides that the Secretary of the Treasury “be required and directed to adopt such measures as he may deem necessary to cause, as soon as may be, all duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money accruing or becoming payable to the United States to be collected and paid in the legal currency of the United States, or Treasury notes, or notes of the Bank of the United States, as by law provided and declared, or in notes