Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled.  That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and hereby is, required to adopt such measures as he may deem necessary to effect a collection of the public revenue of the United States, whether arising from duties, taxes, debts, or sales of lands, in the manner and on the principles herein provided; that is, that no such duties, taxes, debts, or sums of money, payable for lands, shall be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the said legal currency of the United States under the following restrictions and conditions in regard to such notes, to wit:  From and after the passage of this act the notes of no bank which shall issue or circulate bills or notes of a less denomination than five dollars shall be received on account of the public dues; and from and after the thirtieth day of December, eighteen hundred and thirty-nine, the notes of no bank which shall issue or circulate bills or notes of a less denomination than ten dollars shall be so receivable; and from and after the thirtieth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and forty-one, the like prohibition shall be extended to the notes of all banks issuing bills or notes of a less denomination than twenty dollars.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That no notes shall be received by the collectors or receivers of the public money which the banks in which they are to be deposited shall not, under the supervision and control of the Secretary of the Treasury, agree to pass to the credit of the United States as cash:  Provided, That if any deposit bank shall refuse to receive and pass to the credit of the United States as cash any notes receivable under the provisions of this act, which said bank, in the ordinary course of business, receives on general deposit, the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to withdraw the public deposits from said bank.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That this act shall not be so construed as to prohibit receivers or collectors of the dues of the Government from receiving for the public lands any kind of land scrip or Treasury certificates now authorized by law, but the same shall hereafter be received for the public lands in the same way and manner as has heretofore been practiced; and it shall not be lawful for the Secretary of the Treasury to make any discrimination in the funds receivable between the different branches of the public revenue, except as is provided in this section.

JAMES K. POLK,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

W.R.  KING,

President of the Senate pro tempore.

I certify that this act did originate in the Senate.

ASBURY DICKINS,

Secretary.

PROCLAMATION.