Previously to the 4th day of March, 1861, a revolutionary war against the Republic of New Granada, which had thus been recognized and treated with by the United States, broke out in New Granada, assuming to set up a new government under the name of “The United States of Colombia.”  This war has had various vicissitudes, sometimes favorable, sometimes adverse, to the revolutionary movements.  The revolutionary organization has hitherto been simply a military provisionary power, and no definitive constitution of government has yet been established in New Granada in place of that organized by the constitution of 1858.  The minister of the United States to the Granadian Confederacy, who was appointed on the 29th day of May, 1861, was directed, in view of the occupation of the capital by the revolutionary party and of the uncertainty of the civil war, not to present his credentials to either the Government of the Granadian Confederacy or to the provisional military Government, but to conduct his affairs informally, as is customary in such cases, and to report the progress of events and await the instructions of this Government.  The advices which have been received from him have not hitherto been sufficiently conclusive to determine me to recognize the revolutionary Government.  General Herran being here, with full authority from the Government of New Granada, which had been so long recognized by the United States, I have not received any representative from the revolutionary Government, which has not yet been recognized, because such a proceeding would in itself be an act of recognition.

Official communications have been had on various incidental and occasional questions with General Herran as the minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary of the Granadian Confederacy, but in no other character.  No definitive measure or proceeding has resulted from these communications, and a communication of them at present would not, in my judgment, be compatible with the public interest.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

JANUARY 17, 1863.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I have signed the joint resolution to provide for the immediate payment of the Army and Navy of the United States, passed by the House of Representatives on the 14th and by the Senate on the 15th instant.

The joint resolution is a simple authority, amounting, however, under existing circumstances, to a direction, to the Secretary of the Treasury to make an additional issue of $100,000,000 in United States notes, if so much money is needed, for the payment of the Army and Navy.

My approval is given in order that every possible facility may be afforded for the prompt discharge of all arrears of pay due to our soldiers and our sailors.

While giving this approval, however, I think it my duty to express my sincere regret that it has been found necessary to authorize so large an additional issue of United States notes, when this circulation and that of the suspended banks together have become already so redundant as to increase prices beyond real values, thereby augmenting the cost of living to the injury of labor, and the cost of supplies to the injury of the whole country.