it and to maintain the public honor and credit.  It can not be doubted that the patriotic people of the United States would cheerfully and without complaint submit to the payment of this additional duty or any other that may be necessary to maintain the honor of the country, provide for the unavoidable expenses of the Government, and to uphold the public credit.  It is recommended that any duties which may be imposed on these articles be limited in their duration to the period of the war.

An additional annual revenue, it is estimated, of between half a million and a million of dollars would be derived from the graduation and reduction of the price of such of the public lands as have been long offered in the market at the minimum price established by the existing laws and have remained unsold.  And in addition to other reasons commending the measure to favorable consideration, it is recommended as a financial measure.  The duty suggested on tea and coffee and the graduation and reduction of the price of the public lands would secure an additional annual revenue to the Treasury of not less than $3,000,000, and would thereby prevent the necessity of incurring a public debt annually to that amount, the interest on which must be paid semiannually, and ultimately the debt itself by a tax on the people.

It is a sound policy and one which has long been approved by the Government and people of the United States never to resort to loans unless in cases of great public emergency, and then only for the smallest amount which the public necessities will permit.

The increased revenues which the measures now recommended would produce would, moreover, enable the Government to negotiate a loan for any additional sum which may be found to be needed with more facility and at cheaper rates than can be done without them.

Under the injunction of the Constitution which makes it my duty “from time to time to give to Congress information of the state of the Union and to recommend to their consideration such measures” as shall be judged “necessary and expedient,” I respectfully and earnestly invite the action of Congress on the measures herein presented for their consideration.  The public good, as well as a sense of my responsibility to our common constituents, in my judgment imperiously demands that I should present them for your enlightened consideration and invoke favorable action upon them before the close of your present session.

JAMES K. POLK.

WASHINGTON, February 13, 1847.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I nominate the officers named in the accompanying communication for regular promotion in the Army of the United States, as proposed by the Secretary of War.

JAMES K. POLK.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington, February 13, 1847.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.