The aggregate of the revenues from all sources during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1880, was $333,526,610.98, an increase over the preceding year of $59,699,426.52.  The receipts thus far of the current year, together with the estimated receipts for the remainder of the year, amount to $350,000,000, which will be sufficient to meet the estimated expenditures of the year and leave a surplus of $90,000,000.

It is fortunate that this large surplus revenue occurs at a period when it may be directly applied to the payment of the public debt soon to be redeemable.  No public duty has been more constantly cherished in the United States than the policy of paying the nation’s debt as rapidly as possible.

The debt of the United States, less cash in the Treasury and exclusive of accruing interest, attained its maximum of $2,756,431,571.43 in August, 1865, and has since that time been reduced to $1,886,019,504.65.  Of the principal of the debt, $108,758,100 has been paid since March 1, 1877, effecting an annual saving of interest of $6,107,593.  The burden of interest has also been diminished by the sale of bonds bearing a low rate of interest and the application of the proceeds to the redemption of bonds bearing a higher rate.  The annual saving thus secured since March 1, 1877, is $14,290,453.50.  Within a short period over six hundred millions of 5 and 6 per cent bonds will become redeemable.  This presents a very favorable opportunity not only to further reduce the principal of the debt, but also to reduce the rate of interest on that which will remain unpaid.  I call the attention of Congress to the views expressed on this subject by the Secretary of the Treasury in his annual report, and recommend prompt legislation to enable the Treasury Department to complete the refunding of the debt which is about to mature.

The continuance of specie payments has not been interrupted or endangered since the date of resumption.  It has contributed greatly to the revival of business and to our remarkable prosperity.  The fears that preceded and accompanied resumption have proved groundless.  No considerable amount of United States notes have been presented for redemption, while very large sums of gold bullion, both domestic and imported, are taken to the mints and exchanged for coin or notes.  The increase of coin and bullion in the United States since January 1, 1879, is estimated at $227,399,428.

There are still in existence, uncanceled, $346,681,016 of United States legal-tender notes.  These notes were authorized as a war measure, made necessary by the exigencies of the conflict in which the United States was then engaged.  The preservation of the nation’s existence required, in the judgment of Congress, an issue of legal-tender paper money.  That it served well the purpose for which it was created is not questioned, but the employment of the notes as paper money indefinitely, after the accomplishment of the object for which they were provided, was not