GENERAL MEETING. 103 
Mr. Joun JAy Knox made a communication on 
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SURPLUS MONEY OF THE UNITED STATES 
AMONG THE STATES. 
[ Abstract. ] 
President Jackson, in his message to Congress in 1829, referred 
to the difficulty in adjusting the tariff, so that the revenues of the 
Government should be but slightly in excess of its expenditures. 
He considered the appropriation of money for internal improve- 
ments, by Congress, as unconstitutional, but suggested that, if the 
anticipated surplus in the Treasury should be distributed among 
the States, according to their ratio of representation, such improve- 
ments could then be made by the States themselves. If necessary 
it would be expedient to propose to the States an amendment to the 
Constitution, authorizing such legislation. 
In his message for the following year he again suggested the 
same proposition. 
The receipts from sales of public lands for the three years, 1834, 
1835, and 1836, were $44,492,381—slightly less than the total re- 
ceipts from this source for the thirty-eight years previous, from 
1796 to 1834. On January 1, 1835, the country was virtually out 
of debt, and the receipts of the Government largely exceeded the 
previous estimates of the Secretary. The amount of surplus on 
January 1, 1835, was $8,892,858, and at the same date in 1836 
$26,749,803. On January 1, 1857,it amounted to more than forty- 
two millions. 
In 1834-5-6, the public money, which had heretofore been de- 
posited in the Bank of the United States, was deposited in favorite 
State banks by order of General Jackson. The deposit of the 
revenues in these banks was followed by financial distress, and dur- 
ing the year 1834, and previous thereto, propositions were made in 
the public press for distribution of the surplus revenue among the 
States as a measure of relief. These propositions were first in the 
form of a distribution of the revenue from public land; then a 
a distribution of the lands themselves; and finally a distribution 
of the surplus. During the session of 1835, a select committee was 
appointed in the Senate, which reported a resolution to amend the 
Constitution so that the money remaining in the Treasury at the 
end of each year, until the first of January, 1843, should annually 
be distributed among the States and Territories. Both General 
