Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

The Comtee[Committee] on Finance, to which was refered the communication of the State Treasurer, asking instructions of the Legislature relative to the proper mode of procedure in relation to the reception of the Surplus revenue due this State, from the United States under the provisions of the Act of Congress of the 23^d of June 1836;1

Report; that in the opinion of the Comtee the State Treasurer is by an Act of the General Assembly of this State passed at is present Session, fully authorised to ask for and receive the Surplus revenue now due this State, and make the proper vouchers therefor; and to make such arrangements for procuring such revenue as he may think necessary most conducive to the interest of the State. Your Comtee are therefore of the opinion that further Legislation on the subject is unecessary.

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Rept Com^ee[Report Committee] on Finance

1“An Act to Regulate the Deposites of Public Money,” or the Deposit Act for short, was a compromise plan to create a national banking system in the aftermath of Andrew Jackson’s veto of the re-charter bill for the Second Bank of the United States. Section thirteen made provision for the disbursement of federal surplus revenue to the states. All money in the treasury on January 1, 1837, in excess of $5 million was to be deposited with the states in proportion to their representation in the House of Representatives and Senate. States were to receive the money in four installments: in January, April, July, and October 1837. In return, states were to give the secretary of the treasury negotiable certificates of deposit which the secretary could sell and which, if sold, would bear interest at five percent annually. Illinois received disbursements of $477,919, $142,327 of which was used to construct railroads as part of the Illinois Internal Improvement System, and the remainder invested in the capital stock of the State Bank of Illinois and the Bank of Illinois.
Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Bank War (New York: W. W. Norton, 1967), 170-71; “Report from the Secretary of the Treasury,” December 27, 1839, in Public Documents Printed by the Order of the Senate of the United States (Washington, DC: Blair and Rives, 1840), v. 2, no. 14, 69-70; “An Act to Regulate the Deposites of Public Money,” 23 June 1836, Statutes at Large of the United States, 5:55.