mencement of each legislative session. No General Assembly ever met under more favorable auspices. Looking back over the four years that are passed since, by the generous confidence of the people, I was honored with the administration of the executive department of the State government, one unbroken chain of general and reasonable prosperity marks the whole period of our history and progressive march up to the commencement of the present year. Geographically, we hold a most important position in the National Union; are interlocked between the lakes and great rivers of the northwest; have a varied and healthy climate; timber and prairie beautifully blended over a deep, rich exhaustless soil, cultivated with the best grains, grasses and vegetables, underlaid with quarries of valuable stone, and enriched with beds of bituminous coal, the exacting demands of an iudustrious people can never consume. Two millions and a half of men, women and children have found happy homes here. An active intelligent and desirable population is steadily pouring into our State. Wealth of every variety is accumulating upon our hands, honest industry receives a fair reward, and the hours of toil are lessened by the law and the less rigorous demands of a more enlightened age. Agriculture, commerce, manufactures and mining, that lay at the base of our prosperity, and give employment to our energetic people, were never more flourishing, and never rewarded with more liberal returns the labor and capital of those engaged in the pursuit of either. We have thirty-six millions of acres of land, of which, as shown by the returns of the assessments for 1868, twenty-one millions are to some extent improved, and ten millions are under actual cultivation. It is difficult to estimate what the products from these broad acres may amount to when the whole shall be brought under intelligent cultivation; enough, at any rate, to gratify every want of our people and feed a nation besides. Our contributions to the commerce of the country are enormous. With our sister states of the northwest, we cover the lakes and rivers, and cram the freight cars, carrying off the products of the soil, and bringing back in exchange the fruits of the labor of other parts of the world. The great commercial city of the northwest, situated upon the lake in our own State, holding the key to a vast portion of this trade, steadily growing in population and wealth, astonishing the world in its rapid but carefully guarded strides to prosperity and power, fitly represents the growth of these states. Chicago, uttering the voice of the millions who trade at her marts and swell the wave of commerce from the mountains to the lakes, demands that this commerce shall have larger and freer channels to flow through. I still hope that Congress may look favorably upon the project of widening and deepening the Illinois and Michigan canal, and improving the navigation of the Illinois river, the only neglected link that unites the waters of the Mississippi and the lakes and St. Lawrence with the ocean. Commerce cravingly demands that these improvements be made. Our lines of railroad communications are constantly increasing and developing portions of the State not heretofore sufficiently accommodated with this invaluable mode of transportation Our people are studying more attentively the intimate and profitable relations between agriculture and manufactures. To secure the wealth each produces, the plow, the forge and the spindle ought to dwell together on the same prairie. It is a gratifying fact that nearly all the more expensive agricultural implements are now manufactured in the agricultural work and machine shops springing up every year in the State. Iron, in its multifarious forms, is largely manufactured in works and foundries operated upon home capital. There are at present in the State eighty-seven wool-carding mills, and one hundred and thirtythree manufactories of woolens, with a capital of $3,600,000 invested in buildings and machinery, giving employment to three thousand four hundred and fifty operatives, one-fourth of whom are females, and consuming annually four million pounds of wool of the seven million clipped from over two million five hundred thousand sheep. Capital is steadily seeking investment in manufacturing in our State, and in a few years this new interest will make us what we ought to be -a manufacturing as well as an agricultural people. Coal shafts are being sunk and new mines opened in various portions of the State, and our miners are bringing to the surface not less than two million of tons of coal annually. It is to be regretted that we have no sufficient law for the collection of statistics upon these and other most important interests of the State. Politically, the Nation and State are at rest. Civil discord, that followed in the horrid wake of rebellion and kept alive the fearful animosities engendered by the war upon the Union, is gradually dying out, and men are again returning to their reason. The late general election compelled the people to discuss again substantially all the great questions leading to and growing out of the rebellion. In these northern states the canvass was carried on in good temper, and the satisfactory result has been hailed by all parties and people in a most becoming spirit. In our higher relations as citizens of the United States, participating in the powers, the privileges and the liberty of the Union, we are held by a high sense of national obligation to the faithful payment of every dollar of the present national debt. Ardently attached to the Union, fervently devoted to human liberty, and willing to make every sacrifice for the integrity of the government, the people little less than despise that man who in high official position would advise the present, or instruct the rising, generation to inflict upon the nation everlasting dishonor by an absolute or partial repudiation of its existing legal and honest obligations. STATE DEBT. The State debt and finances, subjects that necessarily attract the attention of the people and demand your careful consideration, are believed to be in a satisfactory condition. In fact, the State debt has ceased to cause any general solicitude. It is an ever enduring honor to our people, that in the darkest hours of financial trouble, and when the means to support the ordinary expenses of the State government, on the most economical basis, were hardly attainable by taxation, the credit of the State was never for a moment forsaken. Our people have always borne necessary taxation cheerfully, and are to-day wil ling as ever to contribute every dollar to the support of the State, imposed by prudent legislation for the public good. It must be the source of just pride to every citizen that no taint of repudiation of our obligations rests upon the State. How much nobler it is to resolutely discharge every obligation prudently, or even imprudently imposed upon us by our own legislation, than to seek, by indirection, vacillation or false pretenses, to escape the payment of an existing legal debt. The following is a statement of the State indebtedness paid off, etc., by the State, from Dec. 1, 1866, to Dec. 1, 1868. The following is an abstract and statement in detail of the State indebtedness outstanding December 1, 1868 : 67 Refunded stock... .1876 $67,000 00 333 Refunded stock... .1877 333,000 00 8 Refunded cana stock (called in to be paid off Jan. 4, 1869)....1860 8,000 00 ..1879) 68,200 00 19 $1,000 Illinois and Michigan canal bonds, July 1, 1841. 24 same class of bonds, registered. 25 £225 canal bonds, payable in New York 20 same class of bonds, registered.... 697 £225 canal bonds, payable in London.. 518 same class of bonds, registered 43 £300 canal bonds, payable in London. 549 same class of bonds, registered.. 29 £100 canal bonds, payable in London 408 same class of bonds, registered... ..1870 Besides the above, there has been called in by proclamation, September Also 12 Illinois and Michigan canal bonds, proclamation Jan. 4, 1868 Amount, exclusive of scrip, interest certificates, etc... On the 1st of December, 1864, the State debt was. Leaving due December 1, 1866 ... Deducting scrip, interest certificates, etc., outstanding.. The funded debt was.. In 1867 it was increased by bonds issued on account of the Penitentiary.. Making $5,975,103 53 1,000 00 12,000 00 350 00 $5,988,453 53 $11,246,210 57 2,607,958 36 $8,638,252 21 42,909 19 $8,595,343 02 50,000 00 $8,645,343 02 Which has been reduced, from December 1, 1866, to December 1, 1868, by payment and purchases of bonds.... For the same period of four years, from December 1, 1864, to December 1, 1868, there has been paid on account of expenses of payment of interest and exchange for gold for interest payable in gold. $129,350 30 Payments on account of interest.... 2,185,164 24 ... 2,314,514 36 Payments on principal, accrued interest, coupons, etc.... 5,387,282 09 Total amount of principal and interest of State debt paid from December 1, 1864, to December 1, 1868... $7,651,796 45 It will be seen, that in the last four years the large amount of $7,651,796 45, has been paid by the State towards the discharge of its legal outstanding obligations; much the larger portion of which has been raised by taxation, the residue from tolls collected on the canal. and from the seven per cent. gross earnings of the Illinois Central Railroad. On the first day of January, 1869, there was in the Treasury, applicable to the further payment of the debt for the present year: Two mill tax..... Illinois Central Railroad fund.. Making available for the State debt.... The bonds now due and falling due in 1869, amount to....$475,400 00 Amount previously called in but not yet surrendered. ..... $910,920 04 235,818 27 $1,146,738 31 151,311 46 640,061 46 $506,676 85 ....... There will be received into the treasury during the year 1869, from the Thus leaving in the treasury. Applicable to payments of State debt not then matured, and not to fall due until after 1870. 425,000 00 870,000 00 $1,801,676 85 In 1871, $3,258,000, of State indebtedness, will fall due. Unless holders shall present the same before it matures, there will accrue in the treasury, by January 1st, 1871, a large surplus of the fund applicable to payment of the State debt. It is hoped, however, the two mill tax, now levied by the constitution, may before that time be revealed by a constitutional provision. For if the receipts from the Ilinois Central Railroad, and the canal, shall not be sufficient to pay the debt, as rapidly as it may be presented, a light tax levied by the Legislature will be sufficient for that purpose until it shall be discharged and paid. The fund applicable to the payment of the State debt should remain inviolably in the treasury, to be faithfully applied to its payment as directed by the constitution and laws. Revenue, to meet the demands of prudent legislation, ought to be raised by taxation, that the people may know what the expenses of the State government are and how the means raised for its support are applied. I respectfully call your attention to the report of the State Treasurer and to his suggestions in relation to investing accumulations of the State debt funds, after commencement of the present year, in interest bearing securities, until maturity of the debt. The Hon. George W. Smith has been an efficient and faithful public officer, and has discharged his duties, as Treasurer, with fidelity to the State. |