President Johnson, in his message at the opening of the session, spoke of the debt not as a public blessing, but as a heavy burden on the industry of the country, to be discharged without unnecessary delay.

This was the popular sentiment in all sections of the country, although in financial circles arguments were frequently heard in favor of creating interminable obligations and of adjusting the debt on a basis of permanency, after the European fashion.

The reduction had indeed already begun, since the maximum of debt had been attained in the preceding August.
The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr.Hugh McCulloch, estimated that for the fiscal year ending with June, 1867 (for which Congress was about to provide), the revenue would exceed the expenditures by $111,682,818, and that the whole of our vast debt could be liquidated by annual payments within thirty years.

Mr.McCulloch's plans were to take from the compound-interest notes their legal-tender quality, from the date of their maturity, and to sell six per cent bonds, redeemable at the pleasure of the Government, for the purpose of retiring both the compound-interest notes and the plain legal-tenders.

He believed that the entire debt might be funded at five per cent, while the average of the annual interest now stood at 6-62/100 per cent.