If to this can be added a
simplification of the form of accounts in the treasury department, and
in the organization of its officers, so as to bring every thing to a
single centre, we might hope to see the finances of the Union as
clear and intelligible as a merchant's books, so that every member of
Congress, and every man of any mind in the Union, should be able to
comprehend them, to investigate abuses, and consequently to control
them. Our predecessors have endeavored by intricacies of system, and
shuffling the investigator over from one officer to another, to
cover every thing from detection, I hope we shall go in the contrary
direction, and that, by our honest and judicious reformations, we may be
able, within the limits of our time, to bring things back to that simple
and intelligible system, on which they should have been organized at
first.
I have suggested only a single alteration in the report, which is merely
verbal and of no consequence. We shall now get rid of the commissioner
of the internal revenue, and superintendant of stamps. It remains to
amalgamate the comptroller and auditor into one, and reduce the register
to a clerk of accounts; and then the organization will consist, as it
should at first, of a keeper of money, a keeper of accounts, and the
head of the department.
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