Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 3 (of 16)

by United States. Congress

Thursday, January 31.

Georgia Claims.

The House resumed the consideration of the resolution reported the twenty-ninth instant, from the Committee of the Whole, on the Georgia Claims.

Mr. Jackson.—Mr. Speaker, I rise with some degree of reluctance to address you on the present occasion, not because I fear to give publicity to my sentiments on the question before the House, but from the assurance that the length of time which this subject has occupied at the last, and during the present session of Congress, renders it most certain that no new view can be given; and more especially that the opinions already formed cannot be changed. I would not now have risen but for the wish that inasmuch as a most extraordinary course has been pursued, and a general denunciation of every man who dares to favor the report on your table has been made, my reasons may accompany my vote, and I am willing that they together may form the criterion by which my political existence shall be decided. The reluctance I felt in rising is somewhat removed by the reflection that the arguments urged on this floor are declared not intended to influence the judgment of this House, but to control the public mind, by an avowed appeal to the people of the United States. Let the appeal be fairly made, and I fearlessly await their decision. For that purpose, I deem it proper to offer my sentiments, in order that they may accompany those of my two colleagues who have preceded me. Sir, I am decidedly in favor of the report of the Committee of Claims, and of course opposed to the amendment under consideration. I do not on this occasion regret the absence of party spirit from these walls, which has been invoked by my colleague, (Mr. Randolph.) That party spirit which has been the bane of all government; that party spirit which, disregarding all the forms of justice, tramples its most sacred laws under foot, and presides without check or control over questions relating solely to private property; or which was displayed in the conduct of Jeffries, who servilely prostrating his sacred functions to the purposes of ministerial vengeance, has justly excited the reproach and execration of posterity: and which, if cherished upon occasions like the present, will tend to demolish the fair fabric of our Republican Government. I will not admit that because a majority of this House are in favor of the claims, and desire a prompt decision without debate, it is evidence that “unprincipled men have acquired the ascendency, and knowing themselves to be in the commission of wrong they are silent.” Is my colleague aware of the extent of this doctrine? When unprincipled men, said he, acquire the ascendency, they act in concert and are silent—silence and concert, then, are to him proofs of corrupt motive. Is this always a correct position? Does the gentleman recollect that measures were adopted a few years past without discussion, by my political friends, in conjunction with him, who were silent, and united? I am unwilling to believe that such an inference can result from a union of sentiment. In some instances we are unanimous in our decision of questions, on which no debate takes place; but I have never thought this was proof of the prostration of principle; nor can I suppose that the gentleman himself thinks so; even now we adopt measures advocated by him, and are nevertheless told that to act in concert is proof of corruption. Having premised that the inferences made by the gentleman were not correct, I will proceed to the investigation of the question before the House, viz: Are the claims under the act of 1795, entitled to reference to commissioners for compromise and settlement, or are they not? My colleague (Mr. Randolph) says the persons who obtained the land from the Legislature of Georgia were guilty of a most detestable fraud; and the present claimants, pretending to be innocent purchasers without notice of fraud, are a set of hypocrites, undeserving the attention of Congress, or the commiseration of mankind. In support of this assertion he has quoted the Message of the President of the United States, in 1795, to Congress, describing in terms of approbation the high character of its author—Washington—whose memory I revere, and whose name I will teach my children to lisp, and venerate as the father of American freedom, and who with Liberty were the two best gifts bestowed by Heaven upon our favored country! Washington, my colleague says, gave notice to the nation, and published the rape of unhallowed hands upon the property of the State of Georgia. But, sir, if we examine the Message, and the proceedings of Congress upon the occasion, it will be discovered that no knowledge of fraud in the transactions of the Legislature of 1795, was even known, or suspected; because, if any such information had been received, the known integrity of that virtuous man assures me, he would have communicated it; he would have opposed it with his best exertions, and give me leave to say, deprecated it as much as any man can.

Mr. Findlay said that he claimed the attention of the House for a short time; but from viewing the unusual turn some of the arguments had taken, and the nature of the subject, he found it a matter of some delicacy to know how to proceed. He was opposed to the amendment under debate, and in favor of the resolution, but he observed some members, with whom he had generally voted, and for whose talents he had a high esteem, and in whose integrity he had the utmost confidence, take the other side with such ardent zeal, and in a mode of argument so unusual in public bodies, that on observing this, he had hesitated and had voted in the last session for the postponement which took place. He had done this in hopes that the House would in this session meet the case in a temper more becoming their own dignity and the importance and delicacy of the subject.

He said he would begin with the Message of the President near the close of the session in February, in the year 1795, informing Congress of the two laws made in Georgia, one in December and the other in the month of February, 1795, (the same Message mentioned by the member from Virginia, Mr. Randolph.) The Message was referred to a select committee, of which he had the honor of being a member, with other very intelligent members from both South and East, (Mr. Nicholas, Mr. Ames, &c.) It had long been the opinion of men well informed, that the title of Georgia to the extent of territory she claimed was doubtful, and that it was too great for any one State to possess in connection with the Federal Union. The old Congress frequently called on Georgia to make a cession of her unsettled territory, agreeably to the stipulations on which the Confederation was agreed to, but when Georgia did propose a cession, the terms on which it was made were rejected. Other States made cessions of lands to which they had no title, or else had appropriated the lands to individuals before the cession was made; so that, on the whole, but a small quantity of land unencumbered came to the benefit of the United States. But to return: the committee in February, 1795, examined the title of Georgia as far as they had information, the bounds not being certainly known; the unsettled territory of Georgia was believed to be larger than France or Germany, or any other European nation, except Russia, whose Asiatic dominions extend to the Pacific Ocean; hence they concluded that such an extent of territory possessed by one State, at the extremity of the United States, and bordering its whole length on the Spanish dominions, with which we were then in danger of a serious contest, it was the opinion of the committee that every proper means should be used to induce Georgia to cede, in a peaceable manner, a proportion of that territory; and, as a first step towards obtaining this object, the committee reported that the Attorney-General should examine the titles of the State of Georgia and of the lands claimed by the company from the law of 1795; and they further reported that the President should be authorized to obtain a cession from the State of Georgia of the whole or part of the territory.

It was not certainly known that there was a defect in the title of Georgia, but from the circumstances of the small extent of that colony at the beginning, and in various extensions by different royal proclamations, &c., the title of Georgia was held in doubt. It is well known that the State of Georgia at first was pitched into the State of South Carolina, which for a considerable time granted titles for land south of the State of Georgia, and one degree of latitude which the United States claimed from the definitive treaty with Britain, was yet in the possession of Spain; but this the members of Georgia considered also as within the jurisdiction of that State. This being the case, the committee thought it prudent to make no mention of the supposed defect of the title of Georgia. The committee, and particularly himself, suspected that different laws enacted by that State for the sale of land, and particularly the recent sale of 1795, were encouraged by their own suspicion of a defective title, but they knew nothing of the bribery and corruption assigned as a reason in the year following, for annulling the contract; therefore it was, that no notice to the contractors that Congress doubted the title of Georgia was given. There was no precedent in the United States of a contract authorized by a constitutional legislative act being declared null and void by a succeeding legislature. The power of decisions on frauds and corruptions, or the validity of titles being vested in the courts of justice in all civilized countries, such a decision could only be looked for from that department; but neither a judge who is stated to have been corrupted was impeached, nor any of the members indicted.

Mr. F. said, while the case was so situated, the New England purchasers, or long-legged speculators, did not, as his colleague (Mr. Lucas) had said, go to Georgia, but the long-legged contractors or speculators of Georgia, went above a thousand miles to Massachusetts, an old, thick-settled country, the citizens of which needed land for their families, (a country which annually sent forth numerous emigrants, who generally purchased in large quantities and settled in large bodies together,) and sold the land at seven or eight times the original price, by which they gained near $1,000,000 advance. They went with the patents from the State of Georgia, and the law, and probably the constitution of that State, in their hands. This, alone, was sufficient to encourage purchasers among a people who needed land; but this was not all. The respectability of the characters of the settlers was such as would reasonably induce an opinion, that they could not themselves be deceived, and would not deceive others. Among these were a very respectable judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, who had been a member of the old Congress from almost its commencement till its dissolution, for as long a period as the State constitution would permit, and had been an efficient member of the Convention which prepared the Constitution of the United States, and several State conventions, and a gentleman who was then, and both before and after that time, a Senator of the United States, and many other very respectable characters—who, however, he acknowledged, had by that act forfeited the character they had formerly enjoyed, and yet, strange to tell, neither before nor after the annulling act, he could not call it a law, as no such law could be made under the Constitution of the United States. The sale was annulled; but the judge said to have been corrupted, nor the federal judge, was impeached, nor any of the members of whom it was testified that they had received bribes, or were sharers in the spoil, were indicted, but still enjoy the confidence, as much as they otherwise would have done, of that State. Not one of them was removed from office, or in any official manner consigned to infamy, by the courts of that respectable State, or by impeachment.

The lands sold at Boston were yet in possession of the Indian tribes, and the Indian war but lately extinguished, while, at the same time, the lands in Pennsylvania were sold, the first rate at one shilling and sixpence; the reputed second rate—but in fact equal if not superior in quality and situation—at one shilling the acre; and what remained unsold to the old settlements, at sixpence; and, in New York, still cheaper the acre; when the Georgia purchase, with all its disadvantages, is stated and admitted to have been sold, rough and smooth, good and bad, and of which a large proportion is allowed to be bad, at something above fifteen pence an acre on the amount reserved. Certainly such a speculation, if it was one, was such as he would not have had any share in, and therefore no proof of the superior cunning ascribed to them by his colleague and others.

Mr. F. said that, so far, the bargain and sale were fair and legal; whether it was a good bargain or a bad one, was the look-out of the purchasers; if it was a bad one Government would have given them no relief. Had nothing extraordinary, or out of the common road, taken place, he believed the attention of Congress would never have been called to the subject. Soon, however, after this contract was made, the Legislature of Georgia declared the contract, and the law under which it was made, to be void or annulled; and in a short time after, a convention of that respectable State disapproved of the constitutional act of the Legislature; but as long as we pay respect to constitutional obligations and the distribution of the powers of government, and as long as we respect the Federal Constitution, which expressly asserts that no ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be made, we must agree that one session of a legislature cannot annul the contracts made by the preceding session. If that could be done, the patent for his own plantation might also be set aside, for he acknowledged it is worth more now than the price that he paid for it. This doctrine had never been entertained even in the Revolutionary period. At that solemn period, all contracts were protected.

Mr. F. said that he cheerfully acknowledged that the amount of land sold under the law of Georgia of 1795, was so enormous as that, if that State had been a separate and wholly independent government, would have justified, in some degree, an agrarian law; and if the fraud and corruption attested by ex parte testimony was true, would have justified the most exemplary punishment of those who suffered themselves to be corrupted, or who defrauded the commonwealth, and this would have proved a defect in the contract itself; but no such thing appears to have taken place. The judge, who is said to have received $13,000 for his vote, was not impeached, nor the members who are said to have given, or received bribes, indicted. It appears to have been so contrived that the State or citizens of Georgia, should suffer no loss—that the loss and reproach should be transferred to people at the greatest possible distance. He gave credit, however, to the Legislature of Georgia, which met in the year 1796, for making an extraordinary exertion to free themselves from an extraordinary evil. It was a laudable testimony against corruption and fraud, but no court of justice had yet, by deciding on it, acknowledged it to be law, and it was too slow for warning others at a distance against titles originating under the law of 1795.

The annulling law of 1796 had all the effect that any citizen, at that period, could have wished. Congress took possession of the government of the western parts of Georgia, the parts in which the lands in question lay, and erected a territorial government, without the consent of that State, and passed a law authorizing the President to enter into a negotiation with Georgia on the principles of compromise, for the right of soil. The compromise eventually succeeded, and an act of cession took place between the United States and the State of Georgia. In this act of cession, or convention, it was provided that the claims in the counties of Bourbon and Washington, bordering on the Mississippi river, &c., should be protected, and that five millions of acres, or part thereof, should, by the United States, be applied to satisfy, quiet, or compensate, the claims now before the House, and that if they were not so applied, they should revert to the State of Georgia.

On these conditions, Mr. F. said, did Georgia surrender her right of soil. Agreeably to these conditions were the Commissioners of the United States authorized to make and receive proposals, but the commissioners were not authorized to conclude the agreement, they did report to Congress, and in that report, they state that the claimants cannot, in their opinion, recover by law. This is well founded, because no action can be brought against the United States, nor, since the amendment made to the constitution respecting the suability of States, against a State. Therefore this fund, viz: the five millions of acres, set apart by the Convention of Georgia, to quiet, satisfy, or compensate these claims, must be either applied to that purpose, or revert to the State of Georgia, or the faith of the United States must be sacrificed.

Mr. F. said, that from this view of the subject, he had made up his mind to vote in favor of the report of the Committee of Claims. That he had not made up his mind lightly, that he had been prepossessed against it, but it becoming his duty to decide, he had thrown aside these prepossessions, and examined the case with all the coolness and deliberation of which he was capable, and would give his vote, as he had made up his mind, without consulting or relying on the opinions of others, for he was responsible only for his own opinion.

Mr. Gregg.—I rise, Mr. Speaker, to congratulate the House, on the question being at length brought within such narrow limits. The validity of the title appears to be nearly abandoned, and the advocates of the resolution seem now disposed to rest its defence almost entirely on the ground of expediency. For my own part I have always felt satisfied with the report of the commissioners, so far as it respects the question of title. They have investigated the subject with more diligence and attention than can well be bestowed on it by members of this House, and being men distinguished for their abilities and of high official standing, their opinion, certainly, should have great weight. That opinion, as recorded in their report, is, that the title of the claimants cannot be supported. In this opinion I most heartily concur, for I can never be induced to believe that an act so marked with fraud and corruption as the act of Georgia, under which the claimants pretend to derive their title, has been fully proved to be, can vest a title either in law or in equity.

The question of title being given up, any remarks respecting the weight that ought to attach to the rescinding act passed by the Legislature of Georgia, in 1796, will be unnecessary. On that part of the subject I will only just observe, in reply to one of my colleagues, (Mr. Findlay,) who has stated that act to be without precedent, and that one Legislature cannot repeal an act of a preceding Legislature where it involves a contract, that there is one instance at least of such an act, and that instance is in the State in which he and I live. The case to which I allude, is an act passed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, for repealing the charter of the Bank of North America. This act, if I am not mistaken, was passed when my colleague was a member of the Legislature, and I believe received his support.

But, leaving the question of title, good policy, say gentlemen, requires us to pass the resolution. In this sentiment, they and the commissioners appear to unite. The commissioners acknowledge that the title of the claimants cannot be supported, and yet undertake to recommend a compromise, by stating “that the interest of the United States, the tranquillity of those who may hereafter inhabit that territory, and certain equitable considerations which may be urged in favor of most of the present claimants, render it expedient to enter into a compromise on reasonable terms.” Now, I would ask, how is the interest of the United States to be promoted by giving five millions of acres of land to persons acknowledged not to have a good title in law, and none in equity? If our interest is to be promoted in this way, we may soon get rid of all our land. Claimants will not be wanting, if it is to be got for asking.

With respect to the equitable considerations which have been urged so strenuously in favor of the present claimants, I must acknowledge they have not appeared to me so very forcible. The innocence of the claimants has been painted in strong and glowing colors. They have been represented, not only as innocent, but innocent through ignorance. One of my colleagues, in particular, has dilated largely on this idea, and applied it especially to the New England purchasers. In evidence of this, he has referred to the case of the Connecticut intruders in the State of Pennsylvania. But in this allusion he was certainly extremely unfortunate. The case might be cited to prove a position exactly the reverse. The fact is, that these intruders have for many years, by their superior skill and address, held their lands in defiance of the State; and, from appearance, I believe will continue to hold them, without making any compensation to the State; and this instance may serve to show the impropriety and inefficiency of governments pretending to compromise with individuals. The measures pursued by the State of Pennsylvania relative to these claimants have generally been of this description. They have produced no advantage to the State, and have always been converted by the intruders into arguments in favor of their claims. I do know of one case that goes far to prove that there are some persons in the Eastern States extremely uninformed in matters relating to land. The case to which I allude is recent, having occurred but a few days ago. A petition was presented by a gentleman from Vermont, signed by a number of persons, praying to be permitted to form a settlement on the public lands lying north-west of the river Ohio. On a motion for referring it to a committee, a member from the same State rose and opposed the reference, assigning as a reason, that if the petition should so far receive the countenance of the House as to be referred, the petitioners would instantly commence the sale of rights. Now, if there are people so extremely ignorant as to purchase rights of this description, they certainly ought to be pitied. But will any person say that the present claimants belong to this class? No, sir; they are men experienced in business, by all accounts well versed in transactions relating to land, and as little liable to be imposed on as perhaps any equal number of persons that could be selected.

But it is said they could not have knowledge of the circumstances under which the act of Georgia of 1795 was passed; that they became purchasers before such information could possibly reach them. This certainly cannot be seriously insisted on. Will gentlemen look at the deeds conveying the titles, and then say the purchasers had no notice? Evidence, if not of the fraud, at least that there was something wrong in the business, is stamped on the very face of all the conveyances.

Mr. J. Randolph said, that, as well as his extreme indisposition and excessive hoarseness would permit, he would lay before the House some observations on the various objections which had been urged against the amendment of his worthy and respectable colleague, (Mr. Clark,) for such he was in every point of view.

The venerable gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Findlay,) when he gave in his recantation of his last year’s opinions on this subject, told you that General Washington’s Message had no reference to the fraudulency of the act of 1795. He considered it as a caveat on behalf of the United States, who claimed a great part of the territory in question. Be it so. Was that notice to subsequent purchasers, or not? How will gentlemen reconcile this inconsistency? Within the disputed limits between the Federal Government and Georgia, five-sixths of this very New England Company’s purchase were comprised, besides that valuable part of the Georgia Company’s grant contained in the fork of the Alabama and Tombigbee. The United States contended, that the country west of the Chatahoochee, and south of a parallel of latitude which should intersect the mouth of the Yazoo River, never constituted a part of Georgia—that it was within the limits of the province of West Florida, from which being severed by the peace of 1783, it became vested in the Confederacy, and not in the State to which it happened to be contiguous. The far greater part of the grant to the Georgia Mississippi Company is embraced within these limits: the purchase of the New England Company is stated, by themselves, to have been made from that company, twelve months after the President’s Message. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, himself, considers this Message as a formal annunciation of the adverse claim of the United States to the land in question, and, in the same breath, avers that the New England Company, subsequent purchasers of that very land, were ignorant of any defect of title in the State of Georgia, or the grantees under her. How will he reconcile this?

The same gentleman has introduced into this debate the names of two persons; one of them, at that time, a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, the other a Senator from the State of Georgia; who, he tells us, were deeply concerned in the transaction of 1795. Both these gentlemen are no more. Private character, always dear, always to be respected, seems almost canonized by the grave. When men go hence, their evil deeds should follow them, and, for me, might sleep oblivious in their tomb. But if the mouldering ashes of the dead are to be raked up, let it not be for the furtherance of injustice. In every stage of this discussion, whilst I have kept my eye steadily fixed on the enormity of the act of 1795, I have lost sight of the agents. Since, however, some of them have been mentioned, it may not be immaterial to notice the interest which they took in this business. It is too true, sir, that the Senator in question was one of the fathers of the act of 1795. By the Assembly which passed it he was, at the same session, re-elected to the Senate of the United States for six years thereafter. It is equally true, Mr. Speaker, that the notorious British Treaty was ratified by that Senator’s casting vote. And as the Yazoo speculation then carried through the British Treaty, now, it seems, the adherents of that treaty are to drag the Yazoo speculation out of the mire. The connection of the two questions at that day is too notorious to be denied. That very Senator, were he now here, would disdain to deny it. With all his faults, he was a man of some noble qualities. Hypocrisy, at least, was not in the catalogue of his vices. The coupling together of the British Treaty and the Yazoo business, cannot surely be unknown to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He was a member of the House of Representatives which voted the appropriation for carrying that treaty into effect, and is understood to have acted a conspicuous part on the occasion. Can it be matter of surprise that the same Senate that ratified the British Treaty by the casting vote of one of the principal grantees of the act of Georgia of 1795, should refuse to co-operate with the House of Representatives, in measures for obviating the mischiefs of that act? When you see this corruption extending itself to two great departments of Government, can you wonder at the bitterness of its fruit? With their leaders in the Legislature and on the judgment seat, well might the host of corruption feel confident in their strength; even yet they have scarcely laid aside their audacity.

A gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Eustis) has said, that the claimants from his State had no notice of the fraud; “that he knows they had not;” I cannot have mistaken him, for I took down the words. Sir, I would ask that gentleman whence arises the proverbial difficulty of providing a negative, but from the difficulty of knowing one?

[Mr. Eustis rose to explain. If he had said that he knew the claimants had not a knowledge of the fraud, he had said too much. It was impossible that any one should know all that was known or passing in the mind of another. Without recollecting the precise words used, he had intended to state his own belief that they had no such knowledge or information. He was resident and conversant with those concerned in the transaction, it was the subject of general conversation, and if there had been any knowledge or report of the kind, he thought it must have come to his knowledge; but he also recollected to have stated at the time that this circumstance did not depend on the knowledge or opinion of any individual—as the price paid for the land precluded any idea or belief, that the purchasers could have had any knowledge of the fraud.]

Mr. Randolph resumed. The facts which I am about to mention are derived from such a source that I could almost pledge myself for their truth: When the agent of the Georgia Mississippi Company (under whom the New England Land Company claim) arrived in the Eastern States, he had great difficulty in disposing of his booty. The rumor of the fraud by which it was acquired had gone before him. People did not like to vest their money in this new Mississippi scheme. He accordingly applied to some leading men of wealth and intelligence, offering to some as high as 200,000 acres, to others less, for which they were neither to pay money, nor pass their paper, but were to stand on his books as purchasers at so much per acre. These were the decoy-birds to bring the ducks and geese into the net of speculation. On the faith of these persons, under the idea that men of their information would not risk such vast sums without some prospect of return, others resolved to venture, and gambled in this new land fund, laid out their money in the Yazoo lottery and have drawn blanks. And these, sir, are the innocent purchasers by whom we are beset; purchasers without price, who never paid a shilling, and never can be called upon for one; the vile panders of speculation. And in what do their dupes differ from the losers in any other gambling or usurious transaction? The premium was proportioned to the risk. As well may your buyers and sellers of stock, your bulls and your bears of the alley, require indemnification for their losses at the hands of the nation. There is another fact, too little known, but unquestionably true, in relation to this business. This scheme of buying up the Western Territory of Georgia did not originate there. It was hatched in Philadelphia and New York, (and I believe Boston; of this, however, I am not positive,) and the funds with which it was effected were principally furnished by moneyed capitalists in those towns. The direction of these resources devolved chiefly on the Senator who has been mentioned. Too wary to commit himself to writing, he and his associates agreed upon a countersign. His re-election to the Senate was to be considered as evidence that the temper of the Legislature of Georgia was suited to their purpose, and his Northern confederates were to take their measures accordingly. In proof of this fact, no sooner was the news of his reappointment announced at New York, than it was publicly said in a coffee house there, “then the Western Territory of Georgia is sold.” Does this require a comment? Do you not see the strong probability that many of those, who now appear in the character of purchasers from the original grantees named in the act of 1795, are in fact partners, perhaps instigators and prime movers of a transaction in which their names do not appear? Amidst such a complication of guilt, how are you to discriminate; how fix the Proteus? The Chairman of the Committee of Claims, who brought in this report, under the lash of whose criticism we have all so often smarted, that he is generally known as the pedagogue of the House, will give me leave on this subject to refer him to an authority. It is one with which he is no doubt familiar, and, however humble, well disposed to respect. The authority which I am about to cite is Dillworth’s Spelling Book, and if it will be more grateful to the gentleman, not our common American edition, but the Royal English Spelling Book. In one of the chapters of that useful elementary work it is related, that two persons going into a shop on pretence of purchase, one of them stole a piece of goods and handed it to the other to conceal under his cloak. When challenged with the theft, he who stole it said he had it not, and he who had it said he did not take it. Gentlemen, replied the honest tradesman, what you say may all be very true, but, at the same time, I know that between you I am robbed. And such precisely is our case. But I hope, sir, we shall not permit the parties, whether original grantees who took it, or subsequent purchasers who have it, to make off with the public property.

The rigor of the Committee of Claims has passed into a proverb. It has more than once caused the justice of this House to be questioned. What, then, was our surprise, on reading their report, to find that they have discovered “Equity” in the pretensions of these petitioners. Sir, when the war-worn soldier of the Revolution, or the desolate widow and famished offspring of him who sealed your independence with his blood, ask at the door of that Committee for bread, they receive the statute of limitation. On such occasions you hear of no equity in the case. Their claims have not the stamp and seal of iniquity upon them. Summum jus is the measure dealt out to them. The equity of the committee is reserved for those claims which are branded with iniquity and stamped with infamy. This reminds me of the story of a poor, distressed female in London applying for admittance into the Magdalen Charity. Being asked who she was, her wretched tale was told in a few words—“I am poor, innocent, and friendless.” “Unhappy girl,” replied the director, “your case does not come within the purview of this institution. Innocence has no admission here; this is a place of reception for prostitutes; you must go and qualify yourself before you can partake of our relief.” With equal discretion the directors of the Committee of Claims suffer nothing to find support in their asylum but what is tainted with corruption, and stamped with fraud. Give it these properties and they will give it “equity.”

I have said, and I repeat it, that the aspect in which this thing presents itself, would, alone, determine me to resist it. In one of the petitioners I behold an executive officer, who receives and distributes a yearly revenue of $300,000, yielding scarcely any net profit to Government. Offices in his disposal to the annual amount of $94,000, and contracts more lucrative making up the residue of the sum. A patronage limited only by the extent of our country. Is this right? Is it even decent? Shall political power be made the engine of private interest? Shall such a suspicion tarnish your proceedings? How would you receive a petition from the President of the United States, if such a thing can be supposed possible? Sir, I wish to see the same purity pervading every subordinate branch of the Administration, which, I am persuaded, exists in its great departments. Shall persons holding appointments under the great and good man who presides over our councils, draw on the rich fund of his well-earned reputation, to eke out their flimsy and scanty pretensions? Is the relation in which they stand to him, to be made the cloak and cover of their dark designs? To the gentleman from New York, (Mr. Root,) who takes fire at every insinuation against his friend, I have only to observe, on this subject, that what I dare to say, I dare to justify. To the House I will relate an incident, from which it may judge how far I have lightly conceived or expressed an opinion to the prejudice of any man. I owe an apology to my informant for making public what he certainly did not authorize me to reveal. There is no reparation which can be offered by one gentleman and accepted by another, that I shall not be ready to make him; but I feel myself already justified to him, since he sees the circumstances under which I act. A few evenings since, a profitable contract for carrying the mail was offered to a friend of mine who is a member of this House. You must know, sir, that the person so often alluded to maintains a jackal, fed, not (as you would suppose) upon the offal of contract, but with the fairest pieces in the shambles; and, at night, when honest men are in bed, does this obscene animal prowl through the streets of this vast and desolate city, seeking whom he may tamper with. Well, sir, when this worthy plenipotentiary had made his proposal, in due form, the independent man to whom it was addressed, saw at once its drift. “Tell your principal,” said he, “that I will take his contract, but I shall vote against the Yazoo claim, notwithstanding.” Next day, he was told that there had been some misunderstanding of the business, that he could not have the contract, as it was previously bespoken by another!

Sir, I well recollect, when first I had the honor of a seat in this House, we were members then of a small minority; a poor, forlorn hope; that this very petitioner appeared in Philadelphia, on behalf of another great land company on Lake Erie. He then told us as an inducement to vote for the Connecticut reserve (as it was called) that if that measure failed, it would ruin the republicans and the cause in that State. You, sir, cannot have forgotten the reply he received: “That we did not understand the republicanism that was to be paid for; that we feared it was not of the right sort, but spurious.” And, having maintained our principles through the ordeal of that day, shall we now abandon them, to act with the men and upon the maxims which we then abjured? Shall we now condescend to means which we disdained to use in the most desperate crisis of our political fortune? This is, indeed, the age of monstrous coalitions; and this corruption has the quality of cementing the most inveterate enmities, personal as well as political. It has united in close concert those, of whom it has been said, not in the figurative language of prophecy, but in the sober narrative of history: “I have bruised thy head, and thou hast bruised my heel.” Such is the description of persons who would present to the President of the United States an act to which, when he puts his hand, he signs a libel on his whole political life. But he will never tarnish the unsullied lustre of his fame; he will never sanction the monstrous position, (for such it is, dress it up as you will,) “that a legislator may sell his vote, and a right, which cannot be divested, will pass under such sale.” Establish this doctrine, and there is an end of representative government; from that moment republicanism receives its death-blow.