Saturday, December 21.
Statutes of Limitation.
Mr. Gholson, from the Committee of Claims, who were instructed by a resolution of the House of the 11th ultimo, to inquire into the expediency of repealing or suspending the various acts of limitation, so far as they operate to bar the payment of certain descriptions of claims, made a report thereon.—Referred to the Committee of the Whole on the report of the Committee of Claims on the petition of Rees Nanna and others. The report is as follows:
That they have bestowed on the resolution that full consideration to which it was entitled. They felt, on the one hand, sincere solicitude to devise some just and adequate method of satisfying the claims in question; while, on the other, they were forcibly struck with the unavoidable scenes of speculation and fraud which would ensue the repeal or suspension of any of the acts of limitation, whereby those claims are barred. If the old soldier, his widow, or his orphan, were alone to be benefited by such suspension, your committee would not hesitate to recommend it. Past experience, however, hath evidently shown that similar legislative indulgences have enured almost exclusively to the advantage of the unprincipled speculator, and those who avail themselves of the ignorance and subsist upon the misfortunes of others. We have innumerable examples of the truth of this position, in the consequences that resulted not only from the various suspensions of these acts which have hitherto taken place, but more especially from the adoption of the Funding System. It is deemed unnecessary to enlarge upon the consequences; they are too well known.
Although a communication received from the Treasury at a former session holds out an opinion that there are in the possession of that Department sufficient checks and guards to protect the United States from imposition and fraud in the payment of a certain part of those claims, the committee are differently impressed. They have seen a transcript from the books of the Treasury, published to the world, exhibiting the names of a certain class of claimants; and to suppose that a facility of this kind, thus offered to speculative artifice and management, would not be seized upon and used by the speculator to impose upon Government, is to suppose a thing contrary to all experience. The committee feel themselves by no means able to draw a line of distinction between a just claim liquidated and a just one unliquidated; and to attempt the invidious task of distinction in point of merit, where there can be no difference, and to open the statutes of limitation in order to relieve a part or a few favorite classes of claims, does not comport, in the view of your committee, with any principle of fairness, or with that equal system of distributive justice which ought to be dispensed toward all. When they take a retrospective view of the subject, and find that most of those statutes were first passed in the times and under the patriot counsels of the old Congress, and that the more general one which took effect in 1794 was passed under the Administration of General Washington, who was himself the chief of soldiers as he was the chief of their patrons and friends in every station; but he was equally the friend of his country, and gave that act the sanction of his name, as founded, at least, in a policy of general justice and right, which the Government had been at length obliged to resort to and maintain in self-defence; that every Congress since has invariably adhered to the general policy of those laws; and, after the lapse of so many years, when the difficulty of doing justice has increased with the increase of time, and when a partial repeal would but tend to increase the discontent and dissatisfaction of every class of claimants which should remain unprovided for, the committee cannot, from any view they have been able to take of the subject, recommend the repeal or suspension of any of those statutes. They would, therefore, beg leave to submit the following resolution:
Resolved, That it is not expedient to repeal or suspend any of the acts of limitation, whereby the aforesaid descriptions of claims are barred.[20]
The report was ordered to lie on the table.