Your officers, and those aiding and assisting them, ought to be protected and supported. I will now say, as I did the other day, that the fear of having their houses or barns burned, terrified many a man in the Western country from joining the standard of the law, and forced him to temporize with rebellion. When the officers know that they are to be protected in their persons and property—when the posse comitatus are informed that they are to be regarded in like manner—we may expect energy in the execution of the laws. The law of Pennsylvania is defective, or at least doubtful; and, if the present punishment for arson continues, the Legislature of that State will, I dare say, point out a decided remedy for the party injured against the offender. It becomes the honor and justice of the Legislature to protect and support the officers, and those aiding them. I shall, therefore, vote for the amendment.
Mr. Venable differed entirely from the gentleman who spoke last. He understood that pardons extended only to the offences against Government. It would, for that reason, be no hardship against the people who had received pardons to prosecute them for civil damages; and, by the statement of the member himself, actions would lie where no public prosecutions had been made.
Mr. Swift was of opinion that the member from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hartley) was most certainly mistaken in point of law, when he imagined that the pardon granted by the commissioners extended, or might be construed to a remission of civil offences. He did not believe it to be in the power of Government to pardon these rioters and trespassers to that length. He did not expect that the gentleman from Pennsylvania would have stood up in the House to recommend an unqualified pardon. When a million of dollars had been expended, were the House to give them fifteen or twenty thousand dollars more? He did not come there prepared to hear of a premium for insurrection. He rejected all idea of so much tenderness for rioters and rebels.
Mr. Boudinot rejected all idea of the rioters being exempted from civil suits. There was but one exception, where they were executed for their crimes. He had no other view of the matter, but as a question of policy—whether it was expedient, or the contrary, to prosecute these people. He believed that, before the new constitution, the law stood as the member from Pennsylvania represented it. But all this was much from the purpose. By far the greater number of the rioters have accepted the amnesty. Nobody imagines them exempted from prosecution. To prevent any misconception of this nature, the commissioners, in the terms of pardon which they held out, expressly warned the people that they were to be liable to civil actions for the damages committed. It was needless, then, to embarrass the question with more difficulties than naturally belonged to it. He was satisfied that this was a mere question of policy, whether it was better to pay off these people at once, or let them first try the effects of civil actions.
Mr. Dayton rose and asked, "Who shall decide, when doctors disagree?" Who shall declare what is the law, when the learned gentlemen of the bar are so directly opposed to each other? The House (Mr. D. observed) had, by some means, imperceptibly, and, he thought, unnecessarily, been drawn into the discussion of a common law question. Law had been aptly compared to a bottomless pit, and the sooner, therefore, that they extricated themselves from it, the better. Very fortunately, (he said,) there existed no necessity for determining, in the present cases, upon any intricate point of law, as the proposals of amnesty, in their very terms, as well as in their nature, left each individual trespasser liable to suits at law on the part of the friends of good order, for the damages sustained by the one and done by the other. Mr. D. was for allowing those prosecutions to go forward, and was well informed, not only that there was far more than sufficient of the property of the insurgents to make compensation, but that it was probable they would agree together, and make up the whole among themselves, rather than be vexed by lawsuits. He could not agree with those gentlemen who expressed a wish to vote for the whole amount of damages, immediately to be paid from the Treasury. He did not believe with them, that such a measure would promote the dignity, or manifest the justice, of the Government. This would be to enter into an improper compromise with guilt. It would be to make peace with sedition, in a way that might tend to encourage rather than, to discourage it in future. We were obligated, upon principle and precedent, to ensure indemnity to those officers of Government, who, in consequence of a prompt and steady discharge of their duty, had suffered in their property from the resentment of the insurgents. But he wished not to do more, until the result of actions at law could be ascertained. Although the Government may offer a pardon for offences against the public, yet nothing was more clear than that the general amnesty did not, and could not, exempt the seditious offenders from answering to private persons for injuries done to them in their property.
Mr. Hartley rose to explain. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Swift) had mistaken his meaning. He was going on, when
Mr. Dayton rose, and declared that he had never put any such construction on the words of the gentleman, who certainly must have misapprehended him.
I did not mean you, sir, (said Mr. Hartley,) I said the gentleman from Connecticut. You made a mistake of the same kind with me last session.
The amendment of Mr. Boudinot was, on a division, lost—only twenty-six gentlemen rising when the question was called for.