[29] It was afterwards renewed and carried, and in that form the amendments were made, twelve in number, and form additional articles to the constitution, leaving the text of that instrument unaltered, but controlled by the amendment where they differ, as in the twelfth amendment.
[30] By taking the hour of 5 o'clock for the funeral, the adjournment of the two Houses, and the loss of a day was obviated, while becoming respect was shown to the memory of the deceased member.
[31] Having found a personal attendance on such occasions inconvenient, President Washington adopted the form of a written message in asking the advice and consent of the Senate to the formation of the treaties which he judged to be necessary. Mr. Polk followed this form in consulting the Senate on the Oregon treaty of 1846.
[32] The galleries were unusually crowded.
[33] The committee reported in favor of a residence of two years, and with that provision the bill was passed.
[34] Estimated at twenty-one millions of dollars, and distributed among the States thus:
| New Hampshire, | $300,000 |
| Massachusetts, | 4,000,000 |
| Rhode Island, | 200,000 |
| Connecticut, | 1,600,000 |
| New York, | 1,200,000 |
| New Jersey, | 800,000 |
| Pennsylvania, | 2,200,000 |
| Delaware, | 200,000 |
| Maryland, | 800,000 |
| Virginia, | 3,200,000 |
| North Carolina, | 2,200,000 |
| South Carolina, | 4,000,000 |
| Georgia, | 300,000 |
| —————- | |
| $21,000,000 |
[35] The motion of Mr. Madison was lost, and with it the largest door was opened to the pillage of original creditors, the plunder of the public Treasury and the corruption of Congress which the history of any Government has ever seen. The immediate mischief was some thirty millions: it was only the beginning. Assignees of claims have since been the great suitors to Congress—purchasing for a trifle, and upon speculation—pursuing the recovery by indirect means—taking no denial—and gaining in the end what was scouted at the start. It has given rise to a new profession—a new industrial pursuit, still more industrious by night than by day—hunting up claims, pressing them upon Congress; and by organization, skill, perseverance, appliances, and seductions carrying through the most unfounded demands. By the common law a chose in action (an executory contract) was not assignable; and the whole experience of our Government from the assumption of the State debts, and funding of the revolutionary certificates in 1790 down to the present day, shows that the interest of the original creditor, the safety of the Treasury, and the purity of Congress require this wise common law principle to be applied to all claims upon the Government.
[36] These proceedings put an end to abolition petitions in Congress. The Society of which Dr. Franklin was president was purely philanthropic in its character, and having got the answer to their petition, "that Congress had no right to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or their treatment in any of the States," acquiesced in the decision and did not repeat their application.
[37] This measure became combined with the Assumption Bill. Each had failed by small majorities: both were afterwards passed. There was a strong sectional party for each, but not a majority. The Eastern and Middle States were for the assumption—the Southern States against it: these latter were for the Potomac for the seat of Government—the former for the Susquehannah. The discontent was extreme on each side at losing its favorite measure. At last the two measures were combined. Two members from the Potomac who had voted against the assumption, agreed to change their votes: a few from the Eastern and Middle States who had voted against the Potomac, agreed to change in its favor; and so the two measures were passed. Mr. Jefferson gives this account of it, omitting his strictures: "This measure (the assumption) produced the most bitter and angry contest ever known in Congress, before or since the union of the States. I arrived in the midst of it: but a stranger to the ground, a stranger to the actors in it, so long absent as to have lost all familiarity with the subject, and as yet unaware of its object, I took no concern in it. The great and trying question, however, was lost in the House of Representatives. So high were the feuds excited on this subject that, on its rejection, business was suspended. Congress met and adjourned from day to day without doing any thing, the parties being too much out of temper to do business together. The Eastern members threatened secession and dissolution. Hamilton was in despair. As I was going to the President's one day, I met him in the street. He walked me backwards and forwards before the President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the Legislature had been wrought—the disgust of those who were called the creditor States—the danger of the secession of their members, and of the separation of the States. He observed that the members of the administration ought to act in concert—that though this question was not of my department, yet a common duty should make it a common concern—that the President was the centre on which all administrative questions ultimately rested, and that all of us should rally around him, and support, with joint efforts, measures approved by him; and that the question having been lost by a small majority only, it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends, might effect change in the vote, and the machine of government, now suspended, might be again set in motion. I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject; that not having yet informed myself of the system of finances adopted, I knew not how far this was a necessary sequence; that undoubtedly, if its rejection endangered a dissolution of our Union at this incipient stage, I should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences, to avert which all partial and temporary evils should be yielded. I proposed to him, however, to dine with me the next day, and I would invite another friend or two, bring them into conference together, and I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise which would save the Union. The discussion took place. I could take no part in it but an exhortatory one, because I was a stranger to the circumstances which should govern it. But it was finally agreed, that whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union, and of concord among the States, was more important, and that therefore it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded—to effect which some members should change their votes. But it was observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them. There had before been propositions to fix the seat of Government either at Philadelphia, or at Georgetown on the Potomac; and it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure alone: so two of the Potomac members (White and Lee, but the former with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive) agreed to change their votes; and Hamilton undertook to carry the other point."