Ordered, That Mr. Rutledge, Mr. Nicholas, Mr. Griswold, Mr. Macon, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Taliaferro, Mr. Foster, Mr. Claiborne, Mr. Otis, Mr. Davis, Mr. Morris, Mr. Champlin, Mr. Baer, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Linn, and Mr. Woods, be appointed a committee, pursuant to the said resolution.
Ordered, That the motion made on Friday last relative to the mode of commencing and continuing the ballot for the choice of a President of the United States, be referred to the committee last appointed.
District of Columbia.
The House then went into Committee of the Whole on the bill for the government of the District of Columbia. While the question was being taken for the House to resolve itself into a committee, Mr. Smilie rose and moved the postponement of this order till the third day of March next. He made this motion, he said, in order to try the sense of the House, whether they were determined to assume the jurisdiction or not. He hoped it would not, and was proceeding to show his reasons, when
The Speaker reminded him of the order of the House. He could not be permitted to discuss the merits of the bill under this motion.
Mr. Smilie conceived the question to affect the bill generally, and simply to be, whether the House would agree to disfranchise some thousands of persons of their political rights, which they now enjoyed. If this was not considered an object of importance enough to command attention, he must confess other gentlemen saw it in a very different light from that in which he viewed it. By the passage of this bill, the people of the district would be reduced to the state of subjects, and deprived of their political rights, and he very much doubted whether not of their civil rights also. If, indeed, there was such an imperious necessity of assuming the jurisdiction, of which he was by no means convinced, then it must be done; but, if that great and immediate necessity did not exist, why should this privation of rights take place? If it was necessary to reduce the City of Washington to a state of local government by an incorporation, he contended that act could be done by the State Legislature; as he did not conceive the local demands of the people called for it, as they could want no such assumption as the bill contemplated, and as he could perceive no advantage to be derived to the General Government thereby, and as the assumption would eventually injure the people, he trusted it would be postponed, at least.
Mr. Rutledge said, he had always uniformly opposed any motion for postponing a bill, the consideration of which the House had not gone into. Although it might be in order, it could not be perfectly fair, from various considerations; if, however, it were only from its tendency to preclude the investigation of the bill, it were sufficient. The gentleman had stated it not to be necessary. Who are to judge? Most assuredly the people belonging to the Territory. And what have they said? Why, sir, they have prayed the House to assume the jurisdiction. From this petition the subject was referred to a committee, and this committee have reported a bill, and a bill well discussed and well matured in its detail. To refuse this bill from a diversity of sentiment, would be to insult the committee, and to insult the people of the Territory. If the gentleman wishes to please the people, why does he not suffer the consideration of the bill to proceed, and afford his aid in making it what he supposes their desires would concur in? Perhaps the gentleman has not read the bill. Mr. R. said, if he had not, how was he to know whether it was good or bad? Something must be done. He wished to get at that something, but was precluded by the motion. It certainly became the gentleman to show how this bill would operate injuriously upon the people, as a reason for his motion. Disfranchisement, to be sure, had been mentioned as the result of this bill; but how was the House to know that would be its tendency, except by going into its investigation?
Mr. Craik, also, considered this order of the House as the most unfair one among the rules of the House. However, it must be permitted while the order continued. The gentleman had said the people were in a state of vassalage; how was this declaration to be refuted, if the order of the House forbade the investigation into the application of this bill to the liberties of the people? The gentleman further said, that the people did not desire this assumption of jurisdiction. Were he, Mr. C. said, to give an opinion upon the subject, it would be drawn from the same source with that expressed by the gentleman, but of a very different import. He should say, as far as his knowledge of their sentiments extended, and he professed to be pretty well acquainted with their ideas upon this subject, that their feelings, their interests, and their desires conspired to encourage the assumption, and to prevent the postponement of the subject. As the immediate representative of a large proportion of them, he could say that much uncertainty and disquiet convulsed the minds of many good and wise men among them; that their present uncertainty was truly deplorable; that serious doubts existed with judicious men how far the grants and acceptance of lands, or of their papers, afforded them security for value received; doubts existed, in all their acts of negotiation, whether their respective State laws held any government over them? And this state of insecurity as to their property, could not fail to have an injurious effect. They doubted whether all other jurisdiction did not immediately cease, upon the removal of Congress to the District; and should Congress break up without assuming the jurisdiction, and taking other suitable measures to fix the Government, it would not fail to paralyze every exertion and effort toward a successful establishment. No man at present can assure himself of the right by which he holds his property, or remove his apprehensions. They now called loudly upon the National Government to remove from them this state of doubt and uncertainty; this is the object of the bill before the House; by this bill, a variety of inconveniences are removed, and the Government use their effort to make their situation at least more certain; and, he had no doubt, more safe and desirable. This it was incumbent on the Government to do; and this, he trusted, a majority of the House would be disposed to do soon. If the objects or provisions of the bill did not meet that gentleman's desires, he wished an opportunity to hear the objections, to enable him, as far as in his power, to remove them.
Mr. Smilie was proceeding to show that, at any rate, such a bill as the present ought not to pass, when