Thursday, March 11.
Wyoming Controversy.
The House went into a Committee of the Whole on the report of the committee to whom was referred the petition of sundry inhabitants of the State of Pennsylvania, settled on the lands claimed under grants from the State of Connecticut, antecedent to the trial before the court of commissioners between the State of Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
The report of the committee embraces an historical view of the Wyoming controversy, recites the act of Pennsylvania, for preventing intrusions upon land in Northampton, Northumberland, and Luzerne Counties. The report then proceeds to state:
"The petitioners complain of these acts as unconstitutional, and pray that provisions may be made by law for transferring the proceedings under these laws from the State Courts of Pennsylvania to the Courts of the United States; and that further provision may be made by law, that in the trial of any prosecution in virtue of the said acts the defendant may have a venire facias to summon juries from some State, other than Pennsylvania. Your committee conceive that the right of jurisdiction was finally settled by the decree of Trenton, of the 30th December, 1783, and that by the decision of the circuit court for the district of Pennsylvania in April, 1795, the whole question of the right of soil was fully taken up and decided by the court, in a case the most favorable for the defendant; which decision not having been revised and reversed, should also be considered as final and conclusive.
"Your committee therefore, upon the whole circumstances of the case, are of opinion, that the measures contemplated by the petitioners would tend very much to increase the embarrassments already experienced by the State of Pennsylvania, in extending and enforcing its lawful jurisdiction over the lands in question, and that it would be highly inexpedient on the part of the United States to interfere with the regulations of the States in that respect, or to countenance, by any means whatever, any circumstances of insubordination to the State authority.
"Your committee are therefore of opinion that the prayer of the petitioners ought not to be granted."
After a debate, the committee rose and reported their agreement to the report.
A motion was made and lost to recommit the report to a select committee.
It was then moved to postpone the further consideration of the report till the last day of November next. Not carried.