The bill for the temporary removal of the seat of Government of the United States to the city of Baltimore was taken up for its second reading.
[The debate which took place on this occasion, had progressed to some length before the reporter entered the House. Mr. Wright was then on the floor, and had made a motion to postpone the further consideration of the bill until the first Monday in May.]
Mr. W. assigned as reasons for this motion, that it was not his intention in presenting the bill, that it should pass; but that it had been offered with the view of acting as a spur to the inhabitants of Washington to effect a more complete accommodation of Congress. He trusted and believed it would have that effect; and the operation of the postponement would, by hanging the bill over their heads, most powerfully tend to produce the desirable result of a concentration of the city, and an augmentation of accommodation.
Mr. Jackson followed, and, in terms of appropriate energy, condemned the proposition of removal. He said he should not have believed, but for the express declaration of the gentleman from Maryland, that he would have brought forward a bill the sole object of which was to frighten the women and children of Washington. So far from the measure having the desired effect avowed by the gentleman, if it had any effect whatever, it would be to shake all confidence in the Government, to repress the very accommodation desired.
Mr. J. denied the moral right of Congress to remove the seat of Government; it had been fixed under the constitution, and without its violation could not be changed.
Such a measure would indicate a prostration of plighted faith; would destroy all confidence in the Government, from one end of the continent to the other.
Gentlemen, in favor of this measure, should know its cost. Already had the present seat of Government, in its origination and consequences, cost the nation the assumption of the State debts to the amount of twenty-one millions, and between one and two millions for public accommodation. Would gentlemen be willing not only to lose all that had been expended, but likewise to indemnify the proprietors in the city, whose assessed property amounted to two and a half millions of dollars, and the proprietors of property in the whole District, the amount of which he was unable to state?
Mr. J. concluded by saying, he should vote against the postponement, under the expectation that the Senate would take up the bill and reject it by a majority so great, that no similar proposition should ever again be brought before them.
Mr. Anderson declared himself hostile to the postponement, as he was in favor of the passage of the bill, under certain modifications. He considered Congress possessed the constitutional power of altering the seat of Government; and he believed, from an experience of the inconveniences attending the existing seat, it was their duty to change it. He allowed that, in such an event, an obligation would arise to indemnify the proprietors for the losses they would thereby sustain. This, however, he considered the lesser evil; as the sum required to make an indemnity would be less than that required for the improvements contemplated, and which are necessary to accommodate the Government.
Mr. Cocke declared himself decidedly inimical to the bill. The permanent seat of Government was fixed under the constitution, and the power did not belong to Congress to alter it.