THURSDAY, March 7.

MARCH, 1816.

Mr. ROBERTSON, from the Committee on the Public Lands, reported a bill further extending the time for issuing and locating military land warrants; which was read twice, and committed to a Committee of the Whole.

On motion of Mr. CRAWFORD,

try, to bring in a bill for the encouragement of a breed of wolves. I never see a merino sheep without its occurring to me that we are about to be the tributaries of the most timid, weak, inefficient animal on the face of the earth. Among our home manufactures, I wish gentlemen would attend to that of human bodies, and not keep foreigners for the purpose of making their clothing at home, when they could import to so much Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury more advantage from abroad. This, he said, was be directed to lay before this House a statement, a favorable time to make a stand against this showing the valuation of real property and slaves evil, and if not this session, he hoped that in the in the city of Philadelphia, and in each county next there would be a revisal of the naturaliza- of the State of Pennsylvania, the quota or amount tion laws. He was not partial to the French, but of direct tax apportioned to the said city and each if we were to have emigrants, he wished them to of the said counties, and the rate of tax on the be of that people. Not the birds of Newgate or one hundred dollars of assessed property, agreeKilmainham, nor the rabble of British manufac-ably to the valuation and apportionment made turing towns. He preferred the French, because under the act entitled "An act for the assessment they would be a distinct people among us, and and collection of direct taxes and internal duties," not as the subjects of Great Britain, who, from passed July 22, 1813, and the act entitled "An the similarity of their language and manners, act to lay and collect a direct tax within the Uniidentified themselves at once with our people, ted States," passed August 24, 1813; and a simand brought their principles into our councils. ilar statement of the valuation, apportionment, Mr. WRIGHT said: Mr. Chairman, I cannot be and rate of tax under the act entitled "An act to silent when an amendment is proposed to insert provide additional revenues for defraying the exthe word native, so that none but natives can be penses of Government and maintaining the pubdirectors of this bank. Sir, it is a libel on the lic credit, by laying a direct tax upon the United Constitution, on that WASHINGTON who recom- States, and to provide for assessing and collecting mended its adoption. It would exclude Alexan- the same," passed on the 9th day of January, der Hamilton, was he alive, from being a direct- 1815; so as to exhibit a comparative view of the or, who so pre-eminently distingushed himself in valuation, apportionment, and rate of tax in the the promotion of that Constitution. Look, sir, said city, and each of the said counties, under the at that picture. See the bleeding Montgomery the principal assessors within the said State, for several acts abovementioned; also, the names of weltering in his gore, and sacrificing his life on the altar of American liberty, and then say whe- the year 1816, and the counties embraced within ther such men ought to be excluded. Sir, the their respective districts, and such further statemembers of the Senate and House of Represent-ment of the transactions of the board of principal atives who may be naturalized citizens-nay, a assessors within the said State, as reported to the foreigner, who was here at the adoption of the Treasury Department, as will show what changes, Constitution, might be a President of the United if any, have been made by them in the relative States; but, if this amendment obtains, he could valuation of property in any of the said counties, not be a director of this bank! and the principles on which they have proceeded in performing the duties required of them by the act last abovementioned.

The question was taken on Mr. JEWETT'S motion, and lost, without a division.

Mr. SMITH, of Maryland, then moved to strike out that part of the seventeenth section, which gives the President of the United States power, during the recess of Congress, on the application of the stockholders, to authorize the bank to suspend the payment of specie.

Mr. CALHOUN, after admitting the propriety of the motion, said he had no objection to extend it to the whole proviso of the section, so as to deprive Congress, as well as the President, of the power to suspend specie payments.

Mr. FORSYTH opposed this proposition, and Mr. RANDOLPH Supported it; after which, the Committee rose, reported progress, and obtained leave to sit again.

The House then went into Committee of the Whole on the report of the Committee of Ways and Means, on the amendments of the Senate to the bill making appropriations for the Ordnance department. The Senate's amendments were agreed to by the Committee of the Whole, when it rose; and the House adjourned.

On motion of Mr. MARSH,

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury lay before this House a statement of the accounts exhibited, and of the expenditures in the prosecution of offences against the United States, in the courts thereof, in the districts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, respectively, from the year 1808, to the year 1815, inclusive of both; also, a statement of the fines and penalties paid into the Treasury of the United States, from those districts, during that period; exhibiting the names and number of the indictments, informations, and suits which have been instituted for such offences, and distinguishing those in which there have been convictions, from those in which there have been acquittals.

An engrossed bill, entitled "An act authorizing and directing the Secretary of State to grant letters patent to Andrew Kurtz," was read the third time and passed.

An engrossed bill, entitled "An act in addition

MARCH, 1816.

Compensation of Members.

H. OF R

to an act regulating the Post Office Establish-crease the disease. Were such a power ready at ment," was read the third time and passed.

NATIONAL BANK

The House then again resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, on the National Bank bill the motion to strike out the proviso which gives to Congress the power of authorizing the bank, on application of the stockholders, to suspend the payment of specie, being still under consideration.

hand to be administered when necessity should require, the bank, whose interest it would be to suspend specie payments, would soon contrive to make that necessity. He therefore concurred in the amendment; which after some observations from Mr. SHARPE, was carried by a very large majority.

Some other amendments were also made to the bill; when at length the Committee, having got through the bill, rose, reported progress and had leave to sit again.

COMPENSATION OF MEMBERS.

The House then went into Committee of the Whole, on the bill to alter the compensation allowed to the members of Congress.

Mr. JOHNSON said, he thought no diversity of opinion could arise on this bill but as to the sum which it proposed to allow the members per annum. It members of Congress were satisfied to adopt a smaller sum, he avowed himself willing to meet them, though he had no doubt the sum mentioned was as low as it ought to be, and was less than the salary received by twenty-eight clerks employed by the Government. Mr. J. also defended the propriety of the proposed mode of compensation over the per diem allowance, and concluded with a few statements to show, that the trifling addition to the pay would be nothing in comparison with the despatch of public husiness, which would be the effect of the change.

Mr. RANDOLPH supported the amendment, and reprobated the remarks of the honorable gentleman (Mr. FORSYTH) who opposed it as the most extraordinary he had ever heard. Was that gentleman yet to learn, he asked, that Congress sat under a delegated power, by which they were authorized to do that only which was found specified in their charter, the Constitution? The power to violate contracts between individuals was not one of those granted to Congress and enumerated in the Constitution, and yet that was the amount of the gentleman's argument. Nor could he conceive a case in which their power could extend to impair a contract. If the competeney to suspend payment was to be vested in either of them, he would rather trust it to the President than to that House, because nothing was so shameless as a popular assembly. No crime had ever been committed that popular assemblies had not countenanced. He declared that it was astonishing and afflicting to him to hear principles which he had ever been taught to consider monstrous and preposterous, Mr. RANDOLPH coincided fully with Mr. JOHNopenly and with the greatest indifference promul- SON in his views of the proposed change; and in gated in that House-for what less than mon- order to divest the measure of its only odious constrous and preposterous was it to insist that Gov-sideration, he moved to amend the bill by susernment had a right to make paper a legal tender? Mr. WEBSTER said he should be sorry if such notions as those of Mr. FORSYTH were to grow into general belief. The language of the Constitution was, he said, that all that was not delegated was reserved. If the power in question therefore was not delegated, it did not exist. He urged the impolicy of retaining the clause, on the grounds that it would defeat the object of the bill, by adding to the depreciation of bank paper. If the power to suspend specie payments were known to exist by authority, individuals holding it would, on the slightest grounds, suspect that it was intended, and press upon the bank for their money. In short, the ingenuity of man could not devise a thing more tending to bring about the evil for which the bill is presumed to be a cure.

Mr. CLAY (Speaker) agreed that the retention of the clause was unnecessary, and said that he would no more make a provision for the suspension of specie payments in a bank, than in forming a government he would provide for a revolution.

pending its operation until the 4th of March next, so as not to take effect during the present Congress. Mr. R. declared his conviction, however, that the object would not be fully attained by the change. Åre not members, said he, obliged to be wakened up to vote; roused up to hear the question? Do they not keep the House from adjourning because they have not finished a letter, or sent off the last newspaper? The debates of the House are swelled to their great length by inattention of members; and to remedy it, we must get rid of this bookbinder's shop. The House, he said, was not exactly like a Dover court, where they were all speakers; but here there is one speaker and no listener.

Mr. JOHNSON was opposed to the amendment. He thought if the bill was necessary at all, it was as proper for the present Congress as a future one. However, he would not refuse his support to the bill, if the motion should be adopted. Congress, he said, had always to act for themselves on this subject, and he was averse to the postponement.

Either case could arise but from an extra- Mr. RANDOLPH said, for himself he would prefer ordinary convulsion not likely to occur, and which, the bill as it stood; but it was to satisfy any overif it ever did arise, would bring its own remedy tender consciences, that he proposed the amendtime enough along with it. Providing for it ac- ment. For his part, he was not afraid of the thing cording to Mr. FORSYTH'S notion was not only called popularity; to vote to himself one thousand unnecessary but would be pernicious-it would five hundred dollars-for what? For coming here be like calling in a physician to a sick person, and and living as in a boarding school, or a monmingling with his prescriptions materials to in-astery, &c. There was no profession scarcely by

which a man could not earn one thousand five hundred dollars in six months, and do it much more pleasantly too than by coming here. Mr. R. concluded by repeating, that the object of his amendment was intended merely as a quietus to over-tender consciences.

Mr. GROSVENOR said, to decide on the amendment, it was only necessary to inquire, whether this measure was at all proper. If it be necessary, is it not so at this, as the next session? On what principle, he asked, was it necessary to postpone the effect of the bill? It would be viewed only as a little attempt to evade the imputation of regarding their own particular interests; and he was decidedly opposed to it.

MARCH, 1816.

be further from his wish or intention than to attribute improper motives to the worthy chairman, or any other honorable gentleman of the committee by whom the bill had been introduced. But he must be permitted to say that the bill, so far as he comprehended its scope and tenor, presented itself to his understanding in a very questionable shape. It wore too much the appearance of disguise and concealment. If there really was such evident necessity for an increase in the pay of members of Congress, why not grant it in the good old way of a per diem. If six dollars a day were not adequate to meet their reasonable expenses, and afford them a comfortable subsistence at the Seat of Government, let the Mr. HUGER assured the House, he had never rate be augmented to eight, ten, or twelve dolrisen to address them with more reluctance, or lars, or to whatever sum might be deemed suffiless satisfaction to himself, than on the present cient. But let this be done in such a manner as occasion. He had waited to the last moment, that their constituents might at a glance, underand until the question was on the point of being stand what had been done, and have an opportutaken, in the hope that some other gentleman nity of making a fair comparison between the would undertake the unpleasant task, (for an un- present allowance, and what it was now propleasant task it certainly was,) of rising in oppo-posed to raise it to. By changing the per diem, sition to a measure, evidently so popular and so or daily allowance, into a salary, or gross sum, Iwell received. Providence in its beneficence, a concealment of the increase of pay was, he had blessed him with independence, and some- would not say sought or intended, yet it certainwhat more, perhaps, of the good things of this ly was effected. What number of persons abroad, life, than had fallen to the lot of several of those he asked, would comprehend the full effect of the he addressed. He was sensible, that under such change, or possess proper data upon which to circumstances, opposition to the proposed increase make a correct estimate and comparison between of pay might not come with the best possible the present daily allowance and that which was grace from him; and he most sincerely wished contemplated? Even in that House there was that it had devolved upon any other gentleman, great difference of opinion on the subject. The rather than on himself. He had waited, however, chairman of the committee stated it, including as before observed, to the last moment, but no one an average of extra sessions, at between nine and evinced the least disposition to rise in opposition ten dollars. He contended they were not likely to the bill. He did not, therefore, think himself so to have, for some years to come, any extra sesbound down, hand and feet, by the above consid- sion. Yet the very fact that there might or eration, or by the feelings of delicacy arising out of might not be extra sessions, was almost concluit, as to be absolutely precluded from expressing sive argument of itself in favor of the old mode his dislike to a measure, which he disapproved of of a per diem, and against the proposed change most decidedly, and in all its bearings; nor under of it into a fixed salary and gross sum. At all any moral obligation to let it pass sub silentio, events there was not the most distant prospect of and without the most trifling attempt being made an extra session, neither had there been one duto stop its progress. He should, without further ring the Constitutional term of the present Conpreface, throw himself on the candor and indul- gress. He was strictly correct, therefore, and gence of the House. And whilst he cheerfully fully authorized in estimating the addition of acknowledged the merits of the honorable gentle- pay which would actually be received by the man from Kentucky (Mr. JOHNSON) who had so present members, at an increase of from one hungreatly distinguished himself in other fields, and dred to one hundred and fifty per cent., or at an a kind of warfare rather more glorious than that average of at least fourteen dollars a day, besides for which he had been, on the present occasion, the annual travelling allowance of six dollars extolled in such glowing language; he flattered every twenty miles. Indeed, this was so obvihimself, that he might at least hope and calcu- ously the case, that he had heard it in conver late upon the pardon and forgiveness of gentle sation, candidly acknowledged, that the mode men, if he ventured, in like manner, to come for- adopted of giving an annual salary instead of a ward with some little independence, and oppose per diem, was the only one which could render a measure, evidently so popular within the walls the thing palatable, and make it go down with of the Chamber, and which received such kind, the people. And this very observation and acand to all appearance, such general welcome. knowledgment had been by no means one of the smallest inducements with him to turn his attention particularly to the subject, and rise in opposition to the bill.

Mr. H. repeated that he was decidedly opposed to the bill in all its bearings and provisions; to the increase of pay it proposed, (especially at the present time and under existing circumstances,) and still more to the manner in which that increase was to be brought about. Nothing could

But even granting it to be expedient to increase their pay for the future, it was, in every possible view, incorrect and unbecoming to give the bill

MARCH, 1816.

Compensation of Members.

H. of R.

and drawers of water. He saw no force in the observation. They were in fact, and in truth, day laborers, and must, from the nature of their services, continue such. Their predecessors had been so, and had received for upwards of thirty years a per diem, in proportion to their daily services. Yet, it was the first time he had ever heard a whisper as to its baneful influence on their dignity, or that the receipt of a per diem had affected, one way or the other, the standing or respectability of the members of Congress.

Not only their dignity, however, was all of a sudden found to be lessened by the old mode of compensation, but members, it seems likewise to be most unexpectedly discovered, received less than clerks in many of the offices, or those employed to copy their own proceedings; and, it was triumphantly demanded, whether members of that honorable body were not worthy of at least as much compensation as mere quill-drivers. He really did not expect such an argument (well enough adapted, perhaps, to a newspaper paragraph) would have been seriously urged in that House. He would ask in return, whether the

a retrospective operation. When the members of this Congress were elected they well knew they would be entitled to six dollars a day, and no more. They accepted their seats under this express condition. But if the bill passed, each member would receive fifteen hundred dollars for the year ending on the 4th of March, which was already elapsed, and during which they had barely been in session three months. Thus, in stead of $180 a month, or $540 for three months, to which they were now entitled, and which many had already drawn, the members would receive $1,500 each, while the President pro tem. of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, instead of $1,080, to which they would be entitled as the law now stood, would each receive $3,000; the members a per diem at the rate of about seventeen dollars per day, exclusively of the usual allowance for travelling expenses; the President pro tem. of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a per diem of rather upward thirty-three dollars, likewise exclusive of the usual allowance of travelling expenses. The President pro tem., and the Senate, and the Speaker, and House of Rep-question had been fairly stated, or whether there resentatives of the Fourteenth Congress, would consequently receive a gratuity, (for a gratuity, concealed as it might be, it certainly was,) over and above their usual per diem, at the close of a bloody and expensive war, out of the public coffers, to the amount of about $200,000 for their services the three months last past, during which they had literally, and to the best of his recollection, done nothing else but make appropriations, and lay taxes. Yet honorable gentlemen had spoken of this gratuity and augmentation of pay they were about to vote to themselves, as a mere pittance, which the liberality of their constituents would confirm without a second thought on the subject; nay, several had gone so far as to say, if the committee had erred, it was rather in fixing upon a sum too small, than in recommending one too large. He thought very differently. And though he had as much confidence in the liberality of those whom he immediately represented, as any other gentleman could have in that of his immediate constituents, yet when he recollected how liberally taxes had been laid on them already during the present Congress, and the high tariff of duties on foreign importations about to be added to these, by way of bounty to domestic manufactures, he could not find it in his conscience to draw upon their liberality for a gratuity, and an addition to his pay at such a moment, and under such circumstances.

Were there no other objections then to the bill, this extravagant retrospective operation would be a sufficient inducement with him to vote against it. But he had a still stronger, and, in his opinion, unanswerable objection to the bill, on account of the proposed change in the mode of compensation, and the novelty of converting members of the Legislature into salary officers. They were said, indeed, to be mere day laborers, and that it was beneath their dignity to receive a stipend, as though they were mere hewers of wood

was any point of comparison between a clerk who earned his daily bread by personal labor and his skill in figures and penmanship, and a member who was elevated to a seat in that august body; to whose care was committed the destinies of this great and rising Republic. He put it to gentlemen themselves to say, whether it was indeed with a view of making a livelihood, or upon the principle of obtaining compensation for their services, that they sought or accepted of the high, dignified, and responsible situation of a Representative of the people. He was confident that gentlemen, one and all, would spurn at the suggestion. Indeed, the honorable gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. RANDOLPH,) who was one of the most zealous supporters of the bill, had given the most decided negative to any such idea, and the strongest argument in favor of the principle he advocated, when he stated it to be his sober and well-digested opinion, that the members of Congress should not be allowed any pay whatever.

On this point, however, he had the misfortune likewise to differ from that gentleman; and he well remembered, at a former period, and as a member of a former Congress, when "economy and republican frugality and simplicity" were as much the cry and watchword of the day, as are at this time "dignity, and living like gentlemen," he well remembered he had resisted most strenuously a proposal to reduce the pay of members of Congress to three or four dollars a day. He had done so from motives and principles not dissimilar to those which actuated him at present in opposing an increase of pay.

He had always understood that the object of giving a per diem to members, either of the State or National Legislatures, was not by way of a compensation for their services, still less to remunerate them for sacrifices of pecuniary or personal advantages of any kind. No; the real object