Sir, said Mr. B. I may be asked if I am unwilling to afford these sufferers any relief? I answer, without hesitation, I am not. They have claims upon our generosity, not upon our justice. I would mitigate their calamities, not indemnity them for their losses. They have suffered more than the common misfortunes of war; they are therefore entitled to the compassion of a paternal government. I would grant them such relief as, whilst it would not be too burdensome on the Treasury, nor produce those ruinous consequences to the nation which must result from establishing as a principle that we will pay the value of private property destroyed by the enemy in violation of the laws of war, might yet mitigate their sufferings. I believe I know several gentlemen of the committee to be of the same opinion. I would give them 150,000 or 200,000 dollars, to be distributed pro rata, in full satisfaction of all demands. If, said Mr. B., you adopt a priciple of this nature, you will at once know the extent of your donation, and you will make it the interest of the sufferers themselves to watch over the claims of each other, and see that none are established except those which are supported by principles of jus

tice.

[JAN. 3, 1825.

thought, would be to adhere to the rule already laid down, as by the act of 1816, &c.

Mr. STORRS said, that it appeared to him to be high time that the House should be brought back to the question actually before it, from which the debate had con siderably wandered. This was no question as to paying for all the losses sustained by the incursion of the enemy on the Niagara frontier. There was not, he said, one twentieth part of the destruction upon that frontier proposed to be provided for by this bill, which referred only to the cases of certain persons, whose buildings were actually in occupation as barracks, or military store houses, &c.

With respect to the suggestion that Buffalo was burnt in contravention of the capitulation, Mr. S. said, that very capitulation showed the sense in which the British understood the occupation of that village. By the capitulation, private property was to be respected. But, where this private property was occupied by the public, it was burnt, because it was not private property, in the sense of the capitulation, but public. The very citation of that capitulation, showed what were the views which the enemy entertained of the character of the private property converted to public use at Buffalo.

?

Mr. MALLARY, of Vermont, said, that, in giving a vote upon this bill, he should do so with reference equal- This bill, Mr. S. said, as far as he understood it, would ly to the policy of the Government and the claims of in- cover losses to the amount of an hundred and fifty, or dividuals. It was well known, he said, that at the time two hundred thousand dollars, on that frontier It would of the passage of the law of 1816, and the amendatory also, however, cover losses in other portions of the law of 1817, there had been a serious investigation of Union. It was not a bill for the Niagara frontier, or the merits of those laws. Ten years have elapsed since for the state of New York; it was to cover losses in the passage of those laws, and Mr. M asked if it was not other parts of the United States; and yet, said he, we are almost impossible now to establish a rule, different from told it is to scatter a million of dollars from the Treasury that which was established when the subject was fresh among the inhabitants of the Niagara frontier. Let us in the minds of the members. As a matter of expedien-have done with these arguments, said Mr. S. and come cy, he thought there would be very great difficulty in to the merits of the bill, which apply equally to all ascertaining any other rule by which those claims could parts of the Union. If the object of the bill be just, hobe disposed of. The inquiry then was, What has the norable, and fair, the amount of the money it will reGovernment done, and in what condition are the claims quire ought to be no object. of these individuals? Some gentlemen had expressed a We are brought back, said he, to this question: whewish that these claims should be decided upon the prin- ther property of individuals, so occupied as to give it a ciple of the law of 1816. Mr. M. said, he was perfectly military character, may be lawfully destroyed. What, sir! willing, for his part, that those claims should be pre-Is it at this day to be maintained, that a military cantonsented, and determined, upon the rule of the act of 1816, that payment should be made for private houses or other buildings occupied by the United States, and destroyed whilst so occupied. This, he said, was a safe rule, founded on the principles of the Government, recognized by the constitution, that when the Government takes the property of an individual for private purposes, it shall, in such case, make compensation for it if lost or destroyed. But, he said, as for compensating the losses of a whole frontier, destroyed by a wanton act of violence by the enemy, under pretence that our armies had marched in that direction, it was opening so wide a drain upon the Treasury as no Government could safely sustain. Were we to sanction such a principle at this time of day, said Mr. M. we should abandon our duty I would vote any amount of money, said he, which might be necessary to carry into effect the principle of the acts of 1816 and 1817. If there be any individuals on the Niagara frontier whose cases came within the principle of those acts, Mr. M. said, they should cheerfully have his vote, and he presumed they would have the decided and unanimous vote of the House in their favor. The carrying into execution, in favor of claimants, of the Mr. S. supposed the case of a stone house on a fronprinciple of the law of 1816, was all that could be ex-tier, occupied as a military station. That house, he said, pected of Congress, &c.

ment, in the vicinity of a town, may not be destroyed in lawful warfare? That dockyards, marine barracks, arsenals, &c. are not subject to destruction by an enemy It appears to me, on the contrary, that every thing which gives a military character to property, subjects it to destruction. 1 ask, said Mr. S. on what principle was the Parliament House of Little York destroyed by your own troops when you invaded Canada? The barracks at Fort George were destroyed, on its capture, and wherever we invaded Canada, the public property was not spared. And, said he, are we prepared, therefore, to justify the burning of Buffalo? To put into the mouth of our late adversary that argument against us? No, said he: all public property, barracks, arsenals, and military stores, are lawfully subject to destruction-as much so as cannon foundries, which no one will deny the right of an enemy to destroy. An enemy has as much right to destroy the barracks as to destroy the public ships of the country. There must be some sense in which the gentleman from Virginia had spoken of the rights of a belligerant on this subject, which he, (Mr. S.) had failed to comprehend.

was as lawful a subject for destruction as a fort in any other form. So with regard to the village of Buffalo : it was, during the war, one great cantonment, and he could call upon more than one gentleman in this House, whose duty it had been to take possession of the buildings for the military service, or who had knowledge of

As to the idea, which had been suggested by one gen tleman, of opening the Treasury, and scattering among the people on the Niagara frontier a portion of the public funds to enable them to retrieve their losses, Mr. M. apprehended a great many difficulties in the way of such a provision, as to how this fund was to be distri-its being done, &c. buted among the respective sufferers on the Niagara, at Plattsburg, and on the Potomac. The safest course, he

As to charity and humanity to the People of the Niagara frontier, there was no such principle embraced in

JAN. S, 4, 1825.]

Niagara Sufferers.-Imprisonment for debt.

this bill. It was a general bill for the benefit of suffer ers in every part of the Union, and involved a question, not of generosity, but of absolute right,

Mr. COOK, of Illinois, moved to amend the amendment of Mr. STORRS, by adding 'he words "and was abandoned by the United States in consequence of the enemy."

Mr. TAYLOR, of New York, said he should support the original bill, not because it embraced any new principle, but was to carry into effect one already established, and he should oppose the amendment proposed by the gentleman from Illinois, because to adopt them would be to introduce a principle upon which Congress has not yet legislated. It would be difficult, he said, unless the principle of his colleague was the true one, to find any principle on which the Niagara claims should be paid. The construction which had been given, by some of the committees of this House, to the 9th section of the act of 1816, was, that the proviso to it should be so construed as to defeat the object of that section-an interpretation contrary to every rule of construction. What case can occur said he, in which it may not be said, that destruction of property by an enemy was wanton, and could have occurred whether the property had been occupied for the use of the Government or not? The allowance of this objection would destroy, at once, the whole effect of the 9th section of the act of 1816, and it never could have entered into the minds of the framers of that act, that it could be so construed. I was here, said Mr. T. at the passage of the act of 1816, and the object of it, if I understood any thing in regard to it, was to pay for all losses of private property occupied for military purposes, and destroyed according to the rules of civilized warfare. Property so occupied, had become public, and the loss of it ought to fall on the public, to whose use it had been converted.

[H. of R. & Sen.

an extension of the principle of the act of 1816, and of giving to the 9th section the only construction which, upon legal principles, it appears to me possible to give to it. We are led astray, in debating this subject, by going into a consideration of motives on the part of the enemy. We lose sight of the facts of the occupation of the property by the enemy, and we go to the motive of the destruction on the part of the enemy. In doing so, you ask for what you cannot obtain. There may have been a variety of motives, and in that case you must go into a metaphysical inquiry, to ascertain which of them was the predominating motive. This, Mr. T. said, was the cause of the error into which some gentlemen had fallen, which they would have avoided by confining their attention to facts, &c.

On motion of Mr. ROSS, of Ohio, the committee then rose, reported progress, and obtained leave to sit again.

IN SENATE-TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1825. bill "to abolish imprisonment for debt," The Senate having resumed the consideration of the

The first part of the first section of the bill being as follows:-"That no bail or security for the appearance of any defendant or defendants shall hereafter be required upon the service of the original, or mesne process, issuing out of the Courts of the United States, in any action or suit whatever, founded on contract, express or implied, which shall be made or entered into after the 4th of July next, unless the plaintiff, or some other person, shall make oath or affirmation, before the clerk or officer attesting the said process, who is hereby empowered to administer the same, or before some other person authorized by law to administer oaths, that the defendant or defendants named in the process, are justly indebted to the plaintiff or plaintiffs in the sum claimed by him or them, and shall further make oath or affirmation, that he or they have reason to believe that the said defendant or defendants intend to remove from the state or territory, or intend to leave the United States:"

Mr. TAZEWELL moved, for reasons which he assigned in some detail, to strike out the clause printed above in italics.

Mr. TAZEWELL and Mr. MILLS severally supported the amendment at considerable length, as expedient and necessary, without any intention to impair the principle of the bill, or limit its scope more than the rights of creditors, as well as debtors, required.

Mr. JOHNSTON, of Louisiana, delivered at large his sentiments in support of the bill and against the amendment.

The report of the Committee of Claims, in 1818, proved, conclusively, that the committee themselves believed there were many cases of property destroyed on the Niagara frontier, which, upon the principles of the acts of 1816 and 1817, Congress were bound to provide for. Mr. T. quoted the report to show this admission, and to show, also, the reasoning of the committee that, because some of the claims were not of this description, they would therefore pay for none of them. This report was Mr.JOHNSON, of Kentucky,deeming this proposition concluded by a recommendation of the allowance of fif. to effect, in a considerable degree, the principle of the ty per cent. of the amount of loss proved upon build- bill, opposed it with much earnestness. Mr. VAN BUings, and thirty per cent. on the amount of other proper-REN also opposed the amendment at some length. ty destroyed, without discrimination-and why? For this reason: that the loss by wanton destruction of property was as severe as the other, and grew out of the destruction of property that was occupied by the military, &c. If it were true that these were cases of destruction of buildings, because of their military occupation, was it for Congress to say to the claimants, in those cases: we will not pay you, because others have had their proper ty destroyed under the influence of other considerations? The principle of the amendment, now under consideration, was, that, as it is the duty of the Government to protect the property of individuals, it must, in all cases, pay for losses of it. Now, Mr. T. said, he admitted it to be the duty of a Government to grant protection to its citizens, but it was a duty qualified by the extent of the ability of the Government, and of course not exceed ing it. Was it a fact that private property, occupied during the late war by the Government, had been destroyed to such an extent, that the Treasury was unable to pay for it? When such a case exists, let it be presented and considered of: but such was not the case now. The total amount of private property lost in that way, throughout the United States, could scarcely, if at all, exceed a million of dollars. Is it proper, said he, to withhold payment in cases where your own act has been the occasion of the loss?

I rose, said Mr. T. merely to say, that I am in favor of

The question being taken on the amendment proposed by Mr. TAZEWELL, it was decided as follows, by yeas and nays.

YEAS.-Messrs. Barton, Bell, Brown, Chandler, Clay.

ton, Cobb, D'Wolf, Dickerson, Edwards, Elliott, Gaillard, Hayne, King, of N. Y. Lloyd, of Md. Mcllvaine, Mills, Noble, Palmer, Parrott, Ruggles, Seymour, and

Tazewell--22.

NAYS-Messrs. Benton, Bouligny, Branch, Eaton, Findlay, Holmes, of Me. Holmes, of Miss. Jackson, Johnson, of Ken. Johnston, of Lou. Kelly, King, of Ala. Lanman, Lloyd, of Mass. Lowrie, McLean, Macon, Smith, Talbot, Thomas, Van Buren, and Williams.-22.

The Senate being equally divided on the question, the motion to amend was of course lost.

The question was then taken on ordering the bill to be engrossed and read a third time, and was agreed to, without a division.

Naval School-Amendments to the Constitution.

West Point. The House was aware that the Government could assemble the Midshipmen at any point it might judge proper, and thus afford to the Navy some of those benefits which the Army derives from the Aca

The resolution of Mr. LIVINGSTON, proposing a plan for the education of Officers of the Navy, being under consideration, some conversation took place between the mover and Mr. FULLER, who offered an amend-demy at West Point. ment to strike out the whole of the resolution after the word Resolved, and to insert a provision instructing the Committee on Naval Affairs to inquire into the propriety of establishing a school for the instruction of Midshipmen, and other warrant officers of the Navy, when not

the measure proposed by the gentleman from Louisiana, but only to assure that gentleman that this was not the plan which would keep the Navy from "going down" The difficulty lay at a previous point-there was almost no such thing as apprentic s in our merchant service. Merchan's found the applications so numerous, to take out young lads on trial, and the measure was in general attended with so much trouble and so little profit, tnat they generally refused to do it. Hence there was no such thing as a proper nursery for our young seamenand, unless some law was passed compelling ship owners to take a certain quota of apprentices, in proportion to the tonnage they owned, we should soon have no seamen of our own raising. The proper measure was to go at once to the foundation, and, by some such law as he had suggested, provide an effectual nursery for both services. The question was then put on Mr. Livingston's resolution, and lost-58 members only rising in its favor.

Mr. SAUNDERS, of N. C., offered, with a brief explanation, the following proposition:

"Resolved, &c. That the following amendment to the future commanders of our maritime force should be pre-Constitution of the United States be proposed to the pared now, while we have opportunity and time for it. Legislatures of the several states; which, when ratified, But, without a school, this can never be done. The ac- by three-fourths thereof, shall be a part of the said Contual service may make seamen, but it alone will never make officers.

stitution.

"That, for the purpose of choosing a President and Vice President of the United States, each state shall be divided by the Legislature thereof into a number of districts, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which such state may be entitled in the Congress of the United States. Each district shall be composed, as nearly as may be, of contiguous territory, and shall contain a number of persons entitled to vote, as nearly equal as circumstances will permit.

"And on such day as Congress shall determine, which day shall be the same throughout the United States, the citizens of each state, who may be qualified to vote for a Representative in Congress, shall meet at such places, within their respective districts, as the Legislature of each state shall appoint, and in such manner as such Legislature shall direct, shall vote for one person as Elector of President and Vice President; but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an

of Electors appointed; and if two persons have a greater number than one-third, then such person as may have the greatest number; and if no person have one-third of the whole number of electors appointed, then from the persons having the highest number, not execeeding two, on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose, by ballot, and under such rules as they may agree on, the President. But, in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the Representation of each state having one vote: a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President, whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.

"The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice President, shall be the Vice President, if such number be one-third of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if two persons have a greater number than one-third, then such person as may have the highest number; and if no person has one-third of the whole number of Electors appointed, then, from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice President: a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice.

"But no person constitutionally ineligible to the of fice of President, shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States."

The resolution was twice read, and referred to the committee of the whole on the state of the Union, to whom other resolutions on the same subject have been referred.

NIAGARA SUFFERERS.

The House having again resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the bill "for the relief of certain persons who suffered by destruction of their property by the enemy, during the late war"

H. of R.]

committee, when they went into an inquiry, as though the Congress, in passing that act, had not gone according to the received law of nations, and as though some new rule had been then established. It was not so; and, he asked, if the principle of the act of 1816 was a correct one, how Congress could now withhold an extension of that same principle to all the cases justly included within its range? If the Government, when it came out of the late war, flushed with glorious victory, their hearts exulting, and warm with lively gratitude towards those who had raised their country's name by land and on the ocean, could, without regard to nice lines of demarcation, recognize a great principle owned by all civilized nations, and, in accordance with it, had passed the act of 1816, he thought it did not become Congress, at this day, because they find that, in carrying that law into effect, they may chance to have a large sum of money to pay, to begin to quarrel with the law, or deny the principle on which it is founded. He saw no difference between the principle of the present bill and that of the act of 1816, except the proviso in the latter, that it shall be proved that the occupation of the buildings by the United States was the cause of their destruction by the enemy. The present bill assumed this from the two facts of the occupation and the destruction. It holds that, being occupied for military purposes, the buildings became the lawful subjects of military destruction. The omission of that proviso was no objection against the present bill.

But it had been insisted by some gentlemen, that, in order to claim indemnification, the sufferers must show that the occupation continued up to the time when their buildings were destroyed. Agreed. But what is occupation? There is surely a legal constructive occupation by the Government, so long as it is out of the power of the owner to occupy the premises himself. This was the doctrine, as applied to the concerns of individuals, and the same rule equally applied to Government. Although there might not, in fact, have been any of the powder or stores, or any of the soldiers actually in the building when it was destroyed, yet, if it had not been returned by the Government to its owner, it was still in the occupation of the Government. As to the amendment of the gentleman from Illinois, (Mr. Cook,) he did not see that any thing more would be gained by it than was secured by that of the gentleman from New York, (Mr. STORRS.) The one says the premises shall be prov ed to have been abandoned in consequence of the approach of the enemy. The other says it must have been in possession of the Government at, or a short time before, the period of its destruction. If either of these states of things were proved, it would amount to a constructive possession by Government at the time of the destruction-a case provided for by the bill.

Mr. ROSS then rose, and observed that it was not his intention to enter into a discussion of the abstract principle of the bill before the committee. If he understood the principle, as well of the bill as of the amendment now proposed, it did not differ materially from that of the bill of 1816, either in form or substance. He did not know that it would be a very profitable inquiry to go into the intentions of Congress in passing that act; but he believed, if such an investigation were made, it would appear that the intent of Congress was to furnish a rule for ascertaining the amount of damage that had been suffered by persons, whose private property had Does this principle, asked Mr. Ross, vary from the act been taken for the use of the United States, and in such of 1816? I apprehend not. Here Mr. R. referred to circumstances destroyed by the enemy, according to the documents accompanying the report of the committhe laws of civilized warfare. The ninth section of that tee, and in particular to a letter of Mr. Secretary CRAWact, so often referred to in this debate, did not intro- FORD to the Commissioner under that act, in which he duce into our legislation any new principle, i. e. any lays it down as a rule, that the occupation of houses and principle foreign to the acknowledged laws of nations. buildings destroyed must continue up to the time of deif he had rightly understood the gentleman from Vir struction. He argued to show that this must refer to ginia, (Mr. BARBOUR,) who had favored the House with private buildings, and that the occupation need not be a learned and lucid argument on the point, he held that literal. Did it enter into the mind of any reasonable bewhen the Government took any private building for aing so to interpret the law as to require, in order to esmilitary use, and it was then destroyed by the enemy, with a view to benefit himself and to injure us, it was lawfully destroyed, according to the laws of war among civilized nations. Now, the act of 1816 said none other than this. It went upon this principle as taken for granted, and only directed how the debt, acknowledged to be due from Government to the suffer ers, should be ascertained as to its amount. Mr. R. said he thought that, in the previous part of the debate, gentlemen had departed far from the true subject before the VOL. I.-9

tablish a claim for indemnity, that the soldiers, who had been quartered in the houses, must have remained and been burnt under the ruins? He quoted the Secretary's letter to shew that occupation, even for a single night, if in presence of an enemy, amounted to the occupation contemplated by the law. He could not, for his own part, conceive how ingenuity itself could put a different meaning on the law of 1816 than that which he had mentioned. And, if he was right, he did not see why Congress should not, at this day, afford the same relief as

Niagara Sufferers.

they did in 1816 and 1817. That law had been in part acted on by officers of the Government, and a part of the claims had been paid under it. Grant that experience had proven that the act had been poorly worded, and badly executed-was that a reason why Congress should now, from mere sordid and pecuniary motives, withhold payment from the residue of the claimants equally included within its provisions? Gentlemen in their private capacity would not act in this manner; and shall we, asked Mr. Ross, because this Hall contains upward of two hundred men, shelter ourselves from responsibility, and do what we should be ashamed of, each saying by way of apology, “It is not me, it is the Congress of the United States that has done it?" No : let us rather act with boldness, under a due sense of what is our imperative duty.