complish than it proved to be. For, to exclude these laws from the pension system, would be a virtual exclusion of the other two above cited resolutions of the 24th of August, 1780, and the 15th of May, 1778, and consequently to strike from the pension rolls all the officers, and the widows and orphans, therein provided for. And the same fate would attend all others not embraced in the class of invalid pensioners. The argument of the learned Attorney General, of the 3d of February, 1834, occupies more than ten closely printed octavo pages in the "Opinions of Attorneys General." So that, from its great length, and its inapplicability to any possible contingency hereafter—these laws having continued to be regarded by Congress and the Executive Departments in the class of pension laws, and that argument having served the emergency under which it was written, it would be out of place in this collection, as contravening the settled practice of the Departments in executing those laws.

It will not be amiss, however, to state here, and to make a remark thereon, as pertinent to the main subject of this Introduction, that the chief reliance of the Attorney General, to show that these laws are not pension laws, is, that the pay, compensation, or half pay, conferred on the officers who had rendered the service described, and on their widows, &c., was not called a pension by those acts; and that the acts of the 7th June, 1832, and of the 15th May, 1828, were ordered to be executed at the Treasury Department. But these allegations, respecting those laws, though true, will readily be perceived not in the least to impugn their classification as pension laws, and the pecuniary provisions they contain as pensions. The single fact that these laws were, very soon after their passage, ordered by Congress to be executed at the War Department, then having charge of the other military pension laws, goes far to invalidate that part of the Attorney General's argument. In the next place, the fact that other pension laws were then executed in another Department, and that all of them have been from time to time executed at different Departments, must totally set aside all plausibility assumed by this part of the argument, and also show that this or that particular Department, in which these laws were executed, did not necessarily settle the question whether they were pension laws. But, in divesting these laws of the pension feature or denomination, as the learned Attorney General endeavors to do, he plainly insinuates that they properly belong to the pay department of the army; for he contends that they should follow their character of military pay, half pay, compensation, &c., as expressed in the acts themselves. Yet, this would be as far from sustaining the views of the Attorney General, because these provisions of half pay, &c., being pure gratuities, in consideration of eminent services, privations, hardships, and decline of life, in the public service, in the evil consequences of which their widows and orphans must more or less participate, could not fail to be characterized and associated under the general denomination of pensions, and be barred from any association whatever with the established military pay assigned to the great pay department of the army. Nay, any other disposition that could have been made of these gratuities, by the learned Attorney General, or by the authority of Congress, instead of assigning to them the denomination of pensions, would have despoiled them of that beautiful and prepossessing trait they rightfully derive from the benevolent and paternal charms of the pension system, which holds forth to every man that goes into the service of his country the implied paternal promise that he and his shall not be forgotten in the extremities that may come upon them, even if they should escape personal wounds and disabilities which would entitle them to "invalid pensions"-but that disabilities of another character, springing upon them from other sources, mainly because the prime of their lives had been so spent in their country's cause, that they were rendered less able to provide for themselves at last—would yet entitle them and theirs to be cherished in the sympathizing recollections of their grateful country. Accordingly, there has been amply awarded to them, these tokens of gratitude and sympathy for the privations incident

to a military life, and the general disabilities consequent thereto, under the paternal denomination of "pension," in lieu of which any other general denomination would be viewed as odious!

If these remarks be not satisfactory, against the assumption of the learned Attorney General, that the act of the 7th June, 1832, is not a pension law, all further doubt will be removed by referring to the resolution of the 2d of March, 1833, [155] p. 185, of this compilation, passed less than one year after the act of June, 1832, which says “that in the execution of the said act of June 7th, 1832, wherever it shall be made to appear that any applicant for a pension, under said act, entered the army of the revolution previous to the 11th of April, 1783, and continued in service until after that period," &c. It is not material here to form a conjecture how this resolution, passed during the incumbency of Mr. Attorney General Butler, characterizing the aforesaid act as a pension law, should have escaped the observance of his all-searching eye.

Not to multiply evidence unnecessarily, from the highest authority, we shall barely advert to the opinion of the immediate predecessor of Mr. Butler, Mr. Taney, now Chief Justice of the United States, in which he speaks of this act throughout as a pension law. He commences that opinion saying, "The act of June 7th, 1832, granting pensions for revolutionary services, is not confined to resident American citizens. The 1st section gives the pension to 'each of the surviving officers, non-commissioned officers, musicians, soldiers, and Indian spies, who served in the continental line,'" &c. &c.-(See opinion, October 27, 1832, [35,] Appendix I.

But, to return from this important digression, the new feature before mentioned, of munificent gratuities for eminent services and privations, having been introduced by the resolution of the 15th of May, 1778, and confirmed by the resolutions of the 24th of August and 21st of October, 1780, and varied only in certain cases by the commutation resolution of the 22d of March, 1783, which, by extending the principles of the preceding resolutions, in part, gave earnest of the subsequent enactments of the 18th March, 1818, the 15th May, 1828, the 7th June, 1832, and their supplementary acts, establishing a class of complimental pensions, supplying the deficiencies of those former resolutions, by making provisions for the indigence, the privations, the hardships, and disabilities of less definite character than those of invalids, but necessarily incident to the military life; thereby establishing the gratuity of full pay for life to the survivors, embracing their widows and orphans, down to the time when they are no more; which, taken in connection with the co-ordinate provisions for the widows and orphans of invalids, revolutionary and since the revolution, make a grand class of gratuitous pensions, of two descriptions; that of full pay, to the survivors for life, and their widows, entirely gratuitous in its origin; and that of half pay, to the widows and orphans of invalids, which being emanations from invalids, are not gratuitous in their origin, but might well be regarded as the counterparts of invalid pensions, though not granted for life, except by periodical extensions of five years, till they are no more.

In like manner did the bounty land resolution of the 16th of September, 1776, passed in anticipation of this complement to invalid pensions, furnish an auxiliary, also, in its way, to the pension system, properly so called, by instituting land bounties; but in various proportions, and more restricted in regard to denominations and dignity of service that is, restricted to officers exclusively, and to those of the army alone, or, rather, exclusive of the naval service alone for bounty lands were amply provided for refugees and deserters from the enemy, to be noted hereafter.

Having thus far established the three great foundations of the entire pension system, consisting of invalid pensions, gratuitous pensions, and land bounties, it only remained to carry out its fundamental principles according to the expanding and liberal policy of the Government, by bringing upon that great pension platform all the objects deemed worthy of the country's bounty and support, in the different ways it had sketched out, in

order to complete the details of the system. And though we shall find it, in the course of time, extended by that liberal policy to many parties not actually participating in physical disabilities, or privations, and hardships, in the military or naval service; yet, in every instance, these metes of justice, and tokens of gratitude, will be found very appropriately to range under either invalid pensions, gratuitous pensions, or land bounties. Such being the ascertained outlines of the system established at an early period during the revolution, it will now be comparatively easy to show on what classes or descriptions of persons Congress thought proper to confer each or either of those evidences of their justice and grateful regard: in other words, to show how the fundamental principles and policy of this system were afterwards extended so as to embrace all persons worthy of their provisions, besides those connected with the military and naval service proper; and how they maintained their consistency in that extension of the national policy, or became occasionally irregular in their details, as to particular laws or classes of acts, and the administration of them: for example, that immense class of laws making provision for Virginia military bounty lands, had circumstances peculiar to distinguish them from all other land bounties, and have always been executed separate from them, and chiefly at the General Land Office.

FIRST. OF INVALID PENSIONS.

It will be proper to consider invalid pensions under two heads; those granted to invalids of the revolution, and those granted to invalids since the revolution; on account of the difference of circumstances and regulations which bring the invalids of those different periods on the invalid pension rolls. It will be perceived that these two heads embrace not only the invalids of the regular military service, and the invalids of the naval service proper, but also the invalids of the marine, the privateer, seafencible, ranger, and volunteer service of the United States, as these respective auxiliary branches have been instituted and provided for from time to time, in connexion with the regular military and naval service, under the emergencies and the policy of the government demanding them.

1. Invalids of the Revolution-Military and Naval conjointly.-Officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, of the army and navy, also musicians, soldiers, marines, seamen, and privateersmen, who lost a limb, or were otherwise disabled in the line of their duty, including militia and volunteers, as well as those who, after disability incurred, resigned their commissions and were discharged, or were taken captive by the enemy, and so remained, or on parole, to the end of the war, were entitled to pensions adequate to their support during life, or the continuance of their disability, not to exceed their half pay as officers, soldiers, marines, or seamen, for complete disability, and a less rate according to the diminished rate of disability-the period of the war being defined to be from the commencement of hostilities on the 19th of April, 1775, to the definitive treaty of peace on the 11th of April, 1783—all arrears of pensions due to said invalid pensioners at their death, being subject to be paid to their widows, orphans, or legal representatives at which time they fall into the class of gratuitous pensions. The various resolutions and acts of Congress providing for these invalids, will be found appropriately referred to in the table of analysis at the conclusion of this Introduction. The mode adopted by Congress to find out and procure authentic lists of these invalids, was, to recommend to the State legislatures to provide for and pay such invalids in their respective States, on account of the United States, and transmit a report of the same, quarterly, to the Secretary of Congress or the Board of War, (see resolution [1] page 1, articles 4, 5, 6, 7;) and subsequently, to require the judges of district and circuit courts, on their clerk of court making due publication, to entertain the proper proceedings to ascertain, and transmit authentic lists of such invalids to the Secretary of War for his inspection and comparison with the military rolls in his office, and re

port the said lists, with his remarks and suggestions to Congress, that said invalids might be provided for, and be directed to be placed on the pension roll by the Secretary of War.-(See act of the 23d March, 1792, [9,] p. 24.)

The act of 28th February, 1793, [12] p. 29, stating that the said pension act (of 1792) "is found by experience to be inadequate to prevent the admission of improper claims to invalid pensions, and not to contain a sufficient facility for the allowance of such as may be well founded," repealed the 2d, 3d and 4th sections of the aforesaid act, and prescribed rules to be observed in the investigation of those claims, and repeated the injunctions on the court to transmit to the Secretary of War a list of those claiming, accompanied with the evidence therein directed.

But the act of the 10th of April, 1806, [35,] p. 52, repealed these and all other acts, so far as they authorized persons to be placed on the pension rolls, for, and in consequence of wounds received in the revolutionary war, and prescribed other rules and regulations for the government of the courts in preparing and transmitting the lists of claimants, with the evidence in their behalf, to the Secretary of War, to be reported to Congress, with his remarks.

So that under these regulations and others subsequently adopted, the lists of claimants to revolutionary invalid pensions, as likewise claims for increase of pensions, as provided for by law, continued to be transmitted by the courts to the Secretary of War, until the act of the 3d of March, 1819, [73,] p. 131, sec. 4, authorized the Secretary of War thereafter, to place on the pension rolls, "without reporting said lists to Congress," all persons entitled to pensions in conformity with the provisions of the act of the 10th of April, 1806, and the 4th section of the act of the 25th of April, 1808. Nor is it unworthy of remark here, that under the proceedings in court, required by those laws, a principle was matured in ascertaining the degrees of disability, whereby, commencing with complete disability, they discriminated all grades of disability down to nothing, designating them accordingly, as seven-eighths of disability, half disability, one-eighth disability, and all intermediate grades, entitling such invalids to a full pension, seven-eighths of a pension, one-half of a pension, one-eighth of a pension, &c., which would baffle the efforts of modern skill to ascertain such minute grades of disability—the surgeons making surveys of disability in latter days, being generally content with reporting, on an average, one-half, three-fourths, or complete disability, without going into the calculation of minute fractions of disability. For further light respecting revolutionary invalid pensions, we must see the analysis appended to this Introduction, and the several acts there referred to, and particularly to the acts concerning invalid pensions, directing the list of invalids they contain to be placed on the pension rolls. These latter constitute a feature peculiar to the treatment of revolutionary invalid claims, there being no such process for ascertaining and verifying, in the courts, the claims of invalids disabled since the revolution, as will be seen under that head here next ensuing.

2. Invalids since the Revolution-Military and Naval separately.-First, Military.Whilst the interests of revolutionary invalids were receiving great attention, even down to the present time, invalids disabled since the revolution were also participating in the bountiful consideration of Congress, as early as the first act passed after the war, "for regulating the military establishment of the United States," of the 30th of April, 1790, [2,] p. 17. By that act, ordering the enlistment of "able bodied men," it was provided that if any commissioned, or non-commissioned officer, musician, or private, shall be wounded or disabled, while in the line of his duty, he shall be placed on the list of invalids of the United States, at such rates of pay, under such rules and regulations as shall be directed by the PRESIDENT, for the time being, not to exceed, for the highest disability, half the monthly pay at the time of the wound, for commissioned officers, and never to exceed five dollars a month for non-commissioned officers, musi

cians, and privates; and for inferior disability, sums proportioned to those for the highest disability.—(See the act itself for the 30th of April, 1790, [2,] p. 17.

The provisions and restrictions in relation to disabilities that might occur in the regiment of three years' men ordered to be enlisted into the service of the United States by this act, to be executed under regulations by the President, were continued from time to time, and applied to the claims of persons who might be disabled in other regiments of the regular army, the militia and volunteer corps called into the service of the United States by subsequent acts, until the passage of the act of the 25th of April, 1808, [38,] p. 60, as may be seen by the acts referred to in the table of analysis under this head. By this latter act, however, the claims of invalids of the regular army, militia, and volunteer corps, disabled in the service of the United States since the revolutionary war, were ordered to be thereafter placed on the pension roll at the rates, and under the new regulations prescribed by the act of the 10th of April, 1806, [35,] p. 52, further providing for invalids disabled in the war of the revolution, whereby the claims of invalids disabled during the revolution, and since the revolution, became assimilated, and in every practical sense identified, except as to the periods of their disability during or since the revolution, whereby, nevertheless, it was easy to preserve these pension rolls distinct. From that time the provisions for invalids of this last mentioned act were continued and executed under the same regulations therein prescribed, until the passage of the act of the 3d of March, 1815, [56,] p. 106, (including the provisions for invalids in the corps of rangers and sea fencibles, raised by the act of January 2, 1812, and the act of July 26, 1813,) with the exception of the invalids of the campaign of the Wabash, who were required by the act of the 10th of April, 1812, [47,] p. 83, to be placed on the pension roll at rates to be prescribed by the PRESIDENT, and under regulations to be adopted by the Secretary of War. But the aforesaid act of the 3d of March, 1815, adopted the same provisions for wounds and disabilities of officers and privates of the peace establishment of 1815, that were adopted for the peace establishment of 1802, under regulations at the discretion of the PRESIDENT. And again, the act of the 16th of April, 1816, [58,] p. 110, authorizes and directs that invalids disabled during the late war (of 1812 and 1815) be placed on the pension roll under rules of evidence to be prescribed by the PRESIDENT, provided they do not interfere with those prescribed by the act of the 2d of August, 1813, [51,] p. 100, which act, by the bye, had adopted the regulations of the aforesaid act of the 10th of April, 1806; and consequently those regulations were again brought into operation, virtually repealing those applied to claims of invalids of the peace establishments of 1802 and 1815. And we have seen under the preceding head that the act of the 3d of March, 1819, established new rules and regulations for ascertaining disabilities of invalids incurred during and since the revolution; so that if we had not now nearly exhausted this subject, we might well say that no further evidence can be necessary to show the instability of legislation in prescribing rules and regulations for the ascertainment and adjudication of invalid pension claims, and the rates of pensions to be awarded. But it may be satisfactory to know that there is very little variation in the practice of either, inasmuch as, whenever these are left to the discretion of the President or of the heads of departments, the most approved legal provisions in like cases are adopted by them.

2. Navy Invalids since the Revolution.—Although the practice of making pension provisions in the same laws for invalids both of the army and navy, commenced with the revolution, and was continued thus conjointly during the war, and has been partially introduced in the same enactments in regard to other denominations of pensions since the revolution, a disposition was manifested early thereafter, as perceived under the preceding head, to make separate provisions for the military, from the naval invalids, which was consummated some fifteen years afterwards, in regard to the navy invalids, by the act of March 2d, 1799, “for the government of the Navy of the United States,"