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explained, in courts and elsewhere, and see them applied to the every day transactions of life, until they become comparatively familiar with them. With national laws it is different. It is believed that not one in a thousand of our citizens ever attended a national court, or saw a volume of national statutes or reports. Except in commercial places, few even of the most learned members of the legal profession profess to understand the laws of Congress. The mass of the people have no opportunity to see or learn our national laws. Still they are bound to know them. But should they find our statutes, as now published, could they understand them? Place them in the hands of a citizen, or even of a good lawyer, who has not practiced in the national courts, can he ascertain from them what the statute law is? It is thought the task would be well-nigh impossible. "Out of two hundred and ninety acts relating to the judiciary, not over one hundred pages of the whole are now in force. Some of these acts have been repealed, while an occasional provision has been annulled by judicial interpretation, as unauthorized by the constitution. But which acts are in force, and which not, is not easily determined even by the best jurists. Owing to this difficulty, it is understood that officers in the departments, who have devoted years to particular branches of the public service, are often in doubt as to what the law really is. This difficulty is greatly increased by numerous authorized instructions issued by the departments, having the force and effect of statutes. These extend to volumes, and are so complicated as to render it doubtful which are binding. The Government is often involved in litigation growing out of these instructions. Suits of this character are now pending in our national courts, and one among them involving the question whether a particular instruction was really in force or not.

"If these laws and instructions embarrass the officers of the Government, and are questionable before the judiciary, can it be expected that masters and owners of vessels, the sailor, the soldier, the ordinary citizen, and the stranger, can understand them? The thing is impossible. The national laws are not and cannot now be understood by those who are bound to know and obey them, at the hazard of life, liberty, and property. They should be revised and compressed, as they well can be, into one common sized volume, and placed within the reach of every citizen at simple cost, if not without expense. To say nothing of foreign governments, most of the States composing the confederacy have set the example of revising their statutes, bringing them into as small a compass as practicable.

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"Our statutes are scattered through sixty years of legislation. In their most compact form they extend to about four thousand very large pages of fine print, without any reliable evidence to distinguish those which are in force from those that are obsolete or repealed. The ablest and most learned lawyers often differ in opinion whether certain statutes are in force or not. At each session laws are passed repealing or changing former ones, in a manner to increase this difficulty. We often see it provided that a law referred to shall not be construed to mean what is specified in it. Statutes are frequently repealed by enacting "that all acts and parts of acts which are inconsistent with the provisions of this act, are hereby repealed." What is thus repealed is often involved in doubt, especially when several acts have been passed on the same subject, with similar repealing clauses. Acts are often passed referring to and adopting others," &c.

Some of the instances cited from the laws by the honorable Solicitor, to elucidate and enforce the correctness of his remarks and his suggestions of redress, might be deemed to border on the ludicrous, if they were not too serious for merriment. In regard to one of the legislative practices above mentioned by him, viz:-that we often see it provided, that a law referred to "shall not be construed to mean what is specified in it," a further illustration obtains in the 11th amendment of the constitution, which may be the precedent in these cases, as there is no instance before it—a device probably resorted to, to give the amendment a commendable seeming, as a bona fide explanation of a previously existing obscurity. The part of the constitution so amended occurs in Bec. 2 of article 3. The 1st section of the article designates the tribunals of the judi cial power, their term of office, and their compensation, viz:

Article 3, section 2, says, "1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this constitution, &c. &c., and goes on to enumerate all the classes of cases to which it shall extend, among which are these "to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States; to con

troversies between a State and citizens of another State; to controversies between citizens of different States; to controversies between citizens of different States claiming lands under grants of different States; and to controversies between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign States, citizens or subjects (of a foreign State.)

The eleventh amendment says "The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State; or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State." Now it is obvious, by comparing the passages in the Constitution as it stood and in the amendment, as they are given above, in italics, that the construction forbidden to be made, refers to powers not dubiously expressed, requiring explanation or construction, but expressed in the most explicit terms the English language affords, and the very reverse of those required by the construction interposed and foisted upon them by the amendment, enacting the absurdity of legalizing a perverted meaning, incompatible with, and in contravention of the established and universally received acceptation of those terms. Whereas, to have attempted to alter the constitution without the artifice of this circumvention, but in direct and frank terms, expunging these salutary powers, and yet leaving untouched, the others of the same identical character, relating to controversies between other parties not less objectionable, but to which no objection was made, i. e. the controversies between States; the controversies between citizens of different States; and the controversies between a state or the citizens thereof, and the citizens or subjects of foreign States-the expunging would probably not have been enacted. It need hardly be asked why not also have cognizance of controversies in the cases expunged by the amendment-resulting in a deterioration instead of an amendment. (See the subject of the judicial power, treated somewhat at large, in a series of notations in Mayo's work on the Treasury, or "United States Fiscal Department," page 427.)

To continue this discussion a little further (if such it be) we will advert to a single other instance of legal perversions which tend to confound the purposes of many of the laws. The act of the 15th May, 1828, has been construed by law (without saying so in terms) to apply to revolutionary officers of the navy as well as those of the army, while there is no phraseology in the act itself on which that interpretation could be predicated. The title of the act, (page 150,) is "for the relief of certain surviving officers and soldiers of the revolution." Nor does the body of the act impugn the title, but confines itself to that object in terms. The act of May 26, 1830, (page 274,) for the relief of Captain Edgar, of the navy, equivocating on the word "Captain" used in the act of May, 1828, in reference to captains of the army, says: "The proper accounting officer of the Treasury is hereby authorized to pay to General John Edgar, heretofore an acting captain in the navy during the revolutionary war, the same sum in gross, and the same pay during his life, which other captains received in virtue of the provisions of the act of Congress, entitled, an act," &c., reciting the title, and the act of the 15th May, 1828; thereby virtually declaring that navy captains were in receipt of pensions under the authority of that act, though it does not appear that any others but captains and other officers and soldiers of the army, were so included, even by the license of forced construction; nor does it appear that any opinion has been given to justify such a farfetched construction. It is no doubt one of the many instances in which the artifices of parties interested contrive to obtain the amount of such false claims without detection or suspicion.

2. Returning from this digression, it may have its use, though apparently a very small matter, to explain the irregularities observable in the numerical sequence of the chapters of laws in this compilation. It will be perceived that there are two irregu larities in this respect. The one shows a want of orderly sequence in any two or more chapters; and the other shows an occasional variation or interval in the sudden fall

from several hundred in the number of a preceding chapter, to a very low number in the succeeding one, as occurs between chapter 365, and the succeeding chapter 30, (at page 44;) and also between chapter 459, and the succeeding chapter 25, (at page 51-52.) The first irregularity is owing to the intervening numbers being affixed to laws on other subjects than pension and bounty lands; and the second, is owing, in some instances, as just cited, to the concluding series of one volume of the laws and the beginning series of another, coming together in this volume; and in other instances, the like chasm occurs in passing from one pamphlet edition of a session's acts to those of a subsequent session, as may be seen at page 168, in reference to the pamphlet edition of the acts of the session of 1831, and those of the session of 1832. For, the numbering of the chapters of laws in a volume is arbitrarily made by the publishers, in reference to the orderly contents of the volume; while the numbering of those in a pamphlet edition, of session's acts, is made in reference to the contents of the pamphlet. It is obvious, then, that neither of these irregularities could have been remedied, even if it were desirable to do so on other accounts-except by effacing the original numbers entirely, and substituting an orderly series of our own for this compilation. But that would have afforded no convenience beyond what is desirable from the numbers in sequence, given in brackets, over each act, affording the means of discrimination between acts of the same dates; while the effacing of the original numbers of the chapters would have somewhat impaired the identity of the acts, without an equivalent benefit or convenience resulting. Besides, in a work like this, these irregularities in the numeration of the chapters are not so offensive to the eye, where an impracticable punctiliousness could not be expected, as are the chasms in the numerations of chapters in the standard edition of the laws, occasioned by plucking out the private acts, to throw them into separate volumes, apart from the public acts: so different, too, from the regular sequence adopted in former editions. This unseemly irregularity could well have been avoided, by adopting a dual series of numbers at the same time this change was made. But, inasmuch as neither the chapter nor the title of an act, nor even the side notes, nor abstracts, or digests, constitute any part of the law, they may be done, at the prudent discretion of Editors, with what they may conceive to be a proper regard for CONVENIENCE and for TRUTH.

3. Conflicting Opinions and Decisions.—It will also strike the least observing minds, from the abundant evidence afforded in the Appendix to this work, that a vast amount of labor is continually thrown upon Attorney Generals, for their opinions on pension cases of the same import, resulting often in repetitions, and sometimes in conflicting opinions, in cases involving the same principle—a labor, too, that finds its parallel in the like that is also thrown upon the heads of Departments who have had charge of the pension business, in making decisions upon cases of similar import, resulting likewise in repetitions and conflicting decisions-of which these are no less embarrassing to those having business to transact at the office, than the former are to the office itself in reconciling their discordant views. Instances of these repetitions, and conflicting opinions and decisions, may be found under every class or denomination of pensions. In illustration of this, it will be sufficient to refer to the instances of repetitions of opinions noted at page 450, Appendix I. For the similar discrepancies that take place between the decisions and regulations of successive Secretaries, it will be sufficient to advert to the frequent instances to be met with in Appendix II, in which they find themselves under the necessity to rescind the decisions and regulations of their predecessors. It is nevertheless true that some of these are merely seeming conflictions, either of opinions or decisions, as they arise in some instances from acts being explained, at different intervals, not to mean what the plain terms of the law had conveyed before the explanation; while others are owing to the difference of legal provisions for navy pensions and army pensions, and those for the widows of either in certain cases.

The most of these annoyances have been occasioned by not keeping a separate record of those opinions, decisions and regulations, with an index of their respective subjects, in the office having continually returning occasions for reference to their authority; for want of which, recourse is necessarily had, again and again, to the original authority itself, for renewals of the never-ending labor, to repeat what already exists in various shapes, but lost in the mass of original files and documents, whose office arrangements can have no reference to the particular opinions or decisions it may be desirable to consult.

We will not say that this deficiency is peculiar to the pension office; for we do not yet know what Department is entirely exempt from a deficiency, more or less, in these conveniences for ready reference in every distinct branch of official duty, so essential to a consistent action and despatch of public business. The Government was more than thirty-five years old before there was a record of opinions in the Attorney General's office. (See note on No. 1, Appendix I, p. 353.) But we learn that now, after thirty years more, since the recording commenced, those documents are indexed as they are recorded. The like reformation, in recording and indexing the decisions of the Department, in regard to the adjudication of pension claims, has been recently introduced by the present Commissioner of Pensions, Judge Waldo, commenced in 1853; and the Second Comptroller, Doctor Brodhead, has recently introduced a like separate record and index of the principles and iustructions of his office, in regard to disbursements and the settlement of accounts, and particularly in relation to the payment of pensions; from each of which a summary will be found in the SUPPLEMENT at the end of this work. We must not omit, however, here to note another partial source of discrepancies, which exists in the license that is sometimes assumed by Attorney Generals, in revising or rescinding the opinions of their predecessors; a license that would seem the more exceptionable, as these opinions generally affect money claims-to say nothing of the deference of courts for precedents; in which light (of precedent) the legal opinion of a predecessor might be regarded by a successor in the law department, unless new and palpable evidence be adduced to justify and demand a reconsideration of such opinion. In former times the executive departments deferred to the legal opinions of the law officer of the Government as bearing the full obligation of law. Mr. Hamilton, in his treasury circular of the 22d July, 1792, vol. 1, p. 116, to Collectors of the Custom, rescinded his previous decision of the 30th November, 1789, made in the absence of the Attorney General, respecting the fees of Collectors in certain cases, having referred the subject, by request of the Collectors, to the Attorney General, whose opinion, as the law officer of the Government, he considered obligatory. Accordingly the opinion given by the Attorney General, on this question of fees, was adopted and carried out by the Secretary, "though the Secretary retained his original judgment unshaken by the argument of the Attorney General." And Mr. Dallas, at a subsequent time, as acting Secretary of War, (when Secretary of the Treasury,) endorsed on the opinion of the Attorney General, Richard Rush, on a pension question, these words: "The opinion of the Attorney General is to govern in all applications for pensions. A. J. DALLAS, July 26, 1815." And although these opinions are now regurded as advisory only, yet they are as scrupulously conformed to, as the law itself; otherwise there might be a ground of just reproach for wantonly calling for them, at the cost of great labor and research, to be set at naught by the Departments. Nor can a head of Department re-open a case that has been decided by a predecessor, merely to revise or reconsider his judgment; it being necessary to justify and obtain the re-opening of any case, to produce additional testimony not before under consideration, which would have been entitled to vary the judgment first given.-(See Secretary Ewing's decision, Appendix II, April 17, 1850, No. [88.] See, also, Mr. Berrion's opinion, Appendix I, Dec. 17, 1829, No. [25.]

4. Vested Rights and Arrears of Pensions.-It will be no less observable that great confusion frequently occurs by opinions and decisions confounding vested rights to pensions with arrearages of pensions; and likewise by confounding the imperfect right or claim to a pension cumulative through various periods, but has never been set up or allowed, with alleged arrearages, supposed to have been running on through such periods. Whereas a vested right is based either on a previous promise of law, as an inducement to service, or on an allowance by pension certificate, whether on the authority of a general or a special act, without or with antecedent promise of law. On the other hand, arrearages are based solely on pension certificates previously granted, and on which a payment has been made, but the instalments of which, being liable to accumulate, thus become arrearages, and in no other way. Hence VESTED RIGHTS to pensions always include arrearages of pensions in the course of payment, as well as rights under promise of law, or grant of special act, not yet adjudicated at the office; while ARREARAGES only embrace or correspond with one of these two classes of vested rights. The anomalous act of the 3d March, 1837, honored with the cognomen of JARVIS ACT, is alleged, however, to provide for arrearages of pensions, as therein assumed to be applicable to persons to whom it had never entered into the contemplation of any former act to allow pensions; nor could pensions ever be allowed to such persons under any act that should be drawn in conformity with the established principles on which pension laws had theretofore been drawn. Yet, decoyed by the disguise of a captivating and delusive ideality, nearly every opinion and decision has (inadvertently, of course) been given to speak of those strange, anomalous gratuities as arrearages. So also have some vested rights to pensions not yet allowed by official adjudication, been erroneously called arrearages. A due discrimination in these respects might probably detect many fallacies in pension claims.

5. Rules of Decisions and Rules of Regulations.—A proper discrimination seems also to be called for between certain other technicalities of office. As OPINIONS and DECISIONS in individual cases become rules of action in the department in all similar cases, as well as precedents for opinions and decisions in similar cases thereafter, (unless overruled by successors in office, for which there is no adequate restraint but a sound discretion;) so also do REGULATIONS and FORMS become rules of action for the government of claimants and agents in preparing and presenting their claims, and rules for the observance of the office itself, as adjuvants to opinions and decisions in adjudicating those claims. Hence decisions and rules are convertible terms in the former sense; and regulations and rules are convertible terms in the latter sense. Therefore rules in the one sense are distinct from rules in the other sense. But the term rules has been used so indiscriminately as one and the same, without regard to the above distinction, that it is difficult, on some occasions and under some circumstances, to maintain the proper discrimination between the rules that are synonymous with decisions, and the rules that are synonymous with regulations. Yet, while the former rules purport to be the decisions of judgment under the law, and the latter rules purport to be the regulations and forms of action necessary for the execution of those decisions, it became essential for us continually to bear in mind this discrimination between these two classes of rules in order accurately to arrange and dispose of the one under Appendix II, embracing decisions, and the other under Appendix III, embracing regulations and forms. If we have not entirely succeeded in this, it is because some decisions are blended with regulations in the same documents, through inadvertence to a proper discrimination elsewhere, which was not deemed of sufficient consequence to dissect, but rather let them go to the class of decisions or of regulations, as the preponderance of either might dictate.

6. Incongruities of Pension and Bounty Land provisions. It is likewise observable from this compilation, passim, that there has been, for a long time, a vague and indiscriminate mode of making appropriations for the payment of pensions, which, even to