The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, Eighteenth Congress, First Session, [Volume 2] Page: 1,835
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1835
HISTORY OF CONGRESS.
1836
H. OF R.
Massachusetts Contested Election.
March, 1824.
circumstances, designate an inhabitancy in abey-
ance? Or that it was to be assimilated to what
has been called in this debate the domicil of goods?
Let us discard, sir, these subtle refinements,
■which only lead us from perplexity to absurdity,
and construe this Constitution as we should, ac-
cording to the plain common acceptation of words.
It is a question of common sense merely. The
gentleman has resided in this city more than seven
years j his family are here; his dwelling place is
here; it is his home. He is eligible to any office
under the corporation of the place—a subject of
taxation in the District—liable to jury duties. I
repeat the question which I put to the Committee
before. It has not yet been answered. If this
District was entitled to a delegate in this House,
whose qualification should be that he was an in-
habitant of the District of Columbia, would he
not be eligible to the place ? Is he not now en-
titled to every privilege or right of an inhabitant
of this District, be those rights what they may,
civil or political? These questions must be an-
swered in the affirmative; and, unless it can be
shown, that he has a sort of double capacity, which
may constitute him an inhabitant of two distinct
places at one time, and furnish him with two dif-
ferent domicils, he must be considered as an in-
habitant of this District. What the nature of his
rights may be here, or their extent, is a question
of no importance. Be they greater or less, he is
entitled to them, whatever they may be. It is
enough for us that he has become an inhabitant
of the District, and has lost his inhabitancy in
Massachusetts, and is thereby rendered obnoxious
to that clause of the Constitution which forbids
his eligibility in that State.
Against these plain conclusions of common
sense, it has been maintained, that he is, neverthe-
less, to be considered, for the purpose of eligibility,
an inhabitant 6f Massachusetts. It is so contended,
for the allege^ reason that the removal of a per-
son to this District, for the purpose of executing
a public office, shall not work a dissolution of his
inhabitancy in the State from whence he comes;
but that he shall still be deemed to retain his in-
habitancy as a citizen of that State. This doc-
trine can only be maintained on ground derived
either from the peculiar political relative situation
of the District, or the nature of a public office or
employment. What peculiarity, sir, exists in rela-
tion to this territory of ten miles square, not com-
mon to all other territories of the United States '?
We have the " power of exercising exclusive le-
gislation in all cases" over it—a phrase which de-
notes unlimited sovereignty. We are sovereio-n
here precisely in the same sense, and to the same
extent, as over all national territory. The same
jurisdiction, for the same purposes, to an unlimited
degree, we enjoy over them all. Inhabitancy in
this District is precisely of the nature of inhabi-
tancy in any other territory of the United States.
Are gentlemen prepared to maintain that all the
emigrants to the Arkansas, Michigan, or Florida
Territories retain their inhabitancy, under any
technical notion, in the respective States from
which they went ? or if a different rule is to be
applied to their case, I hope gentlemen will point
out in what particular such a difference exists
from this District, and on what principles it is
founded. Is it possible that inhabitancy may be
acquired in these Territories by removal to, and
settlement in them, and not in this District? It
is a distinction altogether untenable.
Is there any thing, then, in the nature of the
public employment, or the locality of the duties
of the office, which can justly create a distinction 7
Had the gentleman been appointed collector of
the port of Norfolk, to which place he had removed,
where he had married, and resided seven years,
he would clearly be eligible to this House, as an
inhabitant of Virginia. His appointment as a
judge in the Territory of Michigan or Florida, and
removal to the seat of his duties in such territory,
would equally constitute him an inhabitant of the
territory, and he would doubtless acquire the ca-
pacity of being-eligible to this House as a delegate.
If the rule which gentlemen contend for applies
to a renioval to a Territory by reason of some
saving power of original State inhabitancy de-
rived from the nature of the employment, the
same reason would preserve the inhabitancy on a
removal to other States, and all public function-
aries would thus retain or acquire the right of
eligibility either in the States from which they
removed, or which they had adopted, or both.
By such an interpretation of the Constitution, all
the registers and receivers of your Western land
offices, the governors and judges of the Territories
from Lake Erie to Florida, and your Indian
Agents, are to be deemed inhabitants of their
original States and eligible as such to this House.
Mr. S. said he hoped gentlemen would also define-
the extent of this privilege of their original inhab-
itancy. Were they to be considered as inhabit-
ants of the States from which they emigrated for
any other purposes, and for what purposes? Would
they be recognised in such States as inhabitants
for any local purposes ? or must not the argument
result in the absurd conclusion that eligibility to
this House is the only capacity which they retain-
during all their migrations ? If any such anoma-
lous and incongruous, doctrine can be supported,
let me, said Mr. S., put a case which has actually
occurred and now exists. The present Treasurer
of the United States removed from South Caro-
lina to Philadelphia on the organization of the
Government—he continued to reside at Phila-
delphia until the removal of the Seat of Govern-
ment to this city in 1801. Had he been elected
before 1801 as a representative in Congress from
the city or county of Philadelphia, would it be
seriously urged that he was not an inhabitant of
that place, and for that reason ineligible? He
has since removed to this city; and I ask whether,
by this new doctrine, he is still to be considered
as an inhabitant of Philadelphia, or iias he been
remitted back to his first inhabitancy in South
Carolina, because this District is territory and not
within any of the States—.or for any other reason 1
It has been asked, in general terms, if we are pre-
pared to disfranchise all who hold public offices
in the District? No, sir, I am not prepared to
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Gales and Seaton. The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, Eighteenth Congress, First Session, [Volume 2], book, 1856; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30369/m1/72/: accessed May 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.