Register of Debates in Congress, Comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the Second Session of the Twentieth Congress Page: 46
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46
GALES & SEATON'S REGISTER
SENATE.]
Claim of Maison Rouge et al.
[Jas. 21, 1829.
claimants, without distinction, willbe entitled injustice to
a writ of right. Sir, let the principle be uniform and
universal, if it must prevail.
Mr. JOHNSTON, of Louisiana, thought the bill pro-
viding for all the unsettled claims in Arkansas, Missouri,
and Louisiana, much more calculated to violate the con-
stitution than the one now before the Senate. He did not
rise, however, to enter any farther into the discussion; but
to make an explanation in answer to some remarks of the
gentleman from South Carolina. The reasons why these
claims had been withdrawn, when previously before the
Senate; were, that great diversity of opinion existed in re-
gard to them, and they were withdrawn for the purpose
of presenting them in such form as more readity to an-
swer the views of many of the Senators. Mr. J. recollected
that, when these claims were presented to the other House,
the claimants were told that if any of their number would
sue the occupants, obtain judgment, and bring the de-
cision before Congress, there would then be no difficulty
in passing upon their claims. One person pursued the
course pointed out. He went into Louisiana, commenced
suits, and the result was, that every one who was sued,
abandoned the land and his improvements, rather than
to enter into a contest where he had no title; because he
had settled on the land believing it to be the property of
the United States. With regard to the claim of Bastrop,
there were no conflicting titles; settlers had received
their land on the principle of donations, and every man
living on the gi ant had as good a title as the grantee him-
self.
The real difficulty with respect to these claims, he
would state to the Senate. The original gTantee had
entered into a contract with the Spanish Government,
which was partially fulfilled. By this contract, the Gov-
ernment bound itself to pay the grantee a certain sum of
money for every person he put upon the land. After-
wards finding that there was no money in the Treasury
with which to comply with the terms of the contract, the
Government suspended the settlements, and ordered that
none farther should be made without giving a previous
notice of two years. Under these circumstances, the
question was, to how much land was the grantee entitled?
If he had only performed one half the contract, is he en-
titled to one half of the land, or to how much ? These
questions, as he had before observed, could only be de-
termined by a judicial tribunal.
Mr. BENTON sympathized with the State of Louisi-
ana. She had been hardly dealt with. She had been a
part of this confederacy for twenty-five years, and in all
that time no more than 200,000 acres of land had been
Bold by the Federal Government. [Mr. Johnston of Lou-
isiana said only 185,000.] This is keeping the country a
desert so far as the action of the Federal Government is
concerned. At the same time, her private claims, to the
amount of a million and a half of arpens, remained un-
confirmed, to the great injury of the claimants. They
could not make bencficial improvements; they could not
make dykes and levees; they could not sell to any advan-
tage; and they were subjected, as Mr. Benton believed,
to the payment of taxes. [The Senators from Louisiana,
Messrs. Johnston and Boumcjny, in answer to a look of
inquiry from Mr. Benton, said they were subject to tax-
es.] AU this is hard upon the claimants; but the State
was a party to the injury. She suffered for want of po-
pulation; for want of cultivation; for want of taxes; for
want of dykes and levees. The whole upper country,
the States up the river, was interested in having Louisi-
ana populated. New Orleans was their magazine and
their store-house; it was the most exposed point in the
Union; and upon every alarm of invasion, real or imagina-
ry, the people of the upper country were called'out.
They had always gone with alacrity;" would forever go
with alacrity. But the State ought to have means of de-
fence within herself, and the first of these means was po-
pulation. People would have arms, and would use them
for the defence of their country. It would be a bene-
ficial grant to give to the frontier settlers tracts of land;
they would maintain them against invasion, and in defend-
ing their firesides, their wives, and their children, they
would defend the country. There was bad economy on
the part of the Federal Government in keeping this coun-
try waste—in waving a barren sceptre over it. It had to
pay the expense of expeditions to defend it; and they lost
the advantages of their cultivation—the increased wealth
which their cultivation would give to the Federal Govern-
ment. There was always a gain to the public in passing*
any property, especially landed property, from hands that
could not use it to hands that could. This was eminently
the case with the Federal Government; it made no profit
out of its lands; it was not a cultivator; and it was a pro-
perty which deteriorated in their hands, from daily,
universal, and enormous depredations upon its timber.
Mr. Bexton said, that he had not got up to plead the
case of the claimants, nor of the State of Louisiana, which
he considered as a party to the bill; that task had been
well done, skilfully and powerfully done, by the Senator
from Louisiana, Mr. Johnston; he merely rose to declare
his concurrence in what had been said in favor of the bill;
to express his sympathy for 'Louisiana for the manner in
which she had been treated about her lands; to declare
his conviction that she had been hardly dealt with; and that
the Federal Government itself was a loser in the injustice
done her.
Mr. BARTON did not agree with the gentleman from
South Carolina, on the subject of the constitutional ques-
tion. He believed there existed, in every government, the
power of giving to the citizen a remedy against that
government. The mode or manner of the remedy was
another thing. As to the summoning of juries and wit-
nesses, in cases of adjudication, there could be nothing
unconstitutional in that. The constitutional right of all
claimants was the same, and he did not believe it would
be an infraction of the constitution to refer them all to
judicial decision, The claims of Carondelet, and Win-
ter were of a similar kind, and might be referred. He
thought the question more proper for the Judiciary than
for Congress. It was, as he believed, no violation of the
constitution, and he would wish to see the claims settled.
He had been of opinion that a general bill upon the sub-
ject of such claims, would be most advisable; but the
more he reflected, the more firmly he was of opinion now,
that such a course would not answer, and that it was best
to have the claims settled at home. Under the views
which he had, lie should vote for the bill.
Messrs. JOHNSTON, of Louisiana, and SMITH, of
South Carolina, made some additional observations; after
which Mr. PRINCE offered an amendment to the fourth
section of the bill, the object of which was, to allow an
appeal to the Supreme Court; but Mr. HAYNE suggest-
ing that the object of the gentleman was already provid-
ed for by the bill, in directing the Attorney for the Unit-
ed States to take an appeal in case of an adverse decision,
the motion to amend was withdrawn by Mr. Prince.
On the question of engrossment for a third reading, Mr.
SMITH of South Carolina, called for the yeas and nays;
and the question being taken, it was decided in the affir-
mative, by yeas and nays, as follows:
YEAS.—Messrs. Barton, Benton, Bouligny, Burnet,
Chambers, Chase, Eaton, Foot, Hendricks, Johnson, of
Ky., Johnston, of Lou., Kane, Knight, McKinley, Prince,
Jlidgely, Robbins, Rowan, Sanford, Seymour, Silsbee,
Smith, of Md., Williams—23.
NAYS.—Messrs. Bell, Branch, Chandler, Dickerson,
Hayne, Iredell, McLane, Marks, Ruggles, Smith of S. C,
Tazewell, Tyler, White, Willey, Woodburv—15.
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Gales, Joseph, 1761-1841. Register of Debates in Congress, Comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the Second Session of the Twentieth Congress, book, 1830; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30754/m1/50/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.