determine fraud and vacate titles which are acquired under an act of Congress by purchase. What right has the land office to say to me, after I have complied with the law, paid my money, and received my certificate, that if I do not come forward and do something else which is not required by the law, but is simply prescribed by the land office, they will vacate my title? The proposition, I feel assured, cannot be maintained legally; but the consequence of this state of things is to cause a great deal of disturbance to settlers who are actual, bona fide purchasers. It is for the purpose of putting an end to those disturbances that I ask this inquiry.

In reply to Mr. Stuart, Mr. BROWN said:

I certainly did not mean to be understood as unnecessarily or even severely criticising the course which the Secretary thought it his duty to pursue. He doubtless has done what he thought was right. I differ from him. I think that the action of the department shows that the department itself is not very harmonious on the subject. First, a circular was issued, requiring these additional affidavits to be made within two months. When that circular has had the effect of disturbing the title of the purchaser, the department finds out that the time allowed is too short, and extends it to twelve months. That time I think too short; I consider any time whatever too short.

My friend from Michigan seems to think that it is the patent which gives a man a title to his land. I differ with him on that point. It is the act of purchasing and paying the money under the law, and in accordance with the requirements of the law, that gives the purchaser his title. The patent is but the evidence of a title already acquired and possessed. I have no idea that, when A or B has purchased a tract in accordance with the law, the department has a right to lay down rules subsequently which will vacate his title, unless it be first established that the purchase was made by fraud. I grant you that fraud will vitiate the purchase, and will overturn the title. What I object to, however, is laying down a general rule by which fraud is to be presumed and adjudged against all parties, whether they are honest or dishonest. If my friend had gone forward and made a bona fide purchase, complying with all the regulations which had been made previous to the time of his entry, I hold that he would get a good title against the government, and against the world. If his neighbor went forward and made an entry in fraud of the law, he would have a defective title-or rather no title at all. But you must first establish the existence of the fraud before you can overturn his title. What I object to in these circulars is, that they lay down a general rule by which the department arrives at the conclusion that fraud has existed in all cases. That rule is, that unless a man comes forward and complies with certain requirements within twelve months, the department will adjudge the entry to have been fraudulent, will set it aside, and refuse a patent. That, I say, they have no right to do. If the committee and Congress shall judge that to be proper in the premises, let us enact it into a law. I object to the department making laws. Í do not mean certainly to charge that the Secretary intended to do it, but I mean to say that such is my judgment of the transaction, and that the action of the department has had the effect of disturbing the quiet of hundreds, and I may say thousands, of my constituents, who have purchased land under this law, honestly and in good faith; but they will

not be able to comply with these rules, or, at any rate, compliance with them will be attended with a great deal of trouble. These are the reasons why I desire to have this inquiry made. The resolution was agreed to.

JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 19, 1854, ON HIS PROPOSITION TO ESTABLISH A JOINT COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS.

IN pursuance of notice given yesterday, I now introduce a resolution providing for an additional joint rule of the two Houses :

:

Resolved, (the House of Representatives concurring), That the following be added to the standing rules of the two Houses of Congress:

There shall be appointed a standing committee of the Senate to consist of seven members, and another of the House of Representatives to consist of thirteen members, to be called, in each House, the General Committee on Claims. It shall be the duty of said committee in the House of Representatives to report a bill at each session of Congress making appropriations for the payment of private claims. When the several committees of the House report in favor of any claim, the report, with the evidence on which it is based, shall be referred, and without debate and as a matter of privilege, to the said General Committee on Claims, and if that committee, after due examination, concur in said report, they shall insert an item for the payment of said claim in the bill for the payment of private claims, and thereupon submit a report and the evidences to the House to be printed, or otherwise disposed of as the House may direct. When the bill aforesaid is reported from the House to the Senate, it shall forthwith be referred to the General Committee on Claims in the Senate, and they shall proceed to insert therein such items as may in like manner in the Senate as in the House have been reported from the several committees, and have received also the sanction of said General Committee. The said bill, before its final passage in either House, shall be read by sections, and a separate vote taken on each section er item, and this notwithstanding the previous question may have been moved and seconded. In the order of business, the bill for the payment of private claims shall Lave precedence over other bills, next after the general appropriation bills.

I do not propose at this time to discuss that proposition, but if the Senate will indulge me, I will make a remark or two in reference to it, and then move its reference to the select committee which was appointed yesterday, and to which the bill of the senator from Pennsylvania was referred. I do not believe that that bill will at all meet the purpose contemplated by its advocates. The difficulty with us in reference to private claims has not been that we do not get investigation and reports upon them. The difficulty has always been in the other House of Congress, in procuring action upon the bills and reports after they have been made. That difficulty cannot be relieved in the mode proposed. Why? When you establish your board of claims they will go on to investigate such claims as may be presented to them, make their reports, and return their evidences to Congress with bills drawn by themselves; and then we shall be precisely as we are now, with reports, and bills, and accumulated evidences, but without action on the part of Congress. Therefore, sir, we shall not be advanced one solitary step beyond the point where we are now in the great object sought by the claimants themselves-that is, the procuring of a final settlement and payment of

their claims. Why, sir, if you will authorize that board, if you will put it in operation on the first of May, by the time that Congress meets in December they will have reported not less than five hundred claims to you, with five hundred separate bills, and in this they will simply relieve the committees of the two Houses of the labor of doing the same thing. Then will come the work which we are asked to do now, not to investigate, not to make reports, not to accumulate evidences, but to pass the bills. That board cannot pass bills through Congress; they cannot make appropriations; they cannot do that which is the great thing complained of now-make the appropriations and pay the claims.

The proposition which I submit proposes to relieve that difficulty: and without going into a discussion of it, I beg to commend it to the attention of the select committee which was raised yesterday, with the hope that they will at least consider it. Having given to it a great deal of consideration, I think that it will relieve the difficulty under which we labor. It will at least procure that which we desire, and of which the claimants stand most in need-positive action at each session of Congress on their claims, one way or the other. I cannot, for the life of me, see how the government is to be injured; how is it possible for the government to be injured by it? It will be seen that it is proposed that each item in the bill to be reported shall pass the ordeal of two committees in each House before it comes before the House or Senatefirst, the committees as now organized, and then the general committee; and at last the bill is to be voted upon in each House by sections or by items-each item being voted into, or out of the bill, according to the sense of the respective bodies. I do not see, therefore, that it is possible that any fraud, any imposture, can be practised upon the government. But I did not rise to discuss the subject. I trust it will at least receive the consideration of the select committee, to whom I move its reference.

The motion was agreed to.

On the 21st of December Mr. Brown continued the discussion of the same subject, and in that connection opposed the proposition to establish a Court of Claims.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I have two or three objections to this bill, and they are insuperable. I care nothing about whether you call this tribunal a board of claims, or call it a court, for I have been taught to think that " a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;" but I am wholly at a loss to determine why the name of this tribunal has been changed by the committee, except it be for the cause, with which all of us are too familiar, that boards of claims have fallen under public censure. Whenever you have had them, they have not only brought odium upon the country, but upon themselves. We have to-day to lament the wreck of many a fair reputation, on account of its connection with boards of claims. Did the committee expect, by changing the name of the tribunal, and calling it a court, that they would rescue it from public criticism? Was it expected that, by calling these three gentlemen a court, instead of a board of claims, the people of this country would not dare to criticise their conduct? Or did the committee indulge in some dream that gentlemen called judges would be more wise and more honest

than if they were called commissioners? If there be anywhere a sounder reason than one of these for changing the name, I should like to hear it assigned. I care nothing, however, whether you call this tribunal a board of claims, or call it a court; it is equally liable to objection, as I think I can demonstrate.

What is it that this court is expected to do? To render judgments, and draw warrants upon the treasury? No, sir. As has been well said by the venerable senator from Michigan, this was tried, and the country rejected it. Upon fair trial it was found that it would not do to permit the judges to draw warrants on the treasury, and I am only amazed that the wisdom of the Congress which passed that law failed to detect its unconstitutionality. We are told, in the plain letter of the Constitution, that "no money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law." The committee who reported this bill, with an eye to that provision of the Constitution, have undertaken to fulfil it-and how have they done it? They have proposed to organize a court, and require that court to make investigations, to send in their reports and the testimony taken before them, with bills drawn, cut and dried, for the action of Congress. Why, Mr. President, this much is done in your committee rooms, and done quite as well, and with quite as much fidelity as it can be done by this court. Has any one ever complained that your committees do not investigate? Is there any complaint here, or elsewhere, that your committees do not report? Does not the table of the other House literally groan beneath the weight of reports and accumulated evidence brought in there by the various committees, from year to year? And what, sir, does all this accumulated evidence accomplish? What do all these reports accomplish? What is their effect? Simply to crowd the calendars of the two Houses of Congress with unpassed bills. When these same reports, and evidence, and bills shall come from this court, will Congress be more likely to act upon them than when they come from committees of their own body? Is it expected of senators and representatives, with their obligations to the Constitution, and to the people, and the states, that they are to pass into laws whatever bills this court may think proper to draw up and send to them? I ask honorable senators if that is what is expected of us in the future? Is it expected that we are to take for granted that all is true which the court report? Are we to take it for granted that their judgment is infallible? Are we simply to sit here and register that which they tell us to register? Or are we to exercise sound judgment in making appropriations under the Constitution? If we are, then I ask the honorable chairman who reports this bill, how far we shall be advanced if his bill passes? Shall we not be left precisely where we stand now, with evidence accumulated, with reports made, and with bills drawn, but bills not passed into laws, appropriations not made, and claimants not satisfied? So far as I am concerned, I would as soon trust the Committee on Claims of the Senate to-day, as trust this court, if it were now organized.

This, sir, is one of the insuperable objections which I have to the passage of the bill, that it does not advance us a solitary inch in the progress of business, unless it be taken for granted that the reports of the court will be infallible, and must necessarily be endorsed by the two Houses of Congress.

Mr. BRODHEAD. Will my friend, at this point, allow me a word of explanation?

Mr. BROWN. Certainly.

Mr. BRODHEAD. The honorable senator from Mississippi says he would trust the Committee on Claims of the Senate; but, as the chairman of that committee, I beg leave to inform him that I have not time to investigate the vast variety of cases which come before that committee, and yet properly discharge my other duties, and consider, as I ought to do, much larger questions.

Mr. BROWN. In that connection, to keep up the argument, allow me to ask the senator whether his committee, and other committees, have not found time to report hundreds of bills which Congress has never found time to pass? and if they be not passed, what is the use of reporting any more?

Mr. BRODHEAD. Mr. President, Congress may not have confidence in those reports, because we have not time to investigate, and to send out and take testimony upon the part of the government. The hearing before the committee is entirely ex parte. From want of time, want of an adversary proceeding before us, the government not being represented, Congress may not have that confidence in our doings which they ought to have.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I have never yet heard any want of confidence expressed in the committees of either House of Congress ; I have yet to hear the integrity of one committee impeached; I have yet to hear the skill or the ability of the committees impeached; but I have heard the integrity of boards of commissioners impeached, and I have seen, and all the world has seen, that they were either not honest, or were grossly careless in the discharge of their duties.

Now, sir, suppose this court shall be organized, and it shall pass some. such enormous claim as the Gardiner claim; will the press of this country be muzzled, and stand in awe of the dignity of a court? or will they not speak out against it as they did against the board of commissioners which allowed that claim? Will public opinion stand aghast at the enormity of assailing a tribunal simply because you call it a court? No, sir; it will be assailed; it will be overthrown; it will be covered with odium and disgrace, if it shall happen to commit an error of that sort.

Again, suppose that the commission which passed the Gardiner claim had sent to Congress, and we, relying-as I suppose we are expected to rely-upon the wisdom, the integrity, and infallibility of such a court, had gone on to make the appropriation; what would have been said of the gentlemen whose names were found recorded in the affirmative on such a proposition? I introduce this illustration for the purpose of showing how necessary t will become for each member of the Senate and of the House, in protecting his own reputation, not to take these judg. ments upon trust, but to stand and scrutinize each and every one of them. If he does that, I repeat, this tribunal will not advance you a single inch beyond the point where you stand to-day. It may report to you more bills; it may give you more to do; but if you do not pass the bills you now have before you, are you likely to pass a larger number under the influence of such a board or court as this?

You know, Mr. President (Mr. Badger in the chair), and all other senators know, that I am not apt to be very particular about expense