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 or 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 have 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? 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.

What is

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 judgments 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—

perhaps I am not enough so; but I wish now to inquire, what are you to pay for this tribunal? Why, you are to pay in salaries the sum of $17,500 a year; you are to authorize an increase of Executive patronage-and all for what? Samply to relieve the committees of the two Houses of Congress from the labor of investigating and reporting upon these claims; for I assert again, that is all the court is expected to do. The whole matter, therefore, resolves itself down to this: are you willing to pay this sum of money, thus to increase Executive patronage, for the sake of having that done which the committees can do, and now do, just as well? But this is not a tithe-nay, sir, it is not a hundredth part of the expense of the court. The bill provides for appointing commissioners throughout the whole United States and all the territories, and wherever else God only knows. The power to appoint commissioners is unlimited. They are to be paid out of the treasury when the commission is to take testimony in favor of the United States--and will there ever be a case when the government will not need testimony, and will not take out a commission on its side? Is it expected that this tribunal is to decide on ex parte testimony-on the testimony of the claimant? If not, then a commission on the part of the government will be necessary, and necessary in every case. How much the expense will be increased by this proceeding, I do not pretend to know. Even if, after all this expense, we were to reach any profitable end; if we were to be advanced a single inch in the business of legislation, I should make no objection to it; but, I ask again, if the bills reported from committees now do not pass Congress, are these bills more likely to pass? Why, sir, what do we see every day in the other House? Bills to which no man on earth can make the least possible objection, in the way of argument, have been suspended there from year to year, from session to session, from Congress to Congress, and yet they are not passed. If such bills do not pass, tell me whether the bills drawn by this court are likely to pass. The very moment one of them comes into the House of Representatives, under the rules of that House, some gentleman will rise up and say, "I object," and the bill will go back again upon the calendar to take a long sleep of two or three weeks, or perhaps as many months; and when it comes up again, some other gentleman will say, "I object;" not because he knows anything about it, but for the reason that he does not know anything about it; and hence nothing will be gained. I maintain, then, that by this bill, you are not striking at the root of the evil; you are not reaching it; but are involving the country in a heavy expense, making a departure from all established principles, when it is apparent to those who have investigated the subject, that in doing so, you are not making a step in advance towards the great object of passing the bills and paying the claimants.

The committee who reported the present bill have undertaken another very wide departure from the old precedents of the government. They have undertaken to say to each subsequent Congress: "You shall take no step backward in the progress of these bills." They have undertaken to say, that if this thirty-third Congress gives a private bill two readings, in each House, the next Congress must give us credit for it; and if it has been read three times in one House, and passed, and only been read once in the other, that House, in the next Congress, may give it one reading more, and at another Congress give it its final reading. I doubt