While thus engaged in the adjustment of preliminary questions, the House must be governed by the common law of Parliament, without which no deliberative body can exist. It is true they are not bound by the rules of a preceding Congress; but those rules, like statutes, do not create or destroy, but only limit and define, a general principle: take away the limitations, and the principle exists in its original force.

When thus constituted and organized into a House of Representatives, it is then the duty of the proper officer to lay before them all contested cases, and the evidence in his possession, that they may proceed according to the Constitution to decide on the elections, returns and qualifications of those contesting. After the most laborious investigation into all the precedents, from the earliest times, both in our own country and in England, I have come to the conclusion that this is the only safe and proper course to be taken. It is indeed the course indicated by Congress as the proper one, in the famous Moore and Letcher case, when both gentlemen voluntarily retired in the first stage of the organization, and this act of theirs was afterwards approved and confirmed by a vote of the House.

Though long usage and the necessity of the case have imposed on the Clerk of the House the duty of making a roll of members to be called at the opening of Congress, yet he has no authority whatever to interpose in doubtful cases, or throw any obstacle in the way of an immediate adjustment by the House. Where there are no difficulties, his course is plain; but in all matters of doubt, he is bound to present the evidence in his possession, and throw the responsibility of deciding, where it has been placed by the Constitution, on the representatives of the people. No party can take exceptions, no individual can be aggrieved, by this course. It will be as much in the power of the House to act on them when called at the end of the roll as if they had been called in the regular routine, according to past usage. And by the mode here proposed, one great advantage will be gained in having a House organized and competent to entertain and decide all questions touching the privilege of members, before any contested case shall come before them for consideration.

Believing that Congress, originating in peculiar circumstances, and being a government of confederated States, must necessarily be controlled by laws different from those of the House of Commons, or the State Legislatures exercising jurisdiction over a consolidated mass; believing that the present mode of testing and recognizing members is more efficacious than any positive enactment can be made; that it is more open, impartial, and consistent with our federative system, and that it is less liable to be perverted under color of law and strict technicalities into an instrument of fraud; believing that when a roll made up of the names of those who by common notoriety and the general consent of all parties are

* Many of these are appended to the original document in the form of an Appendix.

recognized as members of Congress, has been called through, and a sufficient number have answered to their names to constitute a quorum, then there is a House of Representatives, as understood by the Constitution, controlled by the common law of Parliament, and competent to decide all questions touching the privilege of members; and believing that then, and not before, all contested cases, with the accompanying testimony, should be laid before them for consideration,--I feel it a solemn duty incumbent on me to proceed in this mode to organize the House, so far as necessity and unbroken usage from time immemorial have thrown that task on the Clerk of a preceding Congress.

THE FISCAL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES.

In several respects the fiscal system of the United States will not suffer, in so far as regards its theory, by a comparison with that of any other country.

No money can be taken from the people but in consequence of an act of Congress.

No money can be drawn from the Treasury but in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.

Even after money is thus appropriated, not a dollar of it can be got from the Treasury but on a warrant signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, countersigned by a Comptroller, and recorded by the Register.

All accounts, except those of the Post Office, are twice audited; first by the Auditor of the Department, to which they properly belong, and next by the First or Second Comptroller.

Such is the theory of the system; but, unfortunately, it is little more than mere theory. The United States have neither treasure, nor treasurer, nor treasury. The whole superstructure is without any substan tial basis. There is a Treasury Department, but that is a mere bureau or secrétariat. As well might men call the Navy Department, without ships, dockyards, or seamen, a navy, as to call the Department of the Treasury a treasury. There is an officer called the Treasurer of the United States; but he is falsely so called. He is a mere clerk.

Neither have the United States any treasure. A mass of debts due to Government by banks and individuals, and which may or may not be paid, cannot, with any propriety, be called a treasure.

This state of things was never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, or by the framers of the law of 1789, for organizing the Treasury Department. They evidently had in view a substantive treasury, substantial treasure, and a real treasurer. The Constitution declares, that "no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in

consequence of appropriations made by law." The act of 1789 declares, "that it shall be the duty of the treasurer to receive and keep the moneys of the United States." And the primary act for raising a revenue declares that dues to Government shall be paid in "gold and silver coin only." Considering the strictness of these provisions, that must be regarded as a very ingenious interpretation of law and constitution by which the treasury of the United States was made to be "all along shore and all over the prairies," or wherever there was money to the credit of the treasurer. Equally ingenious was that construction of Alexander Hamilton's, by which he made the injunction that all dues should be paid "in gold and silver coin only," a simple prohibition to receive notes issued by the State governments! Only thirty days after the act was passed he issued a treasury order authorizing the collectors to receive bank notes not having more than thirty days to run! If justice had been done, he would have been impeached for this bold and palpable violation of as plain a legal provision as ever was penned.

But though the United States have neither treasure, nor treasurer, nor treasury, all the forms of law have been kept up from the beginning, just as if they possessed all three. There was a reason for this. If they had been dropped the people would have become alarmed. But by preserving the form the loss of the substance could be concealed. Hence the utmost scrupulosity as to forms was observed by Hamilton, and the example set by him has, from necessity, been imitated by his successors in office, though it sometimes leads to ludicrous results. For example, the organic law of 1789 declares that no money shall be paid into the Treasury, or out of the Treasury, but in consequence of warrants. The treasurer gives bond to a large amount for the faithful performance of his duties, and is, in theory, accountable for all moneys to his credit in the hands of collecting officers. To what does this lead? When information is received at the Treasury Department of money being in the hands of collecting officers, warrants are issued for paying it out as the public service may require. Then, after legal evidence has been received at the Treasury Department that the money has been paid away, warrants are issued for bringing it into the Treasury! Thus, under this precious system of fictions, money is paid out of the Treasury before it is paid in.

The like practice was adhered to when the United States bank was a public depository, and also when the State banks were used for this purpose: with this difference, that, at the end of each quarter, warrants were issued to bring into the Treasury the money deposited in the banks during the quarter. The same rule is observed with regard to some of the banks which serve at present as fiscal agents.

It is said by those who ought to know, that these warrants for bringing money into the Treasury, after it has actually been paid out of the Treasury, are necessary, and that they are the best, if not the only, vouchers the auditors can have, in the final settlement of accounts. We

will not dispute with professors of the much mystified, rather than mysterious, art of book-keeping. Our own studies have lain in a different line. But we know it to be one of the first principles of bookkeeping that the entries should be faithful records of the transactions of each day. And we know that this principle is violated in the records of the Treasury Department. Warrants are duly drawn on A, B, C, and D, in Arkansas, Michigan, or Louisiana, directing them to pay certain sums into the Treasury. A man of plain sense would suppose they were to be forwarded to the persons to whom they were addressed. How great would be his surprise on being informed that they would never leave the Department. How much greater would be his surprise on being informed that the very sums which these men were directed to pay into the Treasury, they had actually paid away on public account, it might be, a month or two previous.

For this, the present officers of the department are not to be censured, nor any of their predecessors, except one. On Alexander Hamilton rests the whole blame. With him originated this system of fictions, and he so fastened it on us, by means of his banking and funding system, that even now it seems difficult to cast it off. Having substituted a fictitious treasure, a fictitious treasurer, and a fictitious treasury, for the real treasure, the real treasurer, and the real treasury intended by the Constitution and the organic law of 1789, a fictitious mode of keeping accounts was a necessary consequence. If no other reform can be effected, let there be at least a reform in the use of words. Instead of calling such warrants "warrants for bringing money into the treasury," call them warrants for bringing accounts into the liquidation books of the Treasury Department, and let their form be altered so as to correspond with facts. It is worse than folly to speak of bringing money into the Treasury when there is no Treasury.

The following passages in a private letter from Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury, under date of April 1st, 1802, show that Mr. Jefferson was fully aware of the nature of the system:

"I think it an object of great importance to be kept in view, and to be undertaken at a fit season, to simplify our system of finance and bring it within the compre hension of every member of Congress. Hamilton set out on a different plan. In order that he might have the entire government of his machine, he determined so to complicate it as that neither the President nor Congress should be able to understand it or to control him. He succeeded in doing this, not only beyond their reach, but so that he at length could not understand it himself."

Afterwards, in the same letter, he says:

"Our predecessors have endeavored, by intricacies of system, and shuffling the investigator over from one office to another, to cover every thing from detection. I hope we shall go in a contrary direction, and that by an honest and judicious reformation, we may be able, within the limits of our time, to bring things back to that simple and intelligible system on which they should have been organized at first." Hamilton and his adjunct, or rather director, Robert Morris, had so interwoven the affairs of the Treasury Department with banking and funding, that Mr. Jefferson could not accomplish the reform he contemplated. Happily the time has now come in which this work can be effected.

So completely are we without a Treasury, in the sense intended by the Constitution, that any bank, or officer having hold of the public money, may do as the United States bank has done-refuse to pay over a part or the whole, on any pretext, however frivolous, and the Government would have no means of righting itself but by a tedious and uncertain civil process.

In this respect our Government differs from all others. Several make use of banks and bank paper to a certain extent. But all have their distinct treasuries, except in those cases in which the treasury and the bank are one, through the bank being a mere governmental institution. The Bank of England, though its stock is owned by private persons, may be regarded in most respects as a government bank, since its principal dealings are in exchequer bills. Yet the Government of England still has its great iron chest of the exchequer, with its three locks and three keys, and evidences of the balances due from the bank to the Government are daily deposited therein, and the keys as formally delivered to the officers who have the legal custody of them, as they used to be when that great iron chest contained something more substantial than mere Bank of England paper. England has at least the ghost of a treasury left. In the United States both the form and the substance have disappeared under the potent influence of Alexander Hamilton's magic wand. Berkeley's ideal theory was never so beautifully realized as in the treasury system by him established. Instead of substantial gold and silver, he gave us bank notes and inscriptions of credits on bank books-ideal representations of ideal values; instead of a treasurer—a mere clerk to draw upon these idealities; and instead of a treasury—a mere bureau to keep an account of these idealities. Perhaps we ought rather to say it is Hume's system realized, as far as it can be realized. Berkeley admitted the existence of spirit, but denied the existence of matter. Hume denied the existence of both spirit and matter. He affirmed that men had no satisfactory evidence of the existence of any thing but ideas. If any philosophers of his school are still extant, they will find the best possible proof which their theory admits of, in certain features of the Treasury system of the United States.

Talking of philosophy, will remind the reader of the dogma, that for every effect there must be a cause. If he is curious in such matters, he will find the particular cause of the particular effect above described in the selfish interests of individuals. If a real treasury had been established, and a real treasurer appointed, that clause of the Constitution, which declares "that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law," would have become effective. Then, any Secretary of the Treasury, who should have suffered the public money to be applied to private uses, would have been liable to impeachment. It would have been vastly inconvenient to some of Hamilton's friends not to have the use of the public money, and an impeachment would not have been very agreeable to his own feelings. But by