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Territorial officers. As the Territory came, in course of time, to be divided into several separate governments, the labors of the Department of State necessarily increased. When the Department of the Interior was created in 1849, the business was transferred to its jurisdiction.

Questions concerning the public lands, although intimately related to Territorial affairs, were, in the days immediately following the organization of the Government, under the supervision of the Treasury Department; but an exception must be noted in the famous "Yazoo claims case." Under Act of March 3, 1803, claims for the Yazoo lands were filed with the Secretary of State and recorded in books in his Department, the claimants paying at the rate of 122 cents per hundred words for the recording. By Act of March 31, 1814, the Secretaries of State and of the Treasury and the Attorney-General were constituted a Board of Commissioners to adjudge these claims, the releases, assignments, and powers to be depos

ited in the office of the Secretary of State. All the papers are now a part of the Department of State archives.

There have at various times been assigned to the Department of State duties of a lesser degree of importance which have either terminated absolutely or been transferred to other Departments. Among these, it will be sufficient to mention the biennial register, or "Blue Book," the issuance of which came under the Department's charge by a resolution of Congress of April 27, 1816, which required that there should be issued once in two years a correct list of all persons in the civil, military, and naval service of the Government of the United States. The resolution also specified to whom the volume was to be sent. The Department continued. the regular publication of this volume until, by Act of February 20, 1861, it was placed under the charge of the Department of the Interior. Having disposed of the duties which are no longer under the Department of State, those

which now constitute its functions may be taken up, and, first, it will be convenient to show the subdivisions which have charge of them.

IV.

SUBDIVISIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

N treating of the subject of compensation

IN

of the officers and clerks of the Department of State and of the subdivision of the executive force, it will be sufficient, for the purpose of illustrating the development of the present system, to take up the subject at different periods rather than year by year.

The compensation was fixed in the beginning, by Act of September 11, 1789, as has been previously shown,* at $3,500 per annum for the Secretary of State, $800 for the Chief Clerk, and for the clerks not more than $500 each. The number of clerks was left to the Secretary, being limited only by the amount set apart for

*Ante, p. 61.

the Department. A few years later the rates of compensation for the clerks were left with the Secretary. The Act of April 21, 1806, required that the names and salaries of the clerks be reported to Congress annually, and April 20, 1818, Congress increased the salaries. The Act of February 20, 1819, raised the Secretary's salary to $6,000 per annum.

In 1829 the annual report of Henry Clay, Secretary of State, showed the organization of the Department to be a Chief Clerk at $2,000, three clerks at $1,600, five at $1,400, three at $1,000, two at $800; in the Patent Office, a superintendent at $1,500, one clerk at $1,000, and one at $800. One of the clerks at $1,000 in the Department proper received, in addition to his regular salary, $250 a year as a translator, the payment being made out of the contingent fund. The sum of $1,216, also, was paid for extra clerical assistance. The year following this report Congress fixed the compensation of the officers and clerks at substan

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