35TH CONG....1ST SESS.

I think we have a right to impose conditions precedent on them, and compel them to pay what is due to us honestly and honorably, before they shall be released from the penalty which their conduct has inflicted on them under the law. I will vote against the bill unless this amendment be introduced. I will vote for the bill if its friends will allow it to be made.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair begs to suggest to the Senator from Georgia, that unless the vote ordering the bill to be engrossed and read a third time shall be reconsidered, the bill is not open to amendment, except by unanimous

consent.

Mr. IVERSON. I make that motion. Mr. TOOMES. It is not worth while. I suppose there will be no objection, even by the opponents of the amendment, to receiving it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. If no objection be made, the Chair will receive the amendment. [No objection.] There being no objection, the amendment is made.

Mr. BENJAMIN. The Chair misunderstood the advocates of the bill. The advocates of the bill consent that he introduce the amendment without previously moving a reconsideration. We are going to take a vote on it now.

Mr. SLIDELL. I took it for granted that this amendment would pass without objection. If not, I have something further to say on the subject. Mr. BENJAMIN. Is my colleague going to speak the bill out?

Mr. SLIDELL. I do not know how long I shall speak. It will depend upon circumstances. Mr. IVERSON. I understood my colleague to say he would agree to the amendment.

Mr. TOOMBS. I said I would not object to its introduction.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The rule is, that in this stage of the bill, the bill can only be amended by unanimous consent.

Mr. TOOMBS. The same unanimous consent would allow the introduction of the amendment without the reconsideration of the engrossment. I was content that the Senate might vote on the amendment as though the bill had been reconsidered, to save time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senate agree to the amendment?

Mr. SLIDELL. I have a word to say. Mr. MALLORY. My friend from Louisiana will allow me to ask him if he can inform the Senate what the amount of these duties is?

Mr.TOOMBS. Twenty-four thousand dollars. It is judicially ascertained.

Mr. MALLORY. That will be the sum required to be paid by this amendment.

Mr. TOOMBS and Mr. BENJAMIN. Yes,

sir.

Mr. SLIDELL. I am glad to perceive that these gentlemen, who are certainly very honest and respectable men, find in the Senate persons who go further in advocating their interests than they themselves do, and who ask for them what they never asked for themselves; for I take it for granted that in passing this bill they would not be willing to accept the imputation of bad faith. It is proposed that they shall be released from the payment of the penalties; and now we are told the bill goes further than that. These persons have never asked anything more than a simple abandonment of the claim of forfeiture. They have always said they recognized their liability, and were willing to pay the duties. It is like being more catholic than the Pope. Gentlemen here want to be more liberal to these men in New Or

leans, whom I do not think so entirely free from blame as many Senators appear to regard them, than they ask. I admit there is no moral obliquity about it, but they have never pretended that the debt for duties was not a just debt. I have here a copy of a letter, not certified, it is true, but I take it for granted it will be admitted as correct. This is a letter, dated April 13, 1857, addressed to the collector at New Orleans:

"SIR: We are informed by Mr. Benjamin that you are willing to receive the deficit of duties remaining unpaid on the invoice of sugar per schooner Mary Elizabeth, so soon as the goods have been appraised, and thereupon you will release the seizure made by you on our store. We are ready now, and always have been ready, to pay this deficit; and we beg leave to renew to you the offer made to you some time ago by Mr. Hunt, our counsel in our behalf, and

De Visser and Villarubia—Mr. King.

to state that we will pay whatever deficiencies may be discovered in the invoices that may have been fraudulently passed through the custom house by Mr. Météyé, our late partner"

they do not call him clerk, but partner

"as fast as they are detected."

Now, in regard to the imputed complicity of the officers of the custom-house with Mr. Météyé, I think a very few words will satisfy the Senate that that imputation is altogether unfounded. The discovery of a fraudulent alteration of one invoice was made at a late hour on Saturday. Mr. Météyé, I believe, in the first instance-I do not know what the record may say on that point-as all men who are found in a position of that sort, disavowed his culpability. He said it was an accident, a mistake. Then the suspicions of the custom-house officers were excited; and on the fol'lowing day, Sunday, they went through all the other invoices which had been accumulating there | during a period of years, and necessarily required examination; and they found the same frauds had been committed in various instances contained in the paper I have before me. It took the whole of Sunday to make that examination. They were not at all aware, until Monday morning, of the extent of the frauds. The collector-I believe that appears in the evidence-endeavored to procure the advice and counsel of the district attorney, in order to have this man arrested on the spot. He did not find him. I believe the then collector and district attorney were not on very good terms, and stood on some points of punctilio. One expected the district attorney to call on him, and the other expected the collector to go to him. That is immaterial. The delay was a natural one. The collector or the naval officer could not take Mr. Météyé by the collar and carry him to jail. It required that some preliminary proceedings should be had in the court of the United States. The proper man to conduct those proceedings was the district attorney. When the district attorney was ready to proceed, the bird had flown.

That is the true state of the case. I do not see any culpability in the matter on the part of the Government officers. It is said they ought to have informed the other partners of the fraud that had been committed. At that time they had no evidence of the absence of complicity on the part of the other partners. They had a fair right to presume that in a mercantile house, in whose name so large frauds had been carried on for so many years, all the parties were equally culpable. It was only after an investigation of the case before the court, that they became satisfied of the innocence of Mr. De Visser and Mr. Villarubia, so far as any moral complicity with this matter is concerned. I think I have explained the reason of the delay.

Mr. TOOMBS. I shall detain the Senate but a moment in reply to the gentleman's statement about these duties and that letter. When these

SENATE.

and then seize these innocent men, and attempt to prosecute them for fraud, as well as to hold them liable for $300,000. They have been put to great trouble and great expense in defending the case. The Government failed before the district court of the United States at New Orleans. I have before me the report of the speech of the present district attorney, whom the honorable Senator knows very well, and I do too, an eminent gentleman formerly of this city, who said that nothing but a sense of public duty induced him, against his feelings, to prosecute the claim for forfeiture. He said there was not the slightest blame attached to these parties. I have his speech before me, in a New Orleans paper; but I shall not take up time by reading it. It entirely excul pates these gentlemen. When they stand blameless, when they have had to defend themselves against a claim of $300,000, and a ruthless prosecution of these men to get forfeitures, I think nothing would be more just and proper in the Senate, under the circumstances, than for the Senate to say that they should not be compelled to suffer by their unfortunate connection with this partner, if you choose to call him so, thrice partner, if you please, three hundred times partner, when the fraud was permitted by the neglect of the Gov ernment officers. I think it appeals to the gener osity and magnanimity of every Senator that they should not be compelled to pay one cent.

Mr. KING. When this claim was first presented to the Senate, I did not suppose that the claimants asked for anything more than a release from the penalties and forfeitures; and if that was all they asked, I was not disposed to interpose objections to the passage of their bill. Upon looking at the bill, however, I find that it does in terms release them from all claims, as well as penalties and forfeitures, which would include a release from any duties that might be due. Now, I know nothing of the facts of this case except as they have appeared before the Senate to-day; but I do know that just complaints exist throughout the country of frauds practiced by false invoices and false entries at the custom-houses. I know, too-for! live upon the frontiers-that the revenue laws of the country are not popular laws upon the frontiers, and that they are not popular with the im porters; and that they desire always to have them construed liberally, and that there is too much disposition to look lightly upon evasions of them. But when frauds are detected, I think certainly they should be visited with the just penalties of the law. In this case, a commercial house, which it turns out contains two respectable partners-for I have no disposition to say anything in derogation of the eulogiums that have been pronounced on the character of these two gentlemen-took a man into their firm for the purpose of transacting their custom-house business and paying their duties; and, upon an examination of their books, every thing looks entirely plain and well. If there had been originally a design upon the part of this firm, through a course of years, to commit a series of frauds upon the revenue, it might be that they were prepared, when detected, to show a pretty

parties were about to be sued for $300,000 of forfeitures, and their business was about to be broken up, they were then willing to pay the Government the duties, for there was nothing but ruin to them in this arrangement, to their character, rep-clean record for themselves; and one of the part

utation, and business. The Government officers

refused their offer, and brought suit for $300,000 forfeiture against them, breaking up their business entirely. The Government was defeated in the courts on the forfeiture; and now they say, pay us the duty. These gentlemen were put to very great expense in defending their case; they have brought here and presented to the committee a transcript of the record, containing all the evidence; and when that came to the committee of which I am a member, my friend, the chairman, [Mr. CLAY,] gave it to me to examine. It was the unanimous judgment of the gentlemen of the committee who investigated it, that they should not be charged with the $24,000.

The Senator does not answer the allegation as to the malfeasance of these officers. The idea that the district attorney had to be consulted is not tenable. Any of the officers could have gone and made an affidavit, and had this man arrested.

They knew the facts on Saturday; they waited all day Sunday; he was in the office on Monday. They might have made an affidavit in ten minutes and arrested him, and probably got this very money back; but they give him time to run off,

ners runs away, thus relieving the firm from the odium that would attach to them if they could all have been obnoxious to suspicion. That might be done; I do not say it has been done here.

Now, when they come and ask not only to be relieved from the forfeitures, but, to be relieved from the payment of the duties of which the Treasury of the nation has been defrauded by the act of their partner, I must say that I think the question entitled to the serious consideration of the Senate; and I am rather surprised to find the Senator from Georgia [Mr. TooMBS] advocating this claim, for in general, upon all this character and class of claims, I vote with him, and I think he is generally sound on them. Admitting these men to be entirely as innocent and as honorable as they are claimed to be, it is their misfortune that they were connected with this rogue; but he was a man of their own selection. The proofs of all the facts and circumstances of this case are un known to us; they are in the courts. We are told that these gentlemen are not liable in the courts Well, if they are not, they are in no trouble. If they are not liable for the penalties and forfeit ures, and not liable for the criminal act of the

35TH CONG....1ST SESS.

partner,

Now, sir, this bill will hold out nothing but a reward for fraud and perjury if it pass. Hereafter, if a partner or a clerk employed by an importing house commits frauds of this kind, the parties have nothing to do but to come to Congress and say, "we were honest; we were deceived; we did not practice frauds; our clerk committed them; and you must relieve us not only from the penalty, but not compel us to pay one cent of the duties." It is an inducement held out to every dishonest member or agent of an importing house who enters invoices at custom-houses to commit fraud. They have nothing to lose by it, for they will argue in this way: "if I can succeed in this particular it is all well; I will put the money in my pocket; but if I am detected, my partners or employers have nothing to do but to go to Congress and set up a cry of honesty on their part, and deception on the part of their agent, and get rid of the whole payment."

The penalties imposed are intended to secure honesty; and when you release those penalties you hold out a reward to dishonesty and corruption. This very case will be an inducement for others to commit frauds under similar circumstances, and be a precedent for Congress to release parties from their obligations. That is simply the result; and my word for it, if this bill passes you will have case after case hereafter, fraud after fraud committed upon your revenues, and parties will come here and appeal to the sympathies of gentlemen to release them because they have not been participants in the frauds. It is a danger ous precedent, in my opinion; but I am willing to yield my objections in this particular case, on account of the circumstances disclosed in the testimony, showing that the Government officers themselves were somewhat in laches; it was their fault, perhaps, that this fraud was not detected earlier than it was, and that this party was not arrested and held in custody, and made to pay the penalty of his crimes; but without this amendment it seems to me very unfair that this bill

should pass. Mr. HOUSTON. I do not wish to detain the Senate, but it does seem to me that it is a most extraordinary course which gentlemen have taken. I have great respect for the kindness, good temper, and justice of my excellent friend from New York, [Mr. KING;] but it does seem to me he has not carried his suspicions quite far enough. He thinks these partners might have kept this man for the purpose of imposing on the custom-house. Now we learn from the facts stated to-day-I have never looked into the case before-that he was recommended to them as a business man, confidential and intelligent, and not for the special purpose, I believe, of transacting business at the custom-house as suggested. He was recommended by his former employers as a most reliable man, and he was made a partner to sustain and encourNEW SERIES-No. 24.

the custom-house at New Orleans.

I can arrive at no conclusion whatever but that

these gentlemen are guiltless. Météyé, if you view him technically, may have been their partner, and they may be liable for his conduct; but, on principle, so far as the facts are manifested here, not a solitary suspicion can attach to them, as I apprehend the case-not the slightest suspicion. If I believed there had been delinquency || on their part, or that, by collusion or contrivance with this partner, they had defrauded the revenue, I could not give countenance to any application of theirs. If they were willing at one time to compromise, and to make a great sacrifice to get out of the difficulties in which they were involved, owing to the misconduct or neglect of the collector of the customs, if they were willing when a most alarming ruin was before their eyes, to compromise, that should not be pressed against this bill now. The honorable Senator from Louisiana on

my right, [Mr. SLIDELL,] did not give us the date of the letter he read; but subsequent events show that these gentlemen have been vindicated. The people in the vicinage, who understand all the facts of the case, have come to a conclusion very different from some of the gentlemen of this body; and, for my own part, I am prepared to vote against this amendment; and I am equally determined to vote for any measure that will give them this relief-avert the evils that have been threatened, and arrest the wrong. I am willing to vote for any measure that will give them relief, and visit responsibility on the officers of the Government, and direct the eye of the Government to them. It should not, in these responsible offices, place favorites on account of political claims, but men who are elevated by their moral worth, whether of this party or that party-men who have established a high character, and obtained standing in society. These are the men I want to see placed in office; and not delinquent favorites, or men who come with the clamor of friends to sustain them, and have not character to herald them to the world.

Mr. CHANDLER. I am somewhat familiar with this question of frauds upon the Treasury. In New York, American citizens have been driven from certain kinds of importations entirely through just such frauds as this. The ordinary course is to take a partner for this express purpose-a man who will swear to a false invoice. A house is established in New York, and foreign manufacturers send it a false invoice, and by that process they have driven honest, upright, and honorable American citizens entirely out of their own market for that species of merchandise. I know nothing about this case at all; I presume these gentlemen to be honorable men; but our action upon this claim will be looked to with great solicitude by a large class of the men to whom I have alluded who have engaged in this kind of business. I trust that the Senate will not offer a bribe to rascality. I trust we shall not offer a bounty upon

SENATE.

perjury and false invoices in our custom-houses. If this amendment should be carried compelling the parties to refund the money which they justly and honestly owe the Government, I shall have no particular objection to their being allowed to go scot free of the penalty, on account of their high character, as here represented; but to offer this bounty upon fraud and perjury, would be a most dangerous precedent, it seems to me, for the Congress of the United States to set. I hope this amendment will prevail.

Mr. BAYARD. I have entertained from the first no earthly doubt that it was shocking to the sense of natural justice that we should attempt to enforce criminally against innocent men the penalties of the law for the fault of a guilty partner. It is contrary to every principle of the common law. I doubt whether the Government could possibly succeed in any prosecution of that kind; and certainly a proceeding for confiscation or to recover a penalty for a false invoice is a criminal proceeding. My doubt has been as to whether, in passing this bill to relieve the parties from this prosecution, we ought to impose such terms as are now proposed. There are many technical questions involved; but these parties ought not to be subject to this liability, as the proof is clear that they were not morally responsible or cognizant of the acts of the partner. My doubts have been whether we ought to hold them civilly liable and make it a condition of relief that they should pay the duties which the Government has not received, in consequence of the fraud. My first inclination of opinion was that we ought to exact the payment of duties, and I think I should have retained that impression but for one fact; if I am wrong in the fact, of course I should come to my original conclusion. If I understand the case rightly there was, at least, gross negligence on the part of the agents of the Government, they having the means of discovering the fraud running through a course of years; and these partners, though the other was their partner if you please-there is no magic in the term; it means merely that he was employed by their authority-had not the means of detection; they paid the excess into the hands of this individual; and the profits of the fraud have not inured to the benefit of the firm but to the benefit of the fraudulent party, and that through the negligence of the Government.

But it did not stop there. The officers knew of the existence of fraud; they discovered it on Saturday. They then examined and found further frauds on Sunday. The guilty party was at the custom-house on Monday, the party who had the entire transactions with them personally, the only one known to the officers, and they suffered him to escape, and then turned round and, after he had escaped, arrested innocent parties, and sued them, not for the duties, but for confiscations and penalties, to the amount of $360,000. Under these circumstances, if any benefit inured to these innocent parties from the fraudulent entries made by their copartner, beyond all question that ought to go to the Government; but if they have received no benefit, and the fraudulent party alone has received the benefit, the Government choosing to suffer him to escape, it ought not to make it a condition of remission of those penalties that the other partners shall pay that from which they have received no benefit at all. I shall vote against the amendment, with my view of the facts as they now stand, because these men have received no benefit from the frauds of their partner.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I have been exceedingly unwilling to say anything about this matter. was very much in hopes the friends of the bill would consent to this amendment. If it be consented to by them, or if the amendment be made by the Senate, I shall be willing to vote for the bill. If not, I must vote against it. I am willing that these men shall be relieved from the penalties; but I confess I have been surprised by the mode of argument adopted to defend the objection which is made to this amendment. Just look at the case for a single instant; look at the whole argument as presented.

The gentlemen who came here as petitioners entered into partnership with this Météyé. No matter whether they gave him a small amount of the profits or not, they entered into partnership with this man; they indorsed him; they gave him

35TH CONG....1ST SESS.

character as one of their firm; they put him forth to the community as an honorable and honest man; they intrusted him with their money to make these payments of duties; they sent him to the custom-house. By receiving him into partnership, and putting their money into his hands, they recommended him to the custom-house officers, and to everybody, as an honest man, and a man to be trusted. He goes there, and he commits these frauds over and over and over again. It is not pretended that the custom-house officers are in complicity with him, that they are a party to .the fraud; but that they did not exercise the vigilance they should have exercised to guard against the frauds he commits; and in consequence of those frauds the Government loses $24,000, and finally having discovered them, seizes a part of the goods themselves, and commences prosecution. These parties come up here now, not only to be relieved of the penalty to the amount of about three hundred thousand dollars, but in addition to that, to ask that the United States abandon its claim for all it has lost, give up the goods acquired by the penalties, and also allow them to go free from the amount of which the United States has been defrauded-$24,000. Senators say this is a hard case. These gentlemen have been persecuted and prosecuted, and have paid heavy costs, all on account of this man whom they trusted, they being honest men themselves. Well, who enabled him to commit these frauds? They. Who gave him a character? They did. Who put the money into his hands and sent him to the custom-house? They did; and they reply to the Government of the United States, "it was the business of your officers to watch and see that our partner did not cheat you, and because you did not do it, you ought to lose the money you have been cheated out of, because your customhouse officers were not sharp enough to suspect that he was a rogue, and did not look with that degree of scrutiny they should have done into the papers he presented. You were in a degree negligent because you did not have the best officers in the world, and, therefore, our partner and our agent, who cheated you out of the money, should alone be held responsible for it, and we ought not to lose it,"

That is a very singular argument, to my mind. What is the law between man and man in dealing with agents? I send an agent to deal with you; my agent commits a fraud; I give him a character he is my partner, if you please. He commits a gross fraud by which you are defrauded of a certain amount of money, giving you a large claim on me; and when I appeal to you to remit that large claim I say, "this is very hard for me; I have been an honest man, though my partner, to be sure, is a knave. I want you to remit this claim. You say, 66 very well, I will remit it; I do not like to be hard on you and will let you off if you give me the money you have cheated me out of." "Oh, no," is the response, "your employé was not so sharp as he ought to have been, and therefore I will pay nothing. What sort of an answer would that be between man and man? None at all. Everybody sees it would be no answer, and the claim made in such a case would certainly be scouted at. An individual in such a case would say: "I do not insist on any penalty; I do not want to be hard on you, but I cannot allow your partner to cheat me out of money. If you ask a favor of me, do right yourself first." It would be no answer to say, "it is hard on me that I should lose the money. " Very well, some one must lose it. Shall he lose it, who put the man forward, who gave him character, and enabled him to commit the fraud; or should another person, who has been defrauded, suffer the loss?

It strikes me that the obvious principles of law and justice between man and man give the answer to all this. It is, "if you want a favor of me, and apply to me to remit a penalty which you say is ruinous to you, you must first make me whole for what you, or your servants, have defrauded me out of." That is the proper course on the most obvious principles. I can see no possible answer that can be made to that; and when gentlemen say this has been a hard matter to these people who have lost money, they have been injured in character, they have been placed in an unpleasant situation, paid costs, and all that, I

De Visser and Villarubia-Mr. Fessenden.

reply that I am sorry for it, but such things are not unfrequent; the roguery of some men injures others; and if a person enters into partnership with another, and gives him an indorsement, he must take the consequences. These matters are followed by their evil as well as their good results. Other persons must not suffer, but he who has led to the commission of the act by forming the connection. To be sure, he may not be morally in fault; he may have been deceived himself, but the consequences must rest with him after all, because the first fault or mistake is his.

SENATE.

Mr. FOSTER. About that, I apprehend there may be difference of opinion here. I should like to have the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. BENJAMIN] express his views on the question whether, if this bill passes, these merchants of New Or leans can be compelled to pay these duties?

Mr. BENJAMIN. They must, in order to obtain the benefit of the bill, undoubtedly. I do not see how they can avoid it.

Mr. SIMMONS. The question is, are duties chargeable on goods that have been forfeited? Mr. BENJAMIN. Undoubtedly if they want the benefit of the bill, they must pay the duties. Mr. FESSENDEN. Let the amendment be read.

The Secretary read it.

Mr. FOSTER. Now, suppose these petitioners do not think proper to avail themselves of the benefit of the act, what becomes of the forfeiture?

Mr. TOOMBS. They have a right to do so.

Mr. FOSTER. They have a good defense in that suit. They succeed in getting the goods that are not forfeited, and the result is that they get the goods without paying duties.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Are you going to pass a law to prevent them defending their suits?

That is the law as between man and man, and it is just. But, sir, I have been principally induced to speak on the subject because these complaints are common to our whole country, and it is well known as a fact, that the revenue is defrauded in every principal city in the Union by precisely such arrangements as were made here. They are made on purpose, in some cases. I do not say it was done in this instance. I would not insinuate that it was; I am perfectly willing to say, on the evidence, that I do not believe it was; but every one can see how it could be managed for a couple of men who stand well in the community to have a partner, at a convenient rate of compensation, to make all these arrangements. It is very easy to keep the books, square, and show the money paid out, and when the fellow has carried it on for years, and chooses to run away; when they have made a good deal of money, or he gets accidentally found out, everything on the face may appear fair. Though I do not believe that has been done in this instance, there is good reason to believe that similar practices have existed in many other instances. If we go the length now, not only of remitting the penalty, butter perfectly clear, I think an amendment of a of saying the fraud shall be successful, and the duties shall not be asked for in such a case, simply because innocent men have suffered by the fault of the rogue they took into their employ and indorsed and gave character to, we may just as well abandon the farce of trying to collect duties on imports.

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. FITZPATRICK.) The amendment will be read.

The Secretary read it, as follows:

Provided, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to relieve the said parties from any amount of duties which may be justly due to the United States on account of said importations; and that this act shall not take effect until said duties are paid.

Mr. KING called for the yeas and nays on the amendment; and they were ordered.

Mr. HARLAN. The Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DURKEE] has paired off with my colleague [Mr. JONES.]

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 25, nays 9; as follows: YEAS-Messrs. Brown, Chandler, Crittenden, Davis,

Doolittle, Fessenden. Foster, Green, Harlan, Henderson,
Iverson, Johnson of Tennessee, King, Mallory, Polk, Se-
bastian. Seward, Shields, Simmons, Slidell, Stuart, Trum-
bull. Wade, Wilson, and Yulee-25.

NAYS-Messrs. Bayard, Benjamin, Broderick, Clay,
Fitzpatrick, Houston, Pugh, Rice, and Toombs-9.
So the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. FOSTER. I should like to be informed, before the bill passes, whether, in the present state of the prosecution against these petitioners, the duties can be collected even with this proviso in the bill. I have an impression that goods which are forfeited in consequence of false entries, or an attempt to smuggle, are not goods on which duties can be collected. The claim, as I understand it, is that these goods are not now to be forfeited, and the forfeiture is remitted; and the design of the Senate manifestly is, that the forfeiture is remitted on the ground that the duties are to be paid.

Mr. STUART. The amendment says that the bill is not to take effect until the duties are paid.

Mr. FOSTER. That relates to duties which are by law payable; but I apprehend there is, after all, a question whether the duties can be collected. Mr. IVERSON. The amendment is not that duties legally liable shall be paid, but those justly due to the Government, is the language of the amendment.

Mr. FOSTER. But the question, after all, would be what is justly due.

Mr. STUART. Their goods will be forfeited unless they pay what the Government thinks is right.

1

Mr. FOSTER. By no means; but I apprehend it is not the design of the Senate that such a course shall be taken as that these goods shall be imported without paying duties.

Mr. CLAY. The Government have got the game in their own hands. They will not give up the goods unless the duties are paid, I suppose."

Mr. CRITTENDEN. I should like to hear the amendment read again.

Mr. TRUMBULL. In order to make this mat

word or two would accomplish the object which the Senator from Connecticut has in view. As the amendment now reads, the proviso is:

"That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to relieve the said parties from any amount of duties which may be justly due to the United States on account of said importations, and that said act shall not take effect until said duties are paid."

By altering the phraseology so as to make it, instead of which may be justly due," say "which would have been due to the United States on account of said importations had there been no forfeiture, and that this act shall not take effect," the object will be attained.

Mr. SLIDELL. I would prefer that the amendment should not be made. I think it is a great deal better as it is.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I think it would be better. Mr. TOOMBS. There is no objection to that in the world. You can fix it in that way if you like it better.

Mr. SLIDELL. If the Senate admits the principle that the forfeiture is not to be exacted from these gentlemen, the bill is now in a satisfactory I shall offer no proposition to it. I prefer, however, the amendment as it stands to the sug gestion of the Senator from Illinois.

form.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I will not move it. The bill was passed.

WASHINGTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

DEBATE IN THE SENATE.

was read the

SATURDAY, May 15, 1858. The bill (S. No. 191) for the benefit of public schools in the city of Washington, second time, and considered as in Committee of the Whole.

It provides that so much of the fines and for feitures hereafter to be collected in the District of Columbia as accrue to the United States shall be surrendered to the city of Washington for school purposes, until the whole sum so received shall amount to $50,000. It declares that the corporate authorities in the city of Washington may, with the assent of the owners of real estate in the city levy a special tax of ten cents on each hundred dollars' worth of taxable property in the corpo rate limits of the city, for the benefit of public schools; and that whenever the Secretary of the Treasury shall be officially notified by the Mayor that this tax has been levied and collected, it shall be his duty to pay from the Treasury of the United States, to the persons legally authorized to receive the school funds for the city of Washington,

35TH CONG....1ST SESS.

read.

The Secretary read the following report, made by Mr. BROWN on the 10th of March:

The Committee on the District of Columbia, to whom were referred various memorials and petitions from the corporate authorities, the trustees of the public schools, and citizens of the city of Washington, praying congressional aid for the public schools in said city, have had the same under consideration, and report:

First. That there are no unsold lots of material value in the city of Washington, and therefore it is useless to deny or grant so much of the prayer of the petitioners as seeks a donation of these lots to the public schools of said city. Second. The policy of granting lands in aid of public schools in the new States and Territories appears to your committee to have been eminently wise, and free from all einstitutional objections; but when it is proposed, as by these memorialists, to extend that policy to the District of Columbia, new and grave objections arise. These objectons are not only to the expediency, but, in the judgment of many, to the constitutionality of the proposed measure. Without discussing the question, your committee report that, in their opinion, it is not proper, at this time, to make a grant of public lands to aid the public schools in the city of Washington.

Third. The proposition to appropriate money in aid of these schools has engaged the attention of the committee. It appears, according to the best data attainable by your committee, that the Government owns about one half in value of all the real estate in the city of Washington. On this it pays no taxes. The citizens are heavily taxed for the various purposes of city government, and the United States nakes large appropriations for purposes of its own within aid city. While the city appropriates largely from a comnon treasury for the support of schools, the United States never has appropriated a dollar for that object.

There are in the city of Washington more than five thouand children, between the ages of five and eighteen years, vho attend no school. Of these, it is believed, more than wo thirds have been attracted to this point by the Governnent. They are the children of persons in the service of he United States, many of whom have no taxable property n the city, and very little anywhere else.

Of these five thousand who attend no school, one half at east, perhaps more, are the children of parents too poor to

ear the expense of their education, and they must grow up n ignorance, unless educated at the public expense. It would seem hardly fair to throw them as an exclusive burlen on the private property-holders of this city.

There are in the public schools of this city two thousand our hundred pupils, besides three thousand two hundred in he private schools. The public schools are maintained mainly out of the city treasury, there being paid for their upport an annual sum varying from twenty to twenty-five housand dollars.

of the public schools, and this to be in addition to the sums now paid by them. Thus the Government will pay, for a limited time, about one part, and the citizens two parts, of the expense of keeping up the public schools; and it is hoped, with this aid, these schools, in five years, will be put on such a solid foundation that they can be sustained without aid from the Government.

In accordance with these views, your committee report a bill.

Mr. HALE. I have an amendment to offer as an additional section:

SEC.. And be it further enacted, That all the taxes levied on the estates of colored persons, in the city of Washington, shall be devoted to the support of schools for the education of colored children, under the direction of the government of the city.

I desire to state that several of these individuals have spoken of it to me as a case of extreme hardship that the colored population here are taxed for the support of schools, (and it forms no inconsiderable amount of the taxes collected,) and, whilst they are compelled to pay taxes, their children have not the slightest benefit of the schools. I do not propose to establish any mixed schools or anything else, but to devote the taxes collected from this class to the education of their own children under the direction of the city government; and it seems to me to be a matter of such plain justice that it will hardly be denied. They are an oppressed and a degraded people, and I think it hardly comports with the magnanimity of their superiors to collect their money and to use it to educate their own children. I hope that this proposition will commend itself to the chairman of the District Committee.

SENATE.

all. If the chairman will let the bill lie by for a few minutes, I will endeavor to fix an amendment with him that will meet the case.

Mr. BROWN. I do not wish the bill to lose its place.

Mr. HALE. Let it be passed over informally, for the present.

Mr. TOOMBS. There are one or two sections of the bill which we might as well be acting upon while the Senator from New Hampshire is getting his amendment ready. I would ask the Senator from Mississippi what is now done with the fines and forfeitures proposed to be given in one section of the bill to the school fund?

Mr. BROWN. They go into the national Treasury.

Mr. TOOMBS. I was aware of that fact, and I want to strike out that provision from the bill. The administration of justice in this District is peculiar. The United States actually pay for administering justice to this people. This is entirely wrong. The expense of administering justice here is probably greater than in any similar community anywhere on earth. The abuse is atrocious. If there is a "muss" down here on Pennsylvania avenue, probably the costs of the justices of the peace, constables, &c., will run up to $300. The only compensation the Treasury gets for the costs it has to pay where these "culled pussuns" are unable to pay their own, and there are from twenty to sixty always in jail, is the fines some few of them pay. The great body of these criminals are paupers; and thousands of dollars, I think between sixty and eighty thousand dollars a year, are paid as costs to all the various officers for administering criminal justice here. I am not willing to make the Treasury of the United States pay for all of the expenses of administering justice and maintaining order in Washington city. The costs of the proceedings in re

Mr. BROWN. I was about to say that the city authorities here have never made provision for the education of colored people, and I do not believe they ever will. I think the colored people here have schools of their own under their own control, and the control of such persons as think proper to meddle with them. I have no objection to exempting the property of colored persons from taxation under this bill if our friends generally concur in that. I understand the complaint to be, that these people are to be taxed for an object in the benefits of which they are not to participate. Then I propose to get them out of the difficulty by saying that they shall not be taxed.

Mr. HALE. I am content with that amendment.

Mr. BROWN. Draw it up in that form. Mr. TOOMBS. A proviso will answer, providing that the property of colored persons shall not be taxed under this bill.

the city was well supplied with school houses this sum ould go far towards meeting the desired object of placing school within the reach of every child in the city; but ere is, unfortunately, a great deficiency in school accomodations.

In view of all these facts, your committee think it expeent for Congress to pass an act surrendering to the school nd of the city the fines and forfeitures in the District urts, and hereafter to be collected, until the same shall ach $50,000, the money to be applied to the erection of rimanent school-houses.

The fines and forfeitures vary in amount per annum, ac rding to the number and magnitude of offenses against e criminal laws. In the years 1856 and 1857 the total of feitures was $9,565 50, and of fines $1,652 50. Of these nis only $1,482 appears to have been collected. By suridering this fund to the public schools, there will be cred an additional incentive to more rigid collections in fue: and thus the double benefit of aiding the schools, and nishing offenders with more certainty, will be obtained. In addition to this provision, your committee propose an nual appropriation from the national Treasury of $20,000, five years, on the condition that the citizens submit to tix above alluded to-that is, a tax of about twenty-six usand dollars in the aggregate, for the special purposes

Mr. DURKEE. I would suggest to the Senator from New Hampshire that that will not remove the difficulty entirely, because these people will necessarily be taxed by indirect taxation to raise the money which we now propose to appro

in this bill to donate a certain sum of money to benefit the schools; and they contribute a portion of that money.

Mr. HALE. I do not expect to get the colored people up to anything like their rights, and I only want to make a beginning. The idea of taxing their property for the education of white people is so monstrously unjust that I hope there will be no objection to a provision such as has been suggested.

Mr. TOOMBS. That is right.

Mr. HALE. I will take the suggestion of the chairman of the committee, simply exempting their property from taxation.

Mr. BROWN. The object will be accomplished by putting a proviso to the last section of the bill providing that the property of persons of color shall not be subject to taxation under this bill.

Mr. HALE. I do not know that that will cover

here are thrown on the Treasury; and then, when you fine one who can respond to a fine imposed on him, you take the money and give it for schools. I would rather vote money directly out of the public Treasury than indirectly in this way. This is the only fund that remunerates the United States for the vast amount of costs they pay in the District. I move to strike out so much of the bill as gives the fines and forfeitures to the city for this purpose.

Mr. BROWN. The Senator, I think, overestimates the present amount of collections from that source, and underestimates what would be the amount collected if there was a more rigid enforcement of the law.

Mr. TOOMBS. I think my friend from Mississippi misunderstands me. I express no opin ion as to that. I have no information as to what the amount of fines and forfeitures is, but I know it is not anything like equal to the costs the Gov

ernment nav.

Mr. BROWN. The Committee on the District of Columbia were at some pains to inform themselves on that precise point. They called on the marshal of the District, and upon the clerk of the criminal court, and obtained some facts in regard to this fund, which I will state. The fines and forfeitures vary in amount according to the number and magnitude of offenses against the criminal law. In the years 1856 and 1857, which, it will be recollected, were years fraught with crime, the total of forfeitures was $9,565 50, and of fines $1,652 50, and of these sums only $1,482 appears to have been collected in the two years. The committee believe that if you would surrender these fines and forfeitures to the public schools of the city, then the school commissioners, the school teachers, and all others connected with the public schools, would have a direct interest in looking after them, and seeing that they were collected, and that, when collected, the money was accounted for, and thereby criminals would be more certainly punished by being made to do precisely what I am sure the Senator from Georgia would like to have them do-pay up their fines and forfeitures; and then the money would go to a very laudable and good purpose. At present, as it seems by the report, the sum amounts to very little, and if I did not think it would be greatly increased, I would as soon see this provision stricken out as not; but I think, in the end, it will

35TH CONG....1ST SESS.

amount to six or seven thousand dollars a year, with a rigid enforcement of the law.

Mr. TOOMBS. The objection is not answered. It is whether we should continue to pay these costs as we do? When the subject was under consideration in the Judiciary Committee last year, we reported a bill, which was passed by this body, to amend that great difficulty, but it failed in the other House, though it was a very necessary reform. This being the only money the United States get for the purpose of paying the very heavy judiciary expenses of the District, I do not think it expedient to take it away. There is, however, considerable force in the argument of the Senator from Mississippi, that it is probable criminals will be more vigilantly prosecuted, and there will be a more rigid responsibility on the part

of the officers, if this provision be made; and I do not know, after all, whether it would not be as well to make it, for there seems to be very little responsibility in the matter now, and the amount is so small that the United States certainly get very little, and if the schools will make more out of it, I am content to withdraw the amendment, though I have no idea it will be done.

Mr. HALE. I will offer an amendment in place of the one which I first proposed, that I believe will meet the views of the friends of the bill. It is: And be it further enacted, That the estates of colored persons in the District of Columbia shall be entirely exempted from all taxes levied for schools and school-houses in the District.

Mr. BROWN. I have no objection to that. The amendment was agreed to. Mr. JOHNSON, of Tennessee. I move to strike out the following words in the second section of the bill:

"And that whenever the Secretary of the Treasury shall be officially notified by the Mayor that the said tax has been levied and collected, it shall be his duty to pay from the Treasury of the United States, to the persons legally authorized to receive school funds for the city of Washington, a sum equal to the amount thus raised by taxation: Provided, that not more than $20,000 per annum shall be paid by the United States, and that the payments shall continue for five years, unless Congress shall otherwise order."

It seems to me that this is a plain and distinct proposition for the Government of the United States to take charge of the public schools in this District. I think, sir, that we have really reached a point where we ought to stop. There is no Senator here who will go further than myself in promoting common schools and the cause of education. I have given evidence, in my own State, of my views in that regard. I may also remark, in this connection, that there is scarcely any one in the Senate or throughout the country who knows and feels the wants of educational advantages in early life more than I do. While I admit the great importance of educating all the children of the country, as far as they can be educated in the common schools and in higher schools, I want it done on correct principles; and I want those to pay the expense who are justly chargeable with it. In this case, why should the Government of the United States be taxed to educate the children of the people of the District of Columbia any more than the children in Mississippi, or Tennessee, or Georgia, or New York, or the New England States? If we look to our own States, we find that there is a great want of education there; we find that there are many children there who are not going to school; but is it, therefore, proper for us to ask the Federal Government to take money out of the Treasury of the United States to educate children in the different States? If it is not right in regard to the States, surely it is not right in regard to the District of Columbia. If we have not the power to educate children in the States, at the expense of the Federal Treasury, how can we have the power to educate children in the District of Columbia, at the national expense? Where do you derive the power any more in the one case than in the other? Where does the right exist more in the one case than in the other? This is a common Treasury; and have we any more authority, or any greater claim in right to use it for the education of children here, than for their education in the States?

I repeat there is no one who has higher regard for the children of the District of Columbia than I have, or who will go further to educate the great mass of the children throughout the whole country; but is it right, is it constitutional, to place the ex

Washington Public Schools-Mr. Johnson.

pense of their education upon the Federal Treasury? Should not this community bear the tax of educating its own children as well as other communities? Is it right to tax the people of the States, and devote the fund which you raise from them to educate children in this District? Is there any justice in it? This is simply a proposition to fasten permanently on the Treasury an expense of $20,000 annually, and as much more as can be got, for the education of children in the District of Columbia. Where do you get the power? From what clause of the Constitution is it derived? I know that, at this late day, it is considered antiquated and rather old-fogyish to talk about constitutional restraints, and we are constantly met with the argument that, in the District of Columbia, Congress has exclusive power of legislation, and that, therefore, we can go into the Treasury of the United States and appropriate sums without limit for the purposes of the District. When we examine that subject closely, I think we shall find that we have no more authority to appropriate money from the national Treasury for the education of children in the District of Columbia than for the education of children in the State of Massachusetts or the State of Louisiana. It is true, Congress has exclusive power of legislation in the District of Columbia, but that does not mean unlimited legislation. Because Congress legislates exclusively for this District, Congress has no power to take money out of the Treasury of the United States and appropriate it in this District to purposes for which it could not appropriate it in the States. It has no such power. I admit that, while Congress is acting as a Legislature for the District of Columbia over the revenue or taxes derived from the District, it can appropriate them to any purposes to which the Legislature of the State of Maryland could have appropriated them; but that legislation must be in reference to taxes collected from the people of the District-not to taxes collected from the people of the whole Union. You have no more power to appropriate money out of the Treasury of the United States, for educational purposes in this District, than in the several States of this Confederacy. We not only violate right and justice, in taking a fund which properly belongs to others for the education of children here, but we violate a plain and fundamental principle of the Constitution.

I know it is stated in the report of the chairman of the District Committee-and I am a member of the committee, and know something about the reporting of this bill-that the District of Columbia has had no public lands for this purpose, and therefore we can appropriate money for it. I am free to admit that, in my judgment, Congress can appropriate the public lands to some purposes to which it cannot appropriate money out of the Federal Treasury. Congress may appropriate the public lands to aid the cause of education in the States where the lands lie, or even, perhaps, in other places. There, I think, the power is clear, and the object is national; but I do not see what power Congress has to take money out of the Treasury, and appropriate it to school purposes in this District.

If the relation that exists between the District and the Congress of the United States is simply that which exists between the people of a State and their Legislature, then, while acting as a Legislature for the District of Columbia, we have no power to appropriate the money of the people of the United States for educational purposes in this District; and where is your authority for the passage of this bill? The first section of this bill, I think, is very liberal, because it proposes to appropriate, for the benefit of the schools in this city, all the money collected by the Government from fines and forfeitures here. In my opinion, that is going far enough, and they should not, in addition to that, ask Congress to give them $20,000 annually to sustain common schools here. We already pay the expenses of their judges and jurors; we build their jails, erect their penitentiaries, and feed their convicts. What more shall we do? The States tax their citizens for these purposes, and do not call upon the Treasury of the United States to pay these expenses. This community is as much bound in justice, under the Constitution, to pay all expenses of this char

SENATE.

acter as are the respective communities in the several States. It is not right, decent, and just to impose all the expenses of this community upon the people of the United States.

There is another bill to which I may allude in this connection, proposing to appropriate money for the benefit of an asylum here for the deaf and dumb. There is no one who has more sympathy for that unfortunate class of our fellow-citizens than myself, but where do we derive the power to appropriate for them? I think the appropriation contained in the bill to which I have alluded amounts to some two hundred or three hundred dollars per scholar for the deaf and dumb. This community, after asking an appropriation of that amount to take care of the deaf and dumb here, now want an appropriation for the education of the thousands of children who are placed in the world with all their faculties-hearing, smell, sight, taste, and touch. They come to Congress for an appropriation of two or three hundred dollars a head to take care of those who are unable to speak, those whose faculties are impaired, while at the same time there are hundreds of children born with all their faculties whom they are permitting to become deaf and dumb. Their sympathies are keenly alive to restore those who have lost their faculties, and who never can be restored. It is a strange kind of philanthropy. If one portion of the community is to be lost or thrown away, I think we had better throw away that portion who cannot be restored, and try to save those who are placed in the world with all their faculties.

I do not make these remarks out of any unkind feeling toward the District of Columbia, for I will go as far to promote their interests, on proper principles, as any one can go; but I am not willing to tax my constituents, or the people of the several States, to do here those things which the people in the States are taxed to do for themselves. Let this community educate its own children; let it take care of its own deaf and dumb; let it punish its own offenders, build its own prisons, pay its own jurors and judges, as all other communities in this Confederacy do. Sir, the Congress of the United States has been exceedingly partial, to use no stronger term, toward this District from the beginning of the Government. Since this District has been under the charge of the General Government, up to 1857, we have paid to it, for pur poses not connected with any Federal expendi tures, $5,120,000, and this does not include all the items-over five million dollars for the local improvements, and to promote the individual interests of the people of the District of Columbia. Of this sum $1,150,000 was paid under an act for the relief of the several cities in the District We have assumed debts that they created, and ought to have paid out of their own funds. Have there been no other benefits conferred on the District of Columbia by the Government being located here? As I have stated, we have expended for their individual benefit, and for the promotion of their local improvements, and the payment of their debts, $5,120,000; and while we have been doing this, we have also gathered from the different States of the Confederacy the taxes of the people, and poured out $12,748,000, like a fertilizing stream on this particular locality, for the erection of public buildings, and improvements of various kinds. I have obtained from the Treasury Department a statement showing the amount expended by the United States for improvements in the District of Columbia up to June 30, 1857:

Improvements in During what time. the District for the Government. From 1800 to 1848...... $6,530,814 42 1848 to 1849......

63,045 99 69,945 01 157,370 78

882,223 05

Improvements for the District.

$2,708,253 88

189.000 00 195,126 03 279,901 08

1849 to 1850......

1850 to 1851......

1851 to 1852..

403,265 69

158,869 03 154.630 03

429,884 03 1,074,749 65

954,910 81

1,278,230 35

1856 to 1857.

1,859,313 36

$12,748,842 33

129,165 58 200,495 26 250,073 77 *$5,120,435 47 *Of this sum $1,152,857 57 was paid under an act for the $1,612,249 68 for the redemption of the debt contracted by relief of the several corporate cities of the District, and said cities, and assumed by the United States. F. BIGGER, Register. TREASURY DEPARtment, Register'S OFFICE, February 9, 1858.