QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE. 345 XIV. 1800. in-chief, had, so he maintained, abundant authority in CHAPTER the matter. But the House were almost unanimously of opinion that, in a question so serious as that of their privileges and that certainly was one of the grounds on which Randolph's letter had placed the matter-the president had acted with great discretion in referring the whole subject to them. A special committee was ac cordingly appointed, by which a report was soon made severely censuring not the style only, but object also, of Randolph's letter to the president. Whatever might have been the writer's intentions, this letter was pronounced by the committee to be in itself little short of a breach of the privileges of the House, being an attempt to transfer to the president the jurisdiction over a matter of which the House itself was the peculiar and exclusive judge. As to the alleged insult witnesses had been examined. The officers implicated had denied any knowledge that Randolph was in the box; and the whole testimony as to what was said and done was so contradictory, that, in the committee's opinion, no case appeared requiring any action. In spite of the earnest efforts of Randolph's party friends, this report was adopted; and he was thus obliged not only to put up with the retort which his own insolence had provoked, but himself to submit to the censure of Congress, while no punishment of the officers could be obtained-for, of course, after this, the president took no further steps in the matter. This was a lesson by which a wiser man might have profited; but a peevish, sneering, and quarrelsome insolence was so ingrained a part of Randolph's sickly nature, that not even the severest lessons of experience could restrain it. Though the proposal to return to the former peace es tablishment had been rejected, great anxiety was felt by CHAPTER a part of the Federalists on the score of the national ex XIV. penses, which had, indeed, been the great argument on 1800. the part of the opposition. From a statement submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury, it appeared that if the additional twelve regiments were completed to the establishment as yet only 3400 men had been enlisted, though all the officers had been appointed-and if the building of the seventy-fours were contiuued, a new loan of five millions would be necessary to meet the expenses of the year. Under these circumstances, though not willJan. 15. ing to go quite the length of the opposition, a bill was introduced by the Committee of Defense, which presently Feb. 20. became a law, suspending farther enlistments for the ad May 7. ditional regiments, but empowering the president, in case war broke out during the recess, to order their renewal at his discretion. No additional appropriation was made for the seventy-fours, thus reducing the loan required to three millions and a half, which amount the president was authorized to borrow. To pay the interest on this and the previous five millMay 13. ion loan, additional duties were imposed of two cents and a half per pound on sugar-candy, and of half a cent per pound on brown sugar, raising the entire duty or the latter article to two cents and a half per pound. Two and a half per cent. additional was also imposed on all goods hitherto paying ten per cent. ad valorem, including woolens, linens, and silks, which were thus made to pay the same twelve and a half per cent. as manufactures of cotton. The duties on wines were also increased so as to range from twenty-three cents to fifty-eight cents per gallon, Madeira still standing at the head of the list. The numerous insolvencies produced by the rage of land speculation and by the uncertainties of commerce, aggravated as they had been by the conduct of the del BANKRUPT LAW. CONNECTICUT RESERVE. 341 XIV ligerents, had made evident the necessity of laws for the CHAPTER discharge of insolvent debtors. The impolicy as well as cruelty of imprisonment for debts occasioned by the fluc- 1800. tuations of trade and the uncertainties of speculation had begun to be felt; and several of the states had already tried their hands at the enactment of insolvent laws. More than once, at preceding sessions of Congress, the project had been brought forward of a general bankrupt law for the Union. Such a law was now passed, modeled April 4 after the English bankrupt law, and, like that, extending only to merchants and traders. But another act gave to all persons imprisoned on executions for debt issued out of the Federal courts the right to discharge themselves from imprisonment on taking an oath of poverty-their future property, should they acquire any, still however to be liable for their debts; and this oath might also be taken with the same effect, even though no execution had issued, at any time after thirty days from the rendition of judgment. The tract of territory in the northeastern corner of the present State of Ohio, reserved by Connecticut out of her cession to the United States, and thence known as the "Connecticut Reserve," had, as already has been mentioned, been sold by Connecticut, jurisdiction and all, to a company of speculators. They had surveyed it into townships, and, under their auspices, a thousand settlers or more were already established on it. To these speculators the jurisdiction was of no pecuniary value, and was even likely to prove a serious embarrassment; while it was much for their interest to obtain from the United States a direct confirmation of the Connecticut title, hitherto only inferentially acknowledged, and the more so as Connecticut, avoiding all risks, had given them only a quit-claim deed. On the other hand, it was XIV. CHAPTER an object for the United States to extinguish the claim of jurisdiction; and in this mutuality of interests origin1800. ated an act of Congress authorizing the issue of letters April 28 patent conveying the title to the lands to the Governor of Connecticut, for the benefit of those claiming under her; similar letters patent to be executed by Connecticut, relinquishing all claim to jurisdiction. This act, in obtaining from Connecticut a relinquishment of all her claims to jurisdiction west of her present boundary, had also the effect to extinguish a controversy long pending between her and New York as to a strip of land along the southwestern boundary of the latter state, known as the "Connecticut Gore," and which Connecticut had claimed as within her charter, on the same principles on which she had formerly claimed the northern portion of the State of Pennsylvania, as well as the Connecticut Reserve itself, and the ceded district west of it. The assistance toward the extinction of the public debt expected from the sale of the public lands, had hitherto entirely failed to be realized. There was, in fact, a powerful and influential body of men interested in keeping those lands out of the market, including the speculators in military land warrants, and those who had purchased up such immense tracts in New York and Pennsylvania, as well as in the Territory northwest of the Ohio, on which tracts alone had any settlements as yet been commenced. The act of 1796 had effectually prevented purchases direct from the United States by actual settlers of small means, who were thus obliged to obtain their lands at second-hand from the speculators. It provided for the sale of public lands only at the treasury, at Cincinnati, and at Pittsburg; at the two latter places at vendue only, and in sections, as the smallest quantity; and during the four years that this act had been in force, PUBLIC LANDS. INDIANA TERRITORY. 849 XIV. the total receipts under it, speculative purchases included, CHAPTER had scarcely amounted to $100,000. Principally through the urgency of Harrison, the delegate from the Territory 1800. northwest of the Ohio, and in hopes, also, of improving the revenue, this method of sale was considerably modified, and the substance of the existing land system introduced. The new act made provision for the opening of May 10 four land offices within the territory itself at Cincinnati, Marietta, Chilicothe, and Steubenville, each with its register and receiver. The lands, subdivided into half sections of 320 acres each, after being offered at public auction, if not sold, might be entered at any time at the minimum price of two dollars per acre, besides the expense of survey, one quarter to be paid in forty days after the entry, and the remainder in three installments spread over four years. A joint resolution had already been adopted, authorizing the president to appoint an agent to collect information as to the copper mines on the south side of Lake Superior. But these mines, though their existence had been known for more than a century past, were destined to remain unwrought for near half a century longer. The rising Connecticut settlement on the Reserve being merged into the Territory northwest of the Ohio, an act was passed dividing that territory into two jurisdic- May. tions, the region west of a line drawn from the mouth of the Kentucky River to Fort Recovery, and thence due north to the Canada line, being erected into a separate territory, called INDIANA, after one of the old antiRevolutionary land companies, which had claims in that region. The new Territory of Indiana, vast as its extent was, contained only a few isolated spots to which the Indian title had been extinguished, and on which alone any set |