choose now to enter into a controversy as to whether the information received by the Senator from Mississippi or the information I have received is correct. Neither of us can settle that point at present. But I deem it so important, and the Delegate from Oregon deems it so important that this bill should pass now, that I do not propose to say one word in reply. But I hope we may now vote.

The amendment was adopted.

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississppi, moved to strike out the third section of the bill, and insert in lieu thereof the following:

"The surveys in said Territory shall be made after what is known as the geodetic method, under such regulations and upon such terms as may be provided by the Secretary of the Interior, or other department having charge of the surveys of the public lands, and that said geodetic surveys shall be followed by topographical surveys, as Congress may from time to time authorize and direct."

Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. President, I merely rise to express the hope that the amendment will not prevail; not with reference to its merits, but because its introducing a new system of surveying may endanger the bill in the House. If it is a better plan we can adopt it hereafter. But it is a new system, which requires investigation, and may at this time operate to defeat the bill.

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. Mr. President, I should be sorry if the amendment should have that effect. Some time since I gave notice of my intention, whenever the subject of surveys in California and Oregon came up, to make this proposition. I am convinced that the geodetic is the only mode by which a strictly accurate survey can be made anywhere; and that there never was a country where it was more necessary than in Oregon and California. This is the result of the mountainous and mineral character of the country. Its narrow valleys being included between mountain ridges, afford the highest facilities for geodetic surveys, and the greatest difficulty to the mode now in use. There are also districts of country entirely worthless, and which lie contiguous to places where a single acre would be worth more than the thousand acres adjoining. We require, then, the highest degree of accuracy in the survey.

The present system is one which is wrong in theory. It has inherent errors, and those errors do not compensate each other, but constantly accumulate. When the present system is at

tempted to be applied to a mineral country, these errors increase to such a degree that surveys made in the old mode cannot be in any degree reliable. So they must prove in either Oregon or California. I believe, also, that the mode which I propose, in a country such as this, if the minute survey, the small triangulation, be confined to the fertile valleys and mines, can be adopted at less expense than a survey by the present mode of the whole country, as this mode requires.

As we advance to the north the errors of the present mode of survey increase. Between the 40th and 41st degree of north latitude there would be an error of 476 feet-nearly onetenth of a mile to a degree of latitude. This is because the system of survey which we now use is founded on the supposition that the earth is a plane instead of being spheroidal, as it is known to be.

Mr. President, I have no more interest in this matter than any other member of the Senate must have. It is a matter of history that we adopted the present mode of survey from the fact that our first system of land survey had to be applied to a flat and heavily wooded country, where the more scientific method could not be advantageously adopted. Mr. Ellicott, a man of high attainments, was well aware of its defects, when the system was introduced. If the Senator's own prairie State of Illinois had been surveyed by the geodetic and the topographical manner, she might now present a map as accurate as that of the garden, at a cost little if anything more than the imperfect plats which have been obtained by the system pursued. Still more is this true of the mountain districts and the higher latitudes to which we are now going. We have been acting on an unsound theory and the theory being unsound, no errors which result from practice can ever compensate for themselves.

Mr. President, I see that there is not a disposition to enter into the merits of this question, and it is disagreeable, under such circumstances, to press its consideration. But I scarcely know how to avoid it. If we adopt the old mode of survey for Oregon, there is an end of the matter. If we commence upon that system because we are pressed for time, I do not see how we are to escape the same evil in the adjoining country. It will then be applied to California, as I suppose we will adopt some mode of survey for California at this session. If there is a mode by which the relative merits of the two methods of survey can be tested, whether by a committee of the Senate or otherwise, I should be very glad to see that course adopted. I

have no wish to press discussion on the Senate at this time. But I believe that we should not surrender this, the only opportunity we can have to adopt a system which is true in itself, and which can so favorably be applied to the country for which we are about to order surveys. It is to begin with the mode with which we must sooner or later end, if we are to have accurate maps. I believe it should now be adopted there, hereafter to be extended thence to the Atlantic. This mode, once inapplicable, can soon, if not now, be applied to the whole country, as the dense, heavy woods which prevented us in the valley of Ohio from commencing with this mode of surveying are now in a great measure removed. Then we may present a a map of the United States, such as France now presents of her territory such as Switzerland has given to geography. We are in this matter behind the civilization of the nineteenth century; and it is time we should come up to it; its advantages should appear in our public acts, and be conferred on our infant colonies.

Remarks of Jefferson Davis, Sept. 19, 1850, on appropriations for certain custom-houses.

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. I am somewhat afraid of commencing this building of custom-houses in the interior towns; and I think the true rule by which we are to decide whether a place is worthy of a custom-house or not, is the amount of duties. that is collected in that place. Now, I take it for granted that the amount collected in St. Louis is very small. It must be so; for though steam has brought St. Louis very near to the Gulf, the amount of water in the river is not increased, and it is doubtful whether a sailing vessel could get to St. Louis. Therefore, I take it for granted that goods will continue to be delivered at New Orleans, and then sent up to St. Louis in a different class of vessels. We have a port of entry much lower down, at Vicksburg, to which sea-going vessels can run, but they do not often do so. We had a vessel for that purpose, but it was hogged on a bar. Now, by every argument that has been used here, we require an appropriation for Vicksburg, to which sea-going vessels can ascend. That place should be considered before St. Louis. Now, I think the true rule to be employed in judging of this matter is, the amount of duties on imports that is collected.

The question being taken upon the amendment, it was lost. Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. I objected to the appropriation

for the city of St. Louis; and yet the honorable Senator from Ohio urges that all the arguments in favor of the appropriation for that city apply to Cincinnati. His argument, therefore, would not be conclusive to me. Again: I think that all the arguIments which apply to St. Louis do not apply to Cincinnati; for there are periods when sea-going vessels might get to St. Louis, but I do not think they ever could get to Cincinnati. They certainly could not get through the canal, and it very seldom, if ever, happens that they could go up over the falls. I do not think all the arguments could be applied to Cincinnati that apply in favor of St. Louis; and for that reason I should be more opposed to this appropriation.

Mr. DAYTON. Cincinnati is also situated fifty or one hundred miles further up the river from the gulf than St. Louis. They have two persons employed in St. Louis, and but four at Cincinnati; yet it is asked to erect a custom-house there!

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, gentlemen have struck at last upon the true explanation of this matter. Goods imported to supply every portion of the West are imported into New Orleans; the duties are received there, and consequently the labor is performed at that place. Now, sir, I could not give a more striking proof of this, than to look into the Blue Book, and see what is done at St. Louis. There is a receiver at St. Louis, who receives for his services $174. There is an assistant, who receives $50. I suppose this is a full compensation for all the duties they perform. Nothing can be more apparent to me than that most of their duties relate to the internal commerce of the country. There is, I know, a large, a very large tonnage, but it is a tonnage engaged in the internal trade-a tonnage not registered, but licensed. When a vessel arrives from a foreign country with goods intended for the interior consumption, the duties are assessed at the port of New Orleans. They are seldom taken up the river upon the same vessel, but are generally shipped upon other kinds of craft. Now, I am willing to vote for measures like this, whenever there is an emergency shown. I am as willing to vote for a custom-house in the West as in the East, if there is any evidence before me that it is necessary to build one at all; but I have no evidence before me that there is any demand for such an appropriation at present. I shall therefore vote against it. It is a subject that ought to be inquired into. The business should be understood before we adopt a measure of this description.

Mr. DAYTON. This bill is now in Committee of the Whole. I give notice to the Senator from Maine, [Mr. HAMLIN,] that

when this bill is reported to the House, I shall move to strike out the appropriation for the custom-house in Bangor.

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. The Senator from Maine has argued, from the extent of tonnage registered and licensed the necessity for a custom-house. I think we have no occasion to build a custom-house for purposes of registry and license. A single room twenty feet square would, I apprehend, be sufficient to discharge all the duties connected with those transactions. You want a custom-house as a depôt for goods; and it will be recollected that last year the Senate was much occupied with the question of the warehousing system; and I think the conclusion of the Senate then was, that it was more advantageous to the United States to hire warehouses belonging to other persons than for the United States to build and own them. I have no doubt that, with the progress of settlement, a large amount of goods will pass up the Mississippi river, and many of its tributaries, to be stored for future consumption; and some time hereafter it may come to pass that the trade will reach that point that custom-houses may be necessary; but that will not depend so much upon the amount of goods consumed as it will upon the amount and location of capital engaged in the foreign trade. For the present, I have no doubt that it will be better to abstain from these appropriations.

Remarks of Jefferson Davis on the civil and diplomatic bill. Sept. 23, 1850.

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. I doubt very much the propriety, and indeed the power, to make such an appropriation. doubted its propriety when the first appropriation was made. It will be seen that the increase of the appropriation asked for is quite as rapid as the increase of the power described by the Senator from Missouri. Twenty thousand dollars was first given for experiments, and $40,000 is asked now to carry them out; and the next session, perhaps, $80,000 will be asked to apply them. Where does Congress get the power to make this appropriation? for that is the question we should ask ourselves in the exercise of our legislative power over any subject. It is surely not in the Constitution, and I know no other source of power to which Congress can apply. The Constitution gives Congress power "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." That was the whole grant of the Constitution. To carry out