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tect the Treasury of the Republic? How else are we to ascertain and rectify abuses in the administration of the Government? Or shall we allow them to go unrectified?

tion, when everybody knows that their recommendation would not have been at all obligatory upon the House--the House would be governed, not by that, but by the facts and arguments upon. which it was based?

But again: has not this House the right to in

Mr. BAYLY. If the gentleman alludes to the position taken by me he mistakes it. I admit that the House has a right to institute inqui-vestigate the transactions of an executive officer, ries into the transactions of the officers of the Government, for the purpose of ascertaining facts upon which to predicate articles of impeachment, or with a view to further legislation; but as this committee by their report and resolutions, pro- | pose neither, therefore the investigation is im- || proper and unconstitutional, and the report and resolutions should be rejected.

Mr. DUNHAM continued. Sir, we were not directed by the House to do the one or the other. We were directed to inquire into certain transactions, and report the facts to the House. This we have done. It is now for the House to judge as to what is necessary to be done in the premises. The committee could not recommend the impeachment of the late Secretary, for they knew that the House had no authority to prefer articles against him, he having gone out of office before the report was made. We have reported the facts, and applied those facts to the law; and, as we think, have clearly shown that these sums of money have been paid in violation of the law. It is now for the House to say whether they will allow this to go on, and thousands of dollars more to be paid away in the same way, or whether they will adopt such legislation as shall put a stop to it. The resolutions reported are but the conclusions of the law and facts set out in the report and legitimately arising from them. The correctness of the first two, the gentleman from Virginia will not dispute; nor will any of his colleagues upon this side of the House. And I think I shall satisfy his colleague upon the other side, [Mr. MORTON,] that they are correct before I get through, for I shall show him that they are not only in accordance with the decisions of the Executive department of the Federal Government, made again and again for nearly twenty years, but with the clear and emphatic decisions of the Supreme Court of his own State.

Sir, as I have before remarked, the best evidence of the correctness of these resolutions, and of the law and facts set forth in the report, is, that the gentlemen are afraid to walk up and look them boldly in the face; that they seek to avoid taking a direct vote upon their merits, but endeavor to draw off the attention of the House and the country upon a collateral issue, and that the most suspicious of all others, as to the jurisdiction. They seek to break their force and effect by the pretext, not that the report and resolutions are incorrect, but that the investigation was wrongful and unconstitutional. Sir, when a man is put upon his trial upon a charge of crime or misdemeanor, if the facts and merits of his case will acquit him, he does not want to be acquitted upon a mere technicality-upon a plea to the jurisdiction of the tribunal. Besides, I should like to know of the gentleman from Virginia, the gentleman from Ohio, or anybody else, how the conclusions of the committee-the omission, on their part, even if it had been made their duty to do so, to propose either impeachment or further legislation, can affect the rightfulness and constitutionality of the investiga

when that officer justifies his acts under a construction of an antecedent law of Congress which he pretends has been given to it by the subsequent acts of this House separately, and by the subsequent legislation of the two Houses jointly, in order to determine whether any such construction has been given to such antecedent law, and, if not, to disavow it? Shall he be allowed to throw the responsibility of his own iniquitous or reckless acts unjustly upon Congress, and shall this House have no right to investigate the subject, in order to place the responsibility where it belongs, upon his own corruption or ignorance?

Mr. Speaker, the conscientious and constitutional scruples of the minority of this committee in regard to this investigation, are all a pretext, to avoid the merits of the report and resolutions of the majority, as I can, in one moment, satisfy the House. I ask gentlemen to examine the resolutions under which this committee was raised. They are five in number. The first resolution instructs the committee to inquire and report

"Whether Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Interior, reopened and paid to G. W. and W. G. Ewing a claim against the United States, of seventy-seven thousand dollars, after the same had been adjudicated and rejected by the proper officer of the Government before said Ewing was inducted into said office of the Interior; who were agents and attorneys for said claim; what clerk in the office of said Department of the Interior had interest in said claim, and how said interest, if any, was acquired."

The 2d directs them to inquire

"Whether the Secretary of the Interior reopened and paid interest, to the amount of $31,000, on the pension granted to Commodore James Barron for services rendered in the Virginia navy during the revolutionary war, after the principal had been fully paid and discharged; and if said interest was paid, was it simple or compound; who was the agent or attorney for said claim; and the authority for such claim, if any."

The 3d. "Whether said Ewing reopened and paid a claim to a person or persons on behalf of the Chickasaw Indians, of $108,000, after the same had been adjudicated and rejected by the proper officer of the Government before said Ewing was inducted into the office of the Interior; who was the agent or agents, attorney or attorneys, and who was the party or parties in interest, and whether said agent, attorneys, or parties in interest held at the time of such payment any office under this Government, or now holds such office, and if so, what office."

The 4th. Whether said Ewing usurped the power of appointment in the Pension and General Land Office, and whether the same was a violation of law; also, whether any clerk of said Ewing's appointment reviews the opinions and decisions of the Commissioner of Pensions by order and direction of said Ewing; and if so, the authority for such or der and direction.' ""

And the 5th. "Whether any person or persons in office by appointment from said Ewing are correspondents or editors of newspapers, and what papers they edit or write for, and what are their salaries."

The resolutions are all of the same characterthat is, they all direct a simple inquiry into the acts of the late Secretary of the Interior, and of those in the department under his charge. The last two look to no other or different action on the part of either the committee or the House than do the first three. They do not propose an impeachment of the officer any more than the others, nor do they any more propose or have a view to further legislation. Look at the report and resolutions pro

is confined entirely to the conduct of humble clerks in the department, who have neither patronage nor power; who depend upon the influence of others, instead of exercising any of their own. Besides, the committee find nothing improper in their investigations under them, and acquit all parties referred to in them, whilst under the others they establish some stubborn facts, which it is not easy to avoid or refute. Therefore, can it be surprising that the gentleman should come to such diverse conclusions upon them ?—should think one portion unconstitutional and very wrong, and the other all right?

posed by the committee. They propose no different action by the House upon the matters referred || to them in the last two than they do in reference to the matters referred to them by the first three. Under the last two they neither recommend impeachment, or legislation, or action of any kind. Now, sir, behold the beautiful consistency of the very conscientious gentleman from Ohio, and the minority of this committee. They contend that the investigation directed by the first three is wrong and unconstitutional, and that they should be rescinded by the House, and all proceedings under them set aside; but not one word do they say of the unconstitutionality of the last two, though they are precisely of the same character. Nay, more; in the resolutions which they desire to substitute for those of the committee, whilst they propose to rescind and set aside the first three, they propose to send the last two back to the committee again for a further report upon them. There is consistency with a vengeance, and there are conscientious scruples of the most convenient character; for they || are used to set aside all that is disagreeable and hard to manage, but to retain for further action whatever may suit the purposes of the gentlemen! Mr. OUTLAW. I wish to correct the gentleman in his statement of facts. The substitute proposed by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. VIN-resolutions. I shall first take up the payment TON] is not the work of the minority of the committce, nor are they responsible for it. The gentleman from Ohio presented it upon his own responsibility.

Mr. DUNHAM, (resuming.) Well, sir, I am glad my friend from North Carolina [Mr. OurLAW] is out of that scrape, and I do not blame him for desiring to escape from so palpable an inconsistency, to characterize it by no harsher name; and I will hereafter, if I have occasion to allude to it, treat it as the sole production of the gentleman from Ohio.

But, Mr. Speaker, I shall spend no more time upon the right of this House to make this investigation. The country, I think, will duly appreciate the objection made to it by the gentleman from Ohio, and will attribute it the rather to a desire to cover up the gross ignorance and corruption of a public officer, a political friend and partisan, in the discharge of his official duties, than to any anxiety about an infraction of the Constitution, and especially as it comes from one who usually, if not invariably, votes in favor of all investigations into the transactions of Democratic officers. I shall now examine the cases referred to the consideration of the committee under the first three

of the claims of W. G. & G. W. Ewing. I intend merely to present its merits fairly and plainly before the House and the country, which I think the gentleman from Ohio did not do in his remarks upon it a day or two since. I shall dwell upon i but a moment; for as most of the money has been already paid in this case, and all of it in the Chickasaw case, any action of the committee or the House upon them now, will be like locking the stable door after the horse has been stolen. But I mean that the country shall know the justice, or rather the injustice, which was meted out by the late Secretary to that unfortunate race of men so rapidly vanishing before our onward progress, and who are under the guardian care and protection of this Government, and peculiarly entitled to our sympathy. The Messrs. Ewing were Indian traders, and professed to hold claims against various Indian tribes for merchandise they claimed to have sold them upon credit, to the amount of $61,057 02--much the largest portion of this sum being against the Pottawatomies. It is to their claims against this tribe that I shall confine my attention.

Now, Mr. Speaker, why does the gentleman from Ohio make so wide a distinction between the three resolutions and the proceedings of the committee under them and the other two? What reasons have operated upon his mind, to bring him to the conclusion that three of them are unconstitutional, and should be rescinded, and that the other two are constitutional and proper, and should be further acted upon by the committee and the House? Surely they must be grave and important ones, clear and conclusive. Well, sir, I think they are. I think the House and the country will so consider them, and will not be astonished at the effect they have had This tribe of Indians consisted of two bandsupon the gentleman's mind, and the conclusion to the one called the Council Bluffs band, and the which they have brought him. The first three other the Ossage River band; but though divided resolutions imply grave charges against the official into these two bands, they were all one tribe; and conduct of a Cabinet officer of the late Admin- to make any transaction valid and binding upon istration, of the gentleman's own political party- the tribe, the chiefs and head men of both bands charges of having squandered the public money-must have consented to it. In July, 1846, this of having illegally paid out large sums of it, at the solicitation of political favorites; charges which, if true, (as I think the proceedings of the committee under them clearly show,) must bring down upon him the merited indignation and contempt of the people. These charges were brought against a high ministerial officer, who exercised a controlling influence in that Administration, and who still exercises great influence with his party; who had, and may again have, immense patronage at his control. The other two resolutions relate to matters of much smaller moment, and one of them

Government made a treaty with this tribe for the purchase of their country. This treaty was signed, as was necessary, by the chiefs of both bands, and by it this Government obligated itself to pay to the tribe for their own use in their own way, divers large sums of money. At the making of this treaty, the Ewings, and other traders who also professed to have debts of a like character with theirs, to large amounts, against these Indians, presented them through their agents to commissioners who made the treaty, and sought to have provision made in it for the payment of

the

showing the iniquity of these obligations, and of their payment by the Secretary; for the very fact that this sum of money was to be paid to them for this purpose, shows conclusively that they intended themselves to retain the control and settlement of their own affairs; and hence, the Secretary had no right to intermeddle with them without their consent. Again; as a fund was provided by the treaty to enable them to pay their debts, it must be presumed that both they and the commissioners who negotiated the treaty, deemed it sufficient for the purpose. Now, sir, here is the provision,it is in the fifth article of the treaty: "The United

to the traders, sir, not to their ereditors, but to the "nation of Indians," "the sum of fifty thousand 'dollars, to enable said Indians to arrange their 'affairs and pay their just debts before leaving their 'present homes, to pay for their improvements, to purchase wagons, horses, and other means of transnecessarily sacrificed in moving to their new homes. And yet, upon the same days that the treaty was executed, the agents of these traders procured from a few of the chiefs these pretended obligations, which the Secretary passed, and ordered to be paid, to nearly three times the amount of the whole sum provided for all the purposes named in the article.

But, sir, here is additional evidence that this sum was deemed ample. Here is a letter from Colonel T. P. Andrews, one of the commissioners who made the treaty. It is on file in the Department of the Interior, and a copy was sent to the committee by the late Secretary himself. it, Colonel Andrews says:

In

their debts by this Government out of any moneys which it might agree to pay to the tribe for their country. But the commissioners, acting under an express resolution of the Senate, and of the directions of the department, very properly refused to make any such provision for the payment of the claims, or to have anything whatever to do with them. There was no reason why they should. They were individual transactions with the Indians, with which the Government had nothing to do. They had sold the goods, if they really ever were sold, to the Indians, and to them only had they a right to look for their pay. This Government has hitherto sought to shield the In-States agree to pay said nation of Indians," not dians under its protection from the rapacity of unscrupulous traders, and not to aid that rapacity in plundering them. After the treaty was signed, and they found that the commissioners would not lend themselves to their schemes, they on the same days on which it was signed by the respective bands, procured a few of the chiefs to sign certain obliga-portation, and pay individuals for loss of property tions or acknowledgments of indebtedness against the tribe to the enormous amount of about $130,000. || Now, sir, to make the treaty valid upon the whole tribe, it was signed by all the chiefs of both bands, one hundred and thirty-three in number, of whom fifty-nine were of the Council Bluffs portion of the tribe, and seventy-four of the Osage River. These pretended obligations were signed by some few of the chiefs of the upper or Council Bluffs band only, and the other by a few of those of the Osage band only-one set, those given at the Bluffs having eighteen signatures, and the other only eleven; and yet gentlemen have the assurance to call them valid national obligations of the tribe, which were sufficient evidence of the indebted ness of the tribe to authorize the Government, without asking the consent of the tribe, to arbitrarily divert the money which it had solemnly stipulated to pay to it, to the payment of these pretended debts, without any proof whatever of their dian character, and the manner in which such busiSir, who is there that knows anything of the Injustness-nay, which should reverse the order of ness is transacted with them, that does not know things, and instead of requiring the traders to show that they were just, in order to their pay-chiefs--the usual means resorted to by unscrupuhow easy it is, by bribing and intoxicating the ment, should require the poor, ignorant, helpless lous traders or their irresponsible agents upon such Indians to show that the debts were unjust, in oroccasions-to procure such acknowledgments to der to prevent the Secretary from arbitrarily paying them out of their own funds; for such was his any amount? Whether such means were resorted decision, and this decision is sustained by the gento in this case, the House must judge from the tleman from Ohio. Sir, it is revolting to reason circumstances. Here is what an eye witness says and common sense, and is repugnant to the feelupon the subject. In the same letter from which I before read, Colonel Andrews says: ings of every man who has a heart in his bosom, and which heart throbs with humane impulses. But the gentleman says, they were witnessed by our Indian agent. Some of them, and perhaps all, were; but does that add to their validity? Did that any more authorize the Government to pay them out of money which it had solemnly obligated itself to pay to the Indians, without their consent? The gentleman knows that witnessing such an instrument was no part of the official duty of the agent, and gave it no greater authenticity than if it had been witnessed by any private individual; and can the name of the witness supply the want of the signatures of the chiefs, which were necessary to bind the tribe? But the gentleman says that a fund was provided in the treaty to pay their debts to the traders." Sir, a sum of money was agreed to be paid to the Indians by the treaty, to enable them to pay their own debts in their own way; and this very provision is a strong circumstance

"We (the commissioners) supposed they (the Indians) would pay off all just demands to the traders as soon as

they got the $50,000, (we advised them to do so,) and we

estimated that it would take about $25,000 or $30,000.”

"I would state that that action of the agent of the traders (for the principal traders were not at the place at that time, or for some time thereafter) must have been clandestinely

and secretly done, for they knew well that the Indians, if sober, could not have been induced to give any such fraud

ulent acknowledgment-I say fraudulent, for two reasons: presume are shown, had no authority to give any such ae

"1st. Because the individual chiefs whose signatures I

knowledgments to bind the nation or tribe, not even that part of the nation at or near Council Bluffs, much less the other portion located on the Osage river, hundreds of miles from Council Bluffs.

"2d. Because the agents of the traders who were present knew well that they had admitted substantially to me and Major Harvey, that their debts did not, at that location, amount to more than between a seventh or eighth of that amount."

But, sir, I wish to call the attention of the House to some other circumstances, which will exhibit this transaction in a still stronger light. In 1847, Congress, to avoid these corrupt practices by which the chiefs were induced to put it in the power of traders to deprive the humbler members

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of the tribe of the benefit of money paid to the were signed with the signatures of the chiefs of Indians by the Government, passed a law provi- | both bands, in all, as I have said, one hundred ding that thereafter, when money was so paid to and thirty-three, and with the fact before him that them it might be paid per capita, so that each In- not one of these pretended obligations was dian in the tribe should get his just share, and that || signed by one fourth of the chiefs of a single band it should no longer be paid into the hands of the and by none of the other-without giving any chiefs, to be disposed of by them as it had up to notice whatever to the Indians of his intention to that time been. take up and review the case, so that they might contest the allowance, he took it up, reversed the principles laid down by the previous Administration for their settlement, decided that these pretended obligations were national obligations of the whole tribe, and prima facie evidence of a just indebtedness to the amount thereof, and that the Indians, if they would defeat their payment out of their own money, must prove a negative-must show that the claims were unjust.

When this law passed, these claims of which I am speaking were outstanding, and those who professed to hold them complained that it would work injustice to them, by depriving the chiefs of the means of paying off these claims. To prevent any injustice, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, under the administration of Mr. Polk, directed them to file their claims in the department, "that they might be examined by the President;" and that if they were found to be just, their payment should be provided for out of the money due to the tribe. They were filed and examined, and in the opinion of the Commissioner, as expressed in his report of 1848, they were of a very suspicious character. These pretended obligations appeared to be based, partly, upon old balances of accounts of long standing, without any evidence of what the original accounts had been for; and we all know how easy balances of this character can be trumped up against an ignorant people, who can neither read nor write. A portion of them were for goods sold to individual Indians, and not to the tribe. One item, of $2,410 58, was for pretended depredations, and had been once regularly and fairly adjudicated according to law, and rejected long before these pretended obligations were procured. Under these circumstances, the Commissioner refused to allow and pay them out of the money due from the Government to the Indians, until these claimants had clearly satisfied the department that they were just.

Sir, can there be found an honest, sensible, and right-feeling man in the country who will not say that the Commissioner decided rightly? There was no law which required this Government to satisfy these claims, or in any way interfere with them. There was no obligation upon it to do so, except that general obligation resting upon all Governments to do what they rightfully may to secure the just rights of their citizens. But who will not say that our Government should be clearly satisfied that the claims of its citizens are strictly and undoubtedly just, before it should lend its powerful aid to enforce their payment, and especially against a poor, ignorant, and helpless people, having the highest and holiest claims upon it for sympathy, support, and protection?

In this situation these claims remained suspended until after the expiration of Mr. Polk's administration. The claimants did not furnish the required proof. The Indians felt safe and rested secure, supposing that the principles thus laid down would be carried out, and that these claims would not be paid without such proof, and they were satisfied that it could not be produced. Mr. Ewing came into office, and with the report of the Commissioner before him showing the suspicious character of the claims-with the treaty before him in which a fund of $50,000 only had been provided to enable the Indians to pay their just debts, and for the various other purposes therein set forth-with the treaty before him signed on the same days on which those pretended obligations

But, sir, what was still more outrageous, after Mr. Ewing had made this decision, he did not even then give them any notice of his action. He did not allow them the poor opportunity of introducing this negative evidence to defeat the payment, as they allege they could have done, had such an opportunity been allowed them; but he at once ordered the claims to be paid out of the annuities due the nation, and the first intimation the poor wretches had of his action was, when they found the means upon which they were depending for their miserable subsistence thereby suddenly cut off.

Such, sir, has been the protection which this Government, through the late Secretary, has given to these poor helpless people, over whom it pretends to be the guardian. Truly, sir, "it is such protection as vultures give to lambs, by covering and devouring them." This is the conduct which the venerable and conscientious gentleman from Ohio stands up here, in the presence of his God, and before the country, to vindicate. This is the conduct about the investigation of which he has such conscientious and constitutional scruples. I do not wonder at his efforts to screen it from the eyes of the people; for I much mistake their character if it does not bring down upon the author of it their severest condemnation.

I will now pass to a brief notice of the Chickasaw case. Some years back a mistake had been made in the accounts of the Chickasaw Indians with this Government. They had been improperly charged with an item of $112,042 99, and that amount had thereby been inadvertently withheld from them. Doctor William M. Gwin appeared as their attorney, and had the error corrected under the administration of Mr. Polk, and the sum was allowed to the Indians. After its allowance he claimed to be entitled, for his services in the matter, one half, or $56,021 49; and he presented at the Indian bureau what purported to be a contract between himself and the commissioners of the Chickasaw nation, and a power of attorney by the latter to him, under which he claimed to be entitled to receive that amount out of the sum allowed to the Chickasaws. This the department refused to allow, for several reasons, one of which was, that the claim was enormous and unreasonable for the service rendered, and that the Indians were under the guardianship of the Government, and that any contract or agreement entered into without the sanction of the department was invalid and of no binding effect. Another difficulty also arose to prevent its allowance. The Indians denied the

validity of the contract and power of attorney. his death, which the auditor refused to allow. The King denied ever having signed it, and it was The administrator appealed, under a law of that alleged, also, that the persons who had signed it State, to the superior court of Henrico county, and as commissioners were not at the time commisthat court, on the 14th December, 1823, rendered sioners of the Chickasaw nation, but had resigned a judgment in his favor for the half pay and interabout two weeks before, and of course had no est thereon, from the 5th of April 1821, the time power to bind the nation. And all the evidence And all the evidence it was presented to the auditor for payment before the late Secretary of the Interior when he and payment refused. The whole amount was allowed the claim, at least so far as he has submit- || $2,080 52, and on the 15th of that month it was ted it to the committee, tended to establish that paid to the administrator by that State. This allegation. Doctor Gwin assigned the claim to was all that he claimed at that time, and it was all Messrs. Corcoran & Riggs, bankers of this city; to which he was entitled by the clear and emand after Mr. Ewing was made Secretary of the phatic decisions of the Virginia courts upon Vir Interior they applied to him to reopen and reex-ginia laws, and indeed he was glad to get that, for amine the case. He did so and paid it, thus trampling under foot the decision of the previous Administration. When it came up before him, the original contract and power of attorney had been lost. To it there were several subscribing witnesses. Even admitting it to have been properly executed and binding upon the nation, the money could not have been legally paid, as every lawyer well knows, without having required the claimants, after the loss of the instrument was shown, to establish the contents thereof by competent disinterested proof; and this proof should have been the testimony of the subscribing witnesses unless they were shown to be dead, absent from the country, or otherwise legally disqualified. This was not shown. Yet the late Secretary of the Interior, notwithstanding the previous decision of the department refusing to allow it--notwithstanding the Indians protested that the claim was unjust and wrongful, and that the instrument had been executed by persons who had no power at the time to bind the nation, and notwithstanding that the proof before him tended to establish that factallowed and paid the claim to Messrs. Corcoran & Riggs, upon the bare affidavit of Mr. Corcoran, one of the firm, as to the contents of the instrument, without requiring any proof of the date of its execution, and without requiring any proof to show that the persons executing it had at the time the power to do so.

it was for some time considered doubtful whether he was entitled to it. This was one item of the amount which was refunded to the State of Virginia by the United States, by the 1st section of the act of 1832. The case rested here, everybody supposing it was fully settled and ended, until July, 1849, after Mr. Ewing became Secretary of the Interior, when Messrs. Lyons & Vincent, as attorneys of the administrator of Commodore Barron, made application to the Commissioner of Pensions for commutation of five years full pay and interest, in lieu of the half pay for life which had been received, alleging that the administrator had made a mistake when he had sued for ånd recovered against Virginia half pay only. The Commissioner of Pensions rejected the claim, and they appealed to the Secretary of the Interior, who opened the case--set aside not a settlement merely but the judgment of a court rendered and paid off more than twenty-six years before--overruled all the decisions of the courts of Virginia, and the decisions of the Attorneys General of the United States since 1832, among whom were some of the ablest jurists of the land-disregarded the action of Congress for the same period, and allowed the claim. The case was finally decided January the 2d, 1850. The amount allowed as commutation was $4,258 31, and upon this he allowed interest from the 22d of April, 1783, up to the time the claim was paid off in 1823, there made a rest, carried the interest to the principal, and deducted the payment then made by Virginia, and upon the balance allowed interest again until he paid the claim in 1850. So that a claim which had been fully paid all that the claimant asked in 1823, with $2.080 52, was paid over again in 1850, with $32,382 50 over and above the amount first paid, which makes the whole amount paid $34,391 02. The interest up to the time of the payment in 1823 was $10,385 83-the payment was $2,082 52, so that it will readily be seen, sir, that from that time onward, interest was allowed upon $8,303 31 of The last case to which I shall call the attention interest; hence not only allowing interest upon the of the House is the payment of the claim of Com-claim in violation of the settled practice of the modore James Barron, who served in the Virginia || Government from its establishment, but compound navy during the Revolution. This case involves interest. The amount of compound interest alnot only several others which have been paid, but lowed is about $13,091 33. We thus paid, in setmany yet unpaid, amounting probably to some tling this claim, that sum more than we should five or six millions of dollars. I shall, therefore, have had to pay, if not a dollar had before been give it a careful examination. Commodore Bar-paid upon it. ron served until the end of the war in the Virginia navy, and according to the decision of the Virginia courts was entitled to his half pay for life from the end of the war. He died in 1787. On the fifth day of April, 1821, his administrator filed a claim with the auditor of Virginia for his half pay from he 22d of April, 1783, the close of the war, until

Thus, sir, was $56,021 49, arbitrarily taken from this Indian nation out of money which we owed to them, against their earnest remonstrances, and paid as a lawyer's fee in a single case; and that case, too, for recovering from this Government the very money out of which it was paid, and which had || been inadvertently and wrongfully withheld from them-paid too upon evidence which would not have been received in any magistrate's court in this country. And all this the conscientious gentleman from Ohio defends, and says we ought not to investigate.

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Sir, we are told by the gentleman from Ohio, and the minority of the committee, that the compound interest was paid by a mistake of the accounting officers, for which the Secretary of the Interior was not accountable. Yes, sir; a mistake of somebody else. Sir, this I look upon as the worst part of the conduct of the Secretary

of

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