Page images
PDF
EPUB

will show that the only offence truly chargeable aguinst nine-tenths of the removals, is devotion to the principles of the Democratic party.

[ocr errors]

publicly court and defy investigation. Take the offices, but in doing so, travel some other track than over the reputation of the faithful and stricken down Democratic incumbents. This and like cases (of which no doubt there are many) demand the scrutiny of this body. It is due alike to ourselves and our fellow-citizens that the door be || thrown wide open, and their accusers be invited

to enter.

No doubt, in many instances, it will be found that charges have been preferred, but in few or none can they be proved when tested. As one of the friends of the late Administration, and as the friend of all who were its friends, I court investigation. My faith in the general purity of the party which has built up the institutions of our Mr. BELL. Will the honorable Senator tell country is firm, and I believe, when put to the me whether he has applied in any quarter for intest, its officers will come out of any ordeal that || formation in the case to which he has alluded? may be instituted with unsullied reputations. 1 Mr. BRIGHT. I am gratified that the honorhave, sir, in my mind at this moment a case fur- able Sonator has asked me the question. I annishing an unanswerable argument in favor of the swer, that the chairman of a committee of this adoption of these resolutions. It is that of a most || body, whose duties connect him with that departworthy and meritorious man, whose appointment ment of the Government having charge of the to a very responsible office was advised and con- papers I refer to, made a written request in behalf sented to by this body some three years ago, and of the committee, and the reply was: "He rewho has been removed by the present Adminis-garded the papers applied for as exclusively within tration on a set of ex parte charges, preferred and the direction and control of the President. acted upon without the knowledge of the accused, making it very evident that unless some action is and which charges if true would subject him to had here, requiring an official surrender of all the severe punishment. I should not have referred information sought by these resolutions, many of to this particular case, were it not in my power, us will be left to act in the dark, and our friends from my own personal knowledge of the facts, to be condemned on false charges, without even the ter an unqualified denial as to their truth, and forms of a trial.

Printed at the Congressional Globe Office.

Thus

THE GALPHIN CLAIM.

SPEECH

OF

HON. C. E. CLARKE, OF NEW YORK,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1850,

On the Report and Resolutions of the Select Committee in relation to the claim of the representatives of George Galphin.

Mr. CLARKE said:

claimants are exhausted, by our long delay. Hope

Mr. SPEAKER: The gentleman from North Car- || deferred has made their hearts sick; while we are olina [Mr. STANLY] has argued the question under consideration as though the present Administration || had misapplied the public money; but insists that the Democratic party has no right to complain, because that party has been guilty of far more flagrant and extensive abuses; and in the course of his argument has demonstrated, apparently, by the way of set-off, that Democratic Administrations had perpetrated and connived at the embezzlement of millions.

It is not my intention to place the defence of the present Administration upon any such ground. After a laborious and careful examination, I am perfectly convinced, that the payment of the claim of George Galphin, under the treaty with the Creek and Cherokee Indians, was made in strict accordance with law and precedent.

||

leisurely discussing abstractions. We are cursed by the tariff of 1846-a tariff made for the protection, not of our own, but of foreign industry. It sticks to us like the shirt of Nessus. The manufacturing interests are brought to the verge of ruin. We have no time to act; no time to respond to the thousand real wants, sufferings, and distresses of a neglected and abused constituency. But we have plenty of time to talk of abstractions. Millions of people desire a change in the post-office laws-a reduction of postage, and the abolition of the franking privilege; in all which changes I most heartily concur. But we have no time to attend to their wants, for abstractions are the order of the day.

When, however, a bold effort is made to cast a stigma on an upright and patriotic and highly talented Administration, I deem it my duty to repel the effort, to proclaim to this House and the country the truth as I understand it. The fair character of individuals is as much theirs as their money, and he is thrice a thief who, without cause, destroys it; the character of public officers is one of the most valuable attributes of a nation. It is our duty, as gentlemen, as statesmen, as philanthropists, to deal with the character of public men as the most valuable and most cherished individual and national possession, and he who wantonly detracts from that character is an enemy to his country and his race.

If I have arrived at a wrong conclusion-of which I have not the slightest suspicion--and if, in the remarks I am about to make, or the votes I am prepared to give, I am in error, I shall be consoled by the reflection that they have cost the nation nothing but the time which is consumed; for the Galphin claim is paid; and any effort to get it back would be as futile as to attempt to gather up water that has been sprinkled on the dry sand. The question is, like most of those which have engaged the attention of the present Congress, an “abstraction." With slight exceptions, we have, for the last half year, done little but talk-inces- || santly talk-on abstractions. An immense terri- The history of this claim is briefly this: Some tory needs laws; a great, and rich, and powerful || time previous to 1771 George Galphin, and various State has adopted a constitution-republican in its || other Englishmen, were licensed traders with the form-and asks for admittance into the Union. || Creek and Cherokee Indians, and those Indians, We are taxing that State, and it is not represented. We refuse her admission, and spend our time in talking on abstractions. The fiscal year is ended: we have no time to pass the supply-bills, we are so pressed with discussions on abstractions. Hundreds of private claims are awaiting our action. The patience and the means of many of the

falling in debt to the traders in the sum of forty-five thousand pounds sterling, (£45,000,) proposed to pay the debt in land, at sixpence sterling the acre. It being against the policy of the British Government that individuals should trade with Indians for their lands, but being will ing that the debts of the traders should be paid

[ocr errors]

Two million five hundred thousand acres of the most valuable land in Georgia was the super

the King of Great Britain consented to become the trustee of the traders, and in 1773 the Indians ceded to him (2,500,000) two million five hundred || abundant means in her hands, as trustee, to pay thousand acres of the most fertile, best, and healthiest land in Georgia, in full satisfaction and discharge of the £45,000, the King agreeing to sell the lands, and out of the proceeds to pay so far as they would go, and no further, the debt of the traders, which debt thus became an equitable lien on those lands.

[ocr errors]
[merged small][ocr errors]

a debt of £9,791 15s. 5d., due one of her oldest and best and most efficient friends. Georgia was poor; her inhabitants did not then amount to more than forty thousand; she was pressed from without by a foreign foe, and she was threatened from the interior by the powerful and warlike Creeks and Cherokees; and this must be her apology for appropriating, in her utmost need, to her own use an estate which she held in trust for George Galphin. But she vindicated her sense of justice by simultaneously providing for the cestui que trust: in other words, George Galphin.

The poverty of Georgia, the death of George Galphin, both perhaps combined to delay the issuing of the scrip. In 1790 the representatives of Galphin petitioned the Legislature to provide for the payment of this debt, but no action was had by the Legislature. The powerful and war

In 1775 (nothing having been paid to the traders) the war of the Revolution broke out, and the commissioners of necessity ceased to act. George Galphin, though an old man, (being rising of sixty five years of age,) and an Englishman, took sides with the Colonists, was a Whig, and rendered very useful and efficient service to the Americanike Creeks and Cherokees were quiet in their nacause during that war-his extensive acquaintance with the Indians, his great influence over them, rende ed his services peculiarly efficient.

The remainder of the Indian traders took sides with the Crown-in short, Galphin was a patriot and a Whig, the remainder of the traders were Loyalists and Tories. In 1780 George Galphin died poor; he remained till the time of his death in possession of a plantation, the most healthy, beautiful, and rich-the pride of the whole South; but his advances to the Indians had exhausted his means, and the failure to pay their debt reduced him to poverty, and his beautiful estate was wards sold under the sheriff's hammer.

||

tive forests; there was a wide ocean between Georgia and the troops of Great Britain; our independence was acknowledged, peace reigned, and the sense of gratitude and justice faded from the mind of Georgia.

who were trae to her flag.

In the same year the British Parliament appropriated £49,556 17s. 6d. to indemnify those Indian traders, who were entitled, out of the proceeds of the land, to pay under the treaty of 1773 with the Creek and Cherokee Indians. Out of the fund thus provided, all these Indian traders, whose debts were secured by the cession of the land, were after-paid, principal and interest, except George Galphin; and he was not paid, on the express ground In 1780 the Legislature of Georgia passed laws that he was a Whig. Great Britain was not bound appropriating these 2,500,000 acres to her own to pay even her Tories-she had lost the fund by use; she bestowed them as bounties to soldiers of the fortune of war, out of the proceeds of which the Revolution; she gave them to citizens of Geor-alone she was bound to pay; still she paid those gia, who would settle on them, and also to citizens of other States, accompanied by some privileges and exemptions, provided they would settle on and defend the soil. At the same time, and in the same law, Georgia provided and enacted, that Georgia would assume the debts due to those for whose benefit the Indians ceded the lands, they being friends to America, and that scrip should be issued, payable in two, three, and four years, bearing interest at six per cent. This provision of course embraced the claim of George Galphin, amounting to £9,791 15s. 5d., because he was a friend to America-in other words, a Patriot and a Whig, and carefully excluded the claims of the remaining Indian traders, because they were loy-by her dismemberment-Georgia, that won both alists and Tories.

The example of Great Britain is not binding on us, but it is an example of the justice of a great nation, which sheds light in our path, and by which we may profit. It is also in strong contrast with the conduct of Georgia. The sovereignty of those lands was wrested from Great Britain by George Galphin and such Patriots and Whigs as he. Georgia obtained that sovereignty, and appropriated the lands to her own use. They would have still been Indian lands, except for the funds of George Galphin. Great Britain loses not only the sovereignty but the soil itself, and she pays her subjects, her Loyalists and Tories, who suffered

sovereignty and soil, declines to pay the Patriot

and Whig, who paid for the soil, and greatly aided || followed the devious and winding track of party. in establishing her sovereignty.

If the ingratitude of republics were not proverbial before, there is matter enough here to estab. lish the proverb. Repulsed by the Legislature o Georgia, the representatives of Galphin applied to Great Britain for payment, and of course were refused, on the ground that George Galphin was a Whig.

The gentleman from New York introduces, as a make weight in the case, the report of three Georgia commissioners, appointed in 1838, to investigate this claim, who reported in 1839-that Georgia, || by conquest, acquired an absolute title to the two million five hundred thousand acres of land, unincumbered by the trust of Great Britain; that Georgia incurred no obligation under, the act of 1780, The representatives of Galphin renewed their to pay the debt of George Galphin, because Galapplication to the Legislature of Georgia in 1791, phin was not known to have been a Whig of the and again in 1793, in which year a committee of Revolution. To prove which, the commissioners the Senate of Georgia reported in favor of the allege, that in 1780, one Mcilvay, a Tory, peticlaim, on the ground that Georgia, by the Revo- tioned the Tory Legislature at Savannah to extend lution, had assumed the position of Great Britain; its clemency to George Galphin, by striking his and as respects those lands, held them as a trustee name out of a bill of confiscation and attainder, for the benefit of Galphin, and had appropriated which petition did not prevail; from which it them to her own use, and therefore was liable, by would seem that a previous Tory Legislature had every principle of justice, to pay the debt. This passed a bill of attainder against George Galphin, was then the opinion of Georgia twenty years and confiscated his property, because he was a after the lands were paid for by Galphin, and thir- || Whig, a patriot, and a friend to American indeteen years after they had been seized and appro-pendence. That a noted Tory moved to have his priated by Georgia.

name stricken out of that bill of confiscation and attainder, and the Tory Legislature refused to strike out the name, so that George Galphin remained outlawed, for the reason that he was a Whig;

This report, which gives the best possible reasons for the recommendations it contains-a report which recommends a simple act of justice to be done to the children of one of Georgia's earliest,his property confiscated, because he was a Whig. and best, and most powerful friends-the gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKs] insinuates, without proof or probability, was made by some special committee, packed for the base purpose of reporting favorably of the merits of the case; and seems to predicate that opinion on the fact that the Legislature of Georgia did not then agree to pay the claim. I predicate the refusal of the Georgia Legislature to do this simple act of justice, to the fact that there was not stiffness, independence, sense of justice enough, in that body, to do a plain, palpable act of justice; to the fact that the purse was the most inaccessible thing about her-that, like the late Dean Swift, she found it against her principle to pay the interest, and against her interest to pay the principal.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

There might, too, have been men in that Georgia Legislature who were afraid to do justice, and to uphold the principle of justice; perhaps, too, there might have been cautious, far seeing politicians in that Georgia Legislature, who apprehended that to do justice would not be understood by their constituents; that an unscrupulous press would pervert their acts, and they might have felt, as the gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKS] seems to feel, "how they were jeopardizing the interests of || some common party," by doing justice. If so, it is not the first instance where Legislatures have shunned the straight, broad road of justice, and

And this the sapient Georgia commissioners adduced as a proof that he was not a Whig, but a Loyalist and Tory; and this report the gentleman, from New York [Mr. BROOKS] relies on to cast a shade on George Galphin as a patriot and a Whig. George Galphin had nothing to do with the petition of Mellvay. The proof that Mcllvay adduced, that Galphin was a Tory or Loyalist, consisted in Galphin's having said that he would take no part in the rebellion further than to prevent the merciless savages from murdering helpless women and children, which he had happily effected, and for which act McIlvay prayed that Galphin might be pardoned.

The overt act of George Galphin's toryism and devotion to the King, consisted in his saving helpless women and children, the wives, mothers, and children of Whigs from the tomahawk and scalping knife; but the gentleman from New York finds enough in this to cast suspicion on the patriotism of George Galphin.

A talent to draw such an inference from such premises would have been exceedingly useful, and would no doubt have found full employment amongst those philosophers who once upon a time endeavored to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. The gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKS] adopts this opinion of the Georgia commissioners, that by the war of the Revolution, Georgia not only

as he, was the reason why she did not. Georgia, that assumed the trust, realized the full amount, and more, out of the trust fund, and who, in conse

acquired the sovereignty over the two million five hundred thousand acres of land, but the exclu sive unincumbered right to the soil. The war of the Revolution was waged by Georgia against Greatquence thereof, promised to pay principal and inBritain, not against citizens of Georgia;

was

terest, is not liable, and it was equity and justice against the throne, the power, the sovereignty of for Great Britain to pay, and it was not equity or the King that Georgia made war; it was not against justice for Georgia or the United States to pay!!! the property or private rights of any, and particu- | When did a deliberative assembly ever before larly not against the rights of her own self-devoted listen to such law or logic? When will it happen and patriotic citizens. All the interest which Great again? There is some use, however, in this, for Britain had in these lands was the sovereignty it is an admission that Galphin's was a real debtand a residuary interest when the claims of the the exact amount is admitted, and that it ought to Indian traders were extinguished. This was all have been paid. the claim which Georgia could acquire, for in law or in war, all that the victorious party can possibly acquire, is the interest of the defeated party.

The condition of George Galphin was, if this doctrine, invented by Georgia and adopted by the gentleman from New York, [Mr. BROOKS,] is to prevail, most calamitous. If he fought for American independence and succeeded; if he saved from the tomahawk and scalping knife, the wives mothers, and children of Whigs, and we became free and independent, his trust estate was forfeited, and became "the absolute, unincumbered prop- || erty of Georgia." If the King succeeded, he must flee for his life, and his property be confiscated. His only safe way was to become a Tory from the start, and then he would stand some chance of being provided for. This is the necessary result of the opinions of the gentleman from New York, [Mr. BROOKS.]

[ocr errors]

The gentleman from New York sees nothing wrong in this. It was, says he, the fate of thousands and tens of thousands, from Maine to Georgia. It is quite clear that the gentleman from New || York [Mr. BROOKS] bears the griefs of others with a light heart, especially if to alleviate those griefs by an act of justice might injure our common Whig party." I venture to say that this was not the fate of one thousand or one. I aver that never was the instance before where the monstrous principle was asserted even, that a patriot and Whig forfeited his equitable lien on lands by the Revolution. Poor encouragement to be Whigs, truly, if by so being their lien upon the lands, the sovereignty of which they changed by their bravery and patriotism, was forfeited! It was equity and justice, says the gentleman from New York, in page eight of his speech, for Great Britain to pay George Galphin. Great Britain expressly stipulated, when she accepted the trust, that she would not pay except what she realized out of the trust fund. She realized nothing; and the patriotism of George Galphin and such Whigs

This strange report of the Georgia commissioners--false in fact, false in principle, and false in the deductions from those principles--was adopted and approved by a large majority of the Georgia Legislature of 1839, which Legislature no doubt was influenced by as good motives as the late Dean Swift, who found it against his interest to pay the principal of a just debt, and against his principle to pay the interest; and perhaps, as they no doubt loved place and power, they might have had fears that to do justice would endanger their seats in the Georgia Legislature, and the “ peace and prosperity of their common party.

[ocr errors]

For the space of fifty years, from 1790 to 1840, this just claim was pressed upon the Legislature of Georgia. In almost every instance, the committees of the House reported in its favor, and used such reasons for its payment as it is thought would have prevailed in any court of equity or law-such reasons as would have enlisted the feelings and action of any just man; but the purse was the most inaccessible thing about this great State, and she found it against her interest to pay the principal, and against her principle to pay the in

terest.

These frequent repulses and defeats, the gentleman from New York seems to gloat over-sneers at the claim because it is old-questions, on the most dubious authority, the patriotism of George Galphin-seems to forget that his patriotism and devotion to the cause of American independence was fully proved by the best possible witness, his neighbor and friend, George Walton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and that the only shadow of doubt that is cast upon his patriotism is found in an effort, not made by him, to have his name erased from a bill of confiscation and attainder for being a Whig and saving defenceless women and children, the mothers, wives, and children of Whigs, from the tomahawk and scalping-knife-relies on this unsuccessful effort to erase his name from a bill of confiscation and attainder—and seems to forget that the fact of

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »