IN ASSEMBLY,

February 1, 1831. ·

ANNUAL REPORT

Of Nathaniel Challes, an Inspector of Lumber for the city of Troy.

To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New-York.

IN ASSEMBLY,

February 10, 1831.

REPORT

Of the Committee on two-third bills on the bill entitled, An act amendatory of the Act for the relief the heirs of Christian Guthrie,' ›" with the ameents of the Senate thereto.

Mr. Fillmore, from the committee on two-third bills, to whom was referred the bill entitled, "An act amendatory of the Act for the relief of the heirs of Christian Guthrie,'" with the amendments of the Senate thereto,

REPORTED:

That they have had said bill under consideration, and that the facts, so far as your committee deem them necessary to a right understanding of the question, are briefly as follows: Christian Guthrie was a soldier in the New-York line in the revolutionary war, and was killed in battle in July, 1778. He was returned as a dead soldier by the name of Christian Gutrick; and a patent was issued to him by the name of Gutrick, for lot No. 90, in Milton. That, in the year 1820, said lot of land escheated to the people of this state; but whether such escheat was occasioned by the mistake in the name of the patentee, the inability of the heirs of Guthrie to show that he was the person intended in the patent, or an entire ignorance that any patent had ever been issued, your committee have no means of determining. But from the papers before them, they are induced to believe that they had no knowledge that a patent had ever been issued until after the land had escheated. In the year 1829, an act was passed directing the Commissioners of the LandOffice to cause letters patent to be issued to the heirs of Christian [A. No. 145.]

1

1

Guthrie for two hundred acres of land, on condition that they re-
leased to the state all their interest to lot No. 90, in Milton. (See
sess. 1829, p. 104.)

This act, it appears, has been inoperative, on account of the ina-
bility of those heirs to establish the fact of sole and exclusive heir-
ship; and although the act itself is indefinite as to the time when
this shall be done, yet, by a provision of the Revised Statutes, (vol.
1. p. 205, sections 44 and 45,) this must be done within one year,
or the authority of the commissioners expires, and the act becomes
a dead letter. The act now under consideration proposes to extend
the time for complying with the provisions of the act of 1829, or in
other words, proposes to revive that act and continue it in force,
with some slight modifications, for one year from the passage of this
act. It is also conceived, that the proposed amendments from the
Senate, so far as they involve the question as to whether this bill
requires two-thirds of all the members elected to each
Legislature to concur in its final passage, in order tha
come a law, are substantially the same as the original bi

anch of the

may be

This bill having the effect to revive the act of 1829, so far as that act appropriates the property of this State, it must be clear that if the passage of that act required the constitutional vote of two-thirds of each House, then this does; but if that did not, then it is equally clear that this does not.

The words of the constitution are, (art. 7, sec. 9,) that "the assent of two-thirds, &c. shall be requisite to every bill appropriating the public monies or property for local or private purposes.”

In the construction of this clause of the constitution, it appears to have been settled, by repeated decisions of the Legislature, that the payment of a claim, or the fulfilment of an obligation or contract on the part of the state, which if the state had been liable to prosecution, might have been enforced in a court of law or equity, is not an appropriation to private purposes within the meaning of this clause of the constitution.

This rule being established, the next inquiry is, whether the act of 1829, authorizing the conveyance of two hundred acres of land to the heirs of Christian Guthrie, is the mere bounty of the state, which they are morally, but not legally, bound to bestow; or wheth