have looked into a subject, and imagine that we can make a display, we are very apt to occupy time without consideration of the just claims of those who are to come after us. Mr. PHELPS. I regard this judicial system which has been in operation some fifty years, and with a very slight interruption ever since the organization of the Government, as the best that can be devised for the General Government and for the people. I deprecate as much as the Senator from North Carolina, or any other gentleman on this floor, the separation of the judges of the Supreme Court from their circuit duties. The consideration that the separation of the judges of the Supreme Court from their circuit duties would operate very much to the prejudice of the country, is not to be overlooked. I have had my fears, however, that this system, admirable as it is, would have to be abandoned; and that apprehension has been founded upon the fact, that in the first place, the judges have not time to attend to their circuit duties; and that, in the second place, the docket of the Supreme Court had become so loaded, that the business of the court cannot be despatched-the very evil which I apprehended as likely to grow out of the extension of our territory, and the utter impracticability of having the duties of the circuit court discharged by such a number of judges as would be proper to be congregated here. If you increase the number of the judges of the Supreme Court with a view to enable them to discharge all the duties of the circuit courts, you have a court too numerous. On the other hand, they cannot, if they be limited to their present number, discharge the duties of the circuit courts. What is to be done? Some remedy must be applied. In my humble judgment, we have this alternative before us: we must either afford temporary relief, or abandon the system altogether. This is the issue presented. Well, not being disposed to abandon the system-preferring to retain it, and for the very considerations suggested by other Senators-I desire to apply some remedy to relieve the court from the accumulation of business here. In my judgment, if an extra session of this court can dispose of this accumulation of business, the court can attend in future to the ordinary discharge of its duties. If this be not done, what is the result? Why, if the docket of this court is allowed to accumulate and increase from year to year, and the community becomes satisfied that the business of the court cannot be despatched, we are driven irresistibly to the very measure which gentlemen deprecate-the separation of the court from the States. In these circumstances there is but one alternative-we must either change the system, or we must adopt some temporary measure of relief. I am decidedly of opinion that we should resort to some measure of temporary relief, and preserve the system. It is really a choice of evils, and I prefer that course which looks to temporary relief, rather than [30TH CONG. that which must result in an entire change of the system. As to the recommendation of the Senator from North Carolina, I have only to say, that it is easy to talk on this floor about the manner in which the judges should discharge their duties. I confine myself to the subject before us, and allow the judges to go on in their own way. Mr. FOOTE. Until the debate occurred to which we have just listened, I confess that I was decidedly favorable to the passage of this bill. But some objections to its becoming a law have been preferred which are too cogent to be resisted; and I shall, contrary to my first inclinations, vote against it. The merits of the bill have been so fully debated, that nothing which I could now say would aid the Senate in coming to a wise decision concerning it. I shall, therefore, content myself with responding to a single suggestion which has just fallen from the Senator from Vermont. That gentleman seems to be particularly horrified at certain animadversions in which honorable Senators have indulged touching the conduct of those who preside in the Supreme Court of the Union. He appears to be of opinion that we ought not, under any circumstances, to find fault with the action of a co-ordinate department of the Government, and especially with the judicial department. The Senator may or may not be right in the general doctrine which he asserts; and yet it is most evident to me, that if any one of the three departments of Government decreed by the constitution to be separate and independent of each other, should be allowed to interfere with the action of another in any case, the exception to the general rule should be admitted in favor, either of the Legislative or Executive, in preference to the Judiciary. Nor do I imagine that there will be much difference of opinion as to the correctness of this proposition among Senators who attach sufficient importance to the fact, that the judges of the Supreme Court are appointed (not elected, either by the people or otherwise) for life, and are only responsible to the country through the medium of impeachment a proceeding long since ascertained to be wholly inefficient for the purpose of punishing an unworthy judicial functionary. The occasion is not such as to allow of my objecting in form to the mode in which the members of the Supreme Court of the Union are appointed to their high stations, or to their peculiar tenure of office, which induced Mr. Jefferson to declare this tribunal to be a solecism in our system. Mr. Downs. I confess I agree with the Senator from North Carolina, that much of the evil that we complain of might be remedied by the court itself, still I think it is necessary that the bill should pass. It is not an act for the relief of the court, but for the relief of those who are engaged in litigation before that court-for the relief of the people of the United States. It is said that if this measure be not adopted, another measure will be brought forward that 1ST SESS.] French Revolution. [APRIL, 1848. will remedy the evil. I shall be happy to see | eral remedy, and then adopt any additional a remedy applied, and I see an opportunity measure that may be necessary. Being strongly now for the adoption of a remedy. There is desirous that the system should not be changed, in my State a large amount of property in liti- and fearing that this bill if adopted will change gation. A case was carried to the Supreme it, I feel myself compelled to vote against it. Court before the act of 1844 was passed, in- The question was then taken on the engrossvolving some hundred thousand acres of land, ment of the bill, and decided as follows: and it still remains undecided; how many years more it will take, I do not know. The delay has become positively intolerable. But if the court could be allowed to sit through the year, the docket might be cleared off, and we should then have time to adopt such measures as may be necessary to prevent a recurrence of the evil. Mr. CALHOUN. I rise simply to state, in a very few words, the reasons that will govern me, in giving my vote on this occasion. It must be admitted, on all sides, that this is intended to be only a temporary measure, and that the present system ought to be continued. I believe this is the general impression; such is mine, very strongly. This bill is presented on the ground, that the cases upon the docket have so accumulated, that it requires an extraordinary law-to relieve the judges from their circuit duties for one year-in order to clear them off. Well, what possible assurance have we, that at the end of the year the same reason will not exist for enacting such a law for the next year? It appears to me that we are inverting the order of things. The first object should be to adopt some measure that would prevent the accumulation of cases in future, and then some measure for disposing of those which now exist. But proceeding as we are, it appears to me it will be tantamount-withont intending it to be so-to a permanent change in the circuit system. Now, I believe there are very few Senators prepared for this; I believe the judges themselves are not. have ample time during the remaining part of the session-it will probably last three months, yet I should be very glad to think it would terminate in three-surely this will furnish ample opportunity to the Judiciary Committee, or if that committee be overloaded with business, to a Select Committee to take the subject into consideration, and propose some measure that will prove an effectual remedy for the evil that is complained of. We Mr. DAYTON. The Judiciary Committees in both Houses have had the subject under consideration. A bill has been reported, and is now before the House of Representatives; but any bill that is passed should be a bill calculated to sweep away the accumulations of the cases with which the docket of the Supreme Court is now lengthened. They must be disposed of irrespective of any bill for the regulation of the Judiciary hereafter. Mr. CALHOUN. I was not aware that there was a bill before the House relating to this subject; but that being the case, it is a reason why this bill should lie upon the table until that bill passes. Let us apply first the gen YEAS.-Messrs. Bell, Breese, Butler, Crittenden, Dayton, Downs, Greene, Hannegan, Johnson of Maryland, Mangum, Mason, Miller, Pearce, Phelps. Rusk, Underwood, and Upham-17. NAYS.-Messrs. Allen, Ashley, Badger, Bagby, Benton, Calhoun, Davis of Mississippi, Dickinson, Dix, Douglas, Felch, Foote, Hale, Houston, Lewis, Niles, Spruance, Turney, and Westcott-19. The resolutions were taken up, and read the first time by their title. Mr. THOMPSON, of Pennsylvania, moved the previous question. Mr. ASHMUN said the resolutions had not been read. He called for their reading before any action was taken upon them. The SPEAKER said, the resolutions having been read the first time, the previous question, being moved, would apply to the second reading. under its operation, the resolutions were read The previous question was seconded, and, second time by their title. a The question being on the third readingthe reading of the entire resolutions; which Mr. HOLMES, of South Carolina, called for were read for information, as follows: Resolved, &c., That in the name and behalf of the American people, the congratulations of Congress are hereby tendered to the people of France upon the success of their recent efforts to consolidate the principles of liberty in a republican form of Government. And be it further resolved, That the Pesident of the United States be, and he is hereby, requested to transmit this resolution to the American Minister at Paris, with instructions to present it to the French Government. Mr. ASHMUN Confessed that he objected to the resolutions of the gentleman from Ohio the other day; and he hesitated to concur in the proceedings contemplated this day, because France has not yet achieved republican liberty. They had been told that a republican government had been formed in France; that it had been already achieved, and was now existing. The President of the United States, in his Such [30TH CONG, Message to Congress, had announced the fact, | lin, Freedley, French, Fries, Fulton, Gentry, Gid"that France had been suddenly transformed dings, Goggin, Gott, Green, Gregory, Hale, Nathan into a republic." The President must have K. Hall, Hammons, James G. Hampton, Haralson, singular ideas of what constitutes a republican Harmanson, Harris, Haskell, Henley, Hill, Hilliard, government. Indeed, his conduct as the Execu-Elias B. Holmes, George S. Houston, Hubbard, tive of our own Union, in his frequent usurpa- Jameson, Jenkins, Andrew Johnson, James H. Hudson, Hunt, Inge, Irvin, Iverson, Jackson, tion of power, gave room to doubt whether he Johnson, R. W. Johnson, George W. Jones, John well understood the true spirit of republicanism. W. Jones, Kaufman, Kellogg, Kennon, Thomas B. But how was the present government of France King, La Sère, Sidney Lawrence, Leffler, Lincoln, established? Where was the charter of that Lord, Maclay, McClelland, McClernand, McDowell, Government? Where was its constitution? Mellvaine, McKay, McLane, Mann, Marsh, Marvin, Everybody who had read the proceedings in Mead, Miller, Morehead, Morris, Morse, Murphy, France knew that the present Government was Nelson, Nes, Newall, Nicoll, Palfrey, Peaslee, Peck, formed by the introduction of a mob into the Pendleton, Petrie, Pettit, Peyton, Phelps, Pollock, Chamber of Deputies. In the midst of tur- Preston, Richardson, Richey, Robinson, Rockhill, bulence, a soldier took a bayonet, and, piercing Julius Rockwell, John A. Rockwell, Rumsey, St. a piece of paper with names upon it, held it up, John, Sawyer, Shepperd, Sherrill, Silvester, Simpson, and, with a shout, the names on that paper Sims, Smart, Caleb B. Smith, Robert Smith, Stanton, were proclaimed to be the Government. Starkweather, Andrew Stewart, Charles E. Stuart, was the history of the transaction. That was Thomas, James Thompson, Jacob Thompson, Strohm, Strong, Tallmadge, Taylor, Thibodeaux, the charter of France at the present moment. Richard W. Thompson, John B. Thompson, WilIt was a bayonet government. It was not a liam Thompson, Thurston, Tompkins, Tuck, Turner, government established by the exercise of con- Venable, Warren, Wentworth, Wick, Wiley, Wilstitutional liberty. The power of France was liams, Wilmot, and Woodward-174. exercised by a few gentlemen; but where was the charter to limit their power? It did not exist. On the contrary, the papers of this morning brought the intelligence, in a document issued by the Minister of the Interior, that those few individuals were sovereign and independent, and that their own discretion was the limit of their power. In such a case, then, might it not be that the same power which constituted them the Government of France might turn them out, and put others in their place? He denied, then, that France had achieved republican liberty. It was nothing less than an arbitrary despotism at present. It was true that yesterday, (Sunday,) the 9th of April, was appointed for the election of nine hundred French delegates; and if they have succeeded, we may look forward to the organization of a national legislature; but, until that has been done, he confessed that, individually, he had no sanguine hopes of the result. The question then recurred on the third reading of the resolutions; which was agreed to without a division. Mr. COBB, of Georgia, moved the previous question on the final passage of the resolutions; which was seconded, and the main question was ordered to be now put. Mr. STEWART, of Pennsylvania, called for the yeas and nays; which were ordered, and resulted as follows: YEAS.-Messrs. Adams, Ashmun, Atkinson, Barringer, Barrow, Bayly, Beale, Bedinger, Bingham, Birdsall, Blanchard, Bocock, Botts, Bowdon, Bowlin, Boyd, Brady, Bridges, Brodhead, William G. Brown, Charles Brown, Albert G. Brown, Buckner, Burt, Cabell, Canby, Cathcart, Chase, Franklin Clark, Beverly L. Clark, Howell Cobb, W. R. W. Cobb, Cocke, Collins, Crisfield, Crowell, Crozier, Cummins, Dickey, Dickinson, Dixon, Duer, Daniel Duncan, Garnett Duncan, Eckert, Edsall, Edwards, Embree, Nathan Evans, Faran, Farrelly, Featherston, Fick NAYS.-Messrs. Cranston and Root-2. So the joint resolutions of the Senate were concurred in and finally passed. IN SENATE. MONDAY, April 10. On motion of Mr. Cass, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill for ascertaining and paying certain claims in California. The bill being under consideration, as in Committee of the Whole Mr. BENTON rose and addressed the Senate as follows: Mr. President: These claims grow out of the conquest of California, and are supported by a mass of depositions taken by the Military Com mittee of the Senate, and printed by its order. These depositions constitute a document of eighty pages, and are full of material, valuable to the public history of the country, as well as to the private rights of the claimants. The Senate, on the application of the committee, have ordered twenty thousand extra copies of this document to be printed-a fact which sufficiently announces its public and national importance; for no extras, much less twenty thousand, are ever printed of merely private papers. It requires a public interest to be concerned before such a thing can be done; that is eminently the case in the present instance. These depositions concern public his tory; and no one can understand the history of the United States, as connected with the conquest of California, without understanding them. and The conquest of California was commenced, and its first act finished, before the existence of the Mexican war was known in that country; 1ST SESS.] California Claims. [APRIL, 1848. and this fact standing out incontestably among | calde, and Colonel Alvarado, informing them that he the events of the times, and presenting a pre- was surveying the nearest route from the United sumptive case of aggression against the United States to the Pacific Ocean. This information, and States, very naturally attracted the attention that his men were not United States soldiers, was, of the committee, and commanded their most also, by myself, officially given to the prefecto. searching and thorough examination. The Having obtained funds and supplies from myself, result is before the Senate, in the depositions Monterey that he was to return when he collected he returned to his camp; it being well known in referred to, and may be examined in detail by his men. Some fifteen or twenty days after this, every Senator. For myself, I propose only to Captain Frémont, with his party, encamped at a make a brief, connected story from their ample vacant rancho belonging to Captain Fisher, (about contents, to rebut in the first place an injurious ninety miles from here,) to recruit his men and presumption, and to exhibit afterwards in lucid animals. From there he proceeded towards Santa order the summary of events which gave rise Cruz, making short journeys. On the 3d of March to these California claims, and show that they he encamped on the rancho of Mr. E. P. Hartwell, ought to be paid. where he received letters from the general and prefecto, ordering him out of the country, and to obey the order without any pretext whatever, or immediate measures would be taken to compel him to do so. This not corresponding with assurances received at Monterey, it was not answered, and he gave orders to hoist the United States flag the next morning, as the only protection his men were to look to. From the 7th to the 10th of March, they fortified their camp with a breastwork of logs. Encamped on a high hill, which commanded a view of the surrounding country, they could see, with the use of spy-glasses, the general and his troops, numbering about two hundred men, at their camp, in the mission of St. John's, preparing their cannon. On the 9th instant I sent duplicate lettersone by an American, who lost his papers, and the other by a Californian-to Captain Frémont, informing him of the movements of the Californians. The Californian courier returned to the consulate in about nine or ten hours, bringing a letter from Captain Frémont, having travelled in that time sixty miles. He reported being well treated by Captain Frémont and his men; and that two thousand of his countrymen would not be sufficient to compel him to leave the country, although his party was so small."-Letter, 27th March, 1846. In the month of May, 1845, Mr. Fremont, then a brevet captain of engineers, set out on his third expedition of geographical and scientific exploration in the Great West. War had not then broken out between the United States and Mexico; but affairs were critical between them, and Mr. Fremont was determined, by no act of his, to increase the difficulties, or to give any cause of complaint to the Mexican Government. His line of observation would lead him to the Pacific Ocean through a Mexican province-through the desert parts first, and the settled parts afterwards, of the Alta California. Approaching the settled parts of the province at the commencement of winter, he left his equipment of sixty men and two hundred horses on the frontier, and proceeded alone to Monterey, to make known to the Governor the object of his coming, and his desire to pass the winter, for the refreshment of his men and horses, in the uninhabited parts of the valley of San Joaquin. The permission was granted, but soon revoked, under the pretext that Mr. Fremont had come into California, not to pursue science, but to excite the American settlers to revolt against the Mexican Government. Upon this pretext troops were raised, and marched to attack him. Having notice of their approach, he took a position on the mountain, hoisted the flag of the United States, and determined, with his sixty brave men, to defend themselves to the last extremity. Waiting there four days, and not being attacked, he quit his position, descended from the mountain, and set out for Oregon, that he might give no further pretext for complaint by remaining in California. The United States consul at Monterey, Mr. O. Larkin, gave official information of these events to the Secretary of State, (Mr. Buchanan,) and from these I will read what is necessary to verify the statements which I have made: "Captain J. C. Frémont, of the United States army, arrived at this United States consular-house in Monterey, on the 27th of January, 1846. Being very anxious to join his party of fifty men at the second place of rendezvous, without the settlement, they having missed the first place by mistake, he remained but two days, in which time, with myself, he visited the commandant-general, prefecto, al "Captain Frémont was well received in this place, and to the last day we heard of him, by the natives individually, who sold him provisions, and liked his presence. During his encampment thirty or forty miles from here, despatches were received by the commandant, General José Castro, a native of Monterey, from Mexico, ordering him to drive Captain Frémont out of this department; which order, with one hundred and seventy or two hunexpected, he pretended to execute. Captain Frédred men present, and over one hundred more daily mont left his camp a few hours after he received the undersigned's letter of the 9th of March, (not from fright of General Castro,) as he had been preparing the week before to travel. It is supposed he has gone to Santa Barbara, where an American was sent by the undersigned in February, with funds and provisions for his use. "The undersigned has not supposed, during the whole affair, that General Castro wished to go after Captain Frémont, and was very confident that, with all California, he would not have attacked him, even had he been sure of destroying the whole party, as five times their number could have taken their place before the expected battle. Captain Frémont received verbal applications from English and Americans to join his party, and could have mustered as many men as the natives. He was careful not to do so. Although he discharged five APRIL, 1848.] California Claims. [30TH CONG. or six of his men, he took no others in their place." | to Oregon as the field of his further labors, Mr. -Letter, April 3, 1846. This is the official history of the first difficulty with the Californian authorities, and presents the conduct of Mr. Fremont in the most unexceptionable point of view: halting his command upon the frontier; going alone to Monterey; asking and obtaining permission to winter in an uninhabited valley; only raising the flag of the United States when in danger of being attacked; leaving the country as soon as the danger was over; and refusing to receive any of the American settlers into his service, (even to supply the place of discharged men,) that there might be no room for misconstruc-two men riding up and penetrating a region tion of his conduct, or for false accusations against the settlers. The hoisting of the United States flag on this occasion is the only act which requires a word of explanation or of justification. It was complained of as an act of aggression: it was no such thing, but an act of self-protection and of self-defence. It was an appeal to their country, and a proper appeal for an American officer to make when in danger of being unjustly attacked. Mr. Fremont, in his reply to the consul's communication, in a brief note written in pencil, and in view of the enemy; gave the reason for the act which justified it, and exalted it into an act of devotion and heroism. It was in these words: "I this moment received your letters, and without waiting to read them, acknowledge the receipt which the courier requires immediately. I am making myself as strong as possible, in the intention that if we are unjustly attacked, we will fight to extremity, and refuse quarter, trusting to our country to avenge our death. No one has reached our camp, and from the heights we are able to see troops (with the glass) mustering at St. John's, and preparing cannon. I thank you for your kindness and good wishes, and would write more at length as to my intentions, did I not fear that my letter would be intercepted. We have in nowise done wrong to the people or the authorities of the country, and if we are hemmed in and assaulted here, we will die, every man of us, under the flag of our country. J. C. FREMONT. "Very truly yours, “Consul for the United States, Monterey.” Such was the reason for raising the flag. It was raised at the approach of danger: it was taken down when danger disappeared. It was well and nobly done, and worthy of our admiration-sixty of our countrymen, three thousand miles from home, in sight of the Pacific Ocean, appealing to the flag of their country, unfurling it on the mountain-top, and determined to die under it before they would submit to unjust aggression. Turning his back on California. and looking Fremont determined to explore a new route to the Wah-lah-math settlements and the tidewater region of the Columbia, through the wild and elevated region of the Tlamath Lakes. A romantic interest attaches to this region from the grandeur of its features, its lofty mountains, and snow-clad peaks, and from the formidable character of its warlike inhabitants. In the first week of May he was at the north end of the great Tlamath Lake, and in Oregon, the lake being passed near its south end by the parallel of forty-two degrees. On the 8th day of that month a strange sight presented itself which few ever approached without paying toll of life and blood. They proved to be two of Mr. Fremont's old voyageurs, and quickly told their story. They were part of a guard of six men conducting a United States officer who was on his trail with despatches from Washington, and whom they had left two days back while they came on to give notice of his ap proach, and to ask that assistance might be sent him. They themselves had only escaped the Indians by the swiftness of their horses. It was a case in which no time was to be lost mined to go himself; and taking ten picked or mistake to be made. Mr. Fremont determen, four of them Delaware Indians, he took down the western shore of the lake on the morning of the 9th, (the direction the officer was to come,) and made a ride of sixty miles without a halt. But to meet men, and not to miss them, was the difficult point in that trackless region. It was not the case of a high-road where all travellers must meet in passing each other: at intervals, there were places-defiles or camping grounds-where both parties must pass; and, watching for these, he came to one in the afternoon, and decided in his own mind that, if the party was not killed, it must be there that night. He halted and encamped; and, as the sun was going down, had the inexpressible satisfaction to see the four men approaching. The officer proved to be Lieutenant Gillespie, of the United States marines, who had been despatched from Washington the November previous, to make his way by Vera Cruz, Mexico, and Mazatlan, to Monterey, in Upper California, deliver despatches to the United States consul there, and then find Mr. Fremont, wherever he should be. His despatches for Mr. Fremont were only a letter of introduction from the Secretary of State, (Mr. Buchanan,) and some letters and slips of papers from Senator Benton and his family, and some verbal communications from the Secretary of State. The depositions taken by the committee show the nature of these verbal communications, which were, in substance, that he should watch and counteract any foreign schemes in California, and conciliate the good will of the inhabitants towards the United States. Upon this intimation of the Government's wishes, Mr. Fremont turned back from Oregon, in the |