In

* The case of this Little Rock and Memphis (Arkansas) road is one of the strongest that can be conceived to illustrate the difference between States and Territories in the road-making power claimed, or asserted by Congress. the first place, the time was, of all others in the history of our Government, the most propitious to thorough inquiry and correct decision. It was at the session of 1823-4, when Internal Improvement was a prominent subject of public consideration, and when Congress was long occupied with propositions to adopt it as a system. Being thus thoroughly occupied with the question, the decision of Congress was that of full consideration; and while diversity of opinion prevailed as to the power of making these improvements in the States, there was no difference of opinion with respect to the Territories. They were the property of Congress, subject only to the conditions on which they were ceded by the States, or foreign nations, and Congress acted with them

Contracts for Cannon, &c.

[H. OF R.

Mr. Cocke moved to take up the report of the Secretary of War, (enclosed in the Presi dent's Message of yesterday,) respecting certain contracts for cannon, cannon shot, and small arms, and refer it to a select committee.

Mr. LATHROP moved that the report be referred to the Committee on Military Affairs.

Mr. COCKE said it had been the universal obtained from the Departments by special calls practice of the House, where documents were of the House, to allow the mover of the call to

have the documents submitted to a select committee. The Committee on Military Affairs were already crowded with business, to which, if they suitably attended, (and he did not doubt they would do so,) their hands would be full. He hoped that committee would make a general and timeous report on all the matters before them, so that the House might have opportunity to consider it some time before the appropriation bill at the close of the session was passed. He asked it, as a courtesy, that the gentleman would withdraw his motion.

Mr. LATHROP consented to withdraw it accordingly, and the documents were referred, as moved by Mr. COCKE, to a select committee, and Messrs. COCKE, SMYTH, STERLING, MARVIN, BUCHANAN, BASSETT, and MCLEAN, of Ohio, were appointed the said select committee. Contested Election.

The House took up the unfinished business of yesterday, which was the motion of Mr. LITTLE to insert the word "not" in the second resolution reported by the Committee of Elections, so as to make it read "that Parmenio Adams is 'not' entitled to a seat in this House."

The debate on this subject was continued till nearly three o'clock, when, the question being taken on the amendment, it was decided in the negative-ayes 85, noes 112.

The question then recurring on agreeing with the report of the committee, (which admits Mr. ADAMS to a seat,) was decided in the affirmative-yeas 116, nays 85.

And thereupon, the said PARMENIO ADAMS one of the Representatives in this House for appeared, was qualified, and took his seat as the State of New York.

[The debate in the House of Representatives

without reference to the Constitution of the United States, but according to the principles of the constitution which itself had given them on the 7th day of August, 1789, when it adopted the great Territorial Ordinance of July 18th, 1787. That is the constitution of the Territories; but being a constitution given by Congress, it was subject to exceptions and modifications by its author. With respect to roads, canals, ferries, &c., Congress has made them in the Territories, without reference to the constitution, from the if the road was limited to the Territory, and voting for the time of the first road, and its three ferries, in Ohio, in 1796, bill if it was. The case of this Memphis and Little Rock (when Ebenezer Zane received three sections of land, one road was the strongest illustration of the difference between at the crossing of the Muskingum, one at the Hockhocking, a State and a Territory. Because Memphis was in a State, and one at the Scioto, to make the road from Wheeling to and the road was to be exclusive of it, (from Memphis,) Limestone, (Maysville, Kentucky,) and keep it in repair, and the first step from it would have been into the Missisand the ferries in order;) from that day to the present Con- sippi where it was a hundred feet deep, yet the bill was gress has been making these roads without reference to the required to be altered, and the beginning point fixed inconconstitution, because universally held that the constitution testably on Territorial ground.--But this is only one case. did not extend to Territories. In my thirty-two years of The statute book is full of these Territorial acts, and I feel congressional service I can well say, I never heard a ques- that it may be safely assumed, that no person has ever tion raised about the right of Congress to make in the Ter-served one term in Congress without voting for these local ritories the local improvements which it pleased. I have improvements in Territories, even the most strict constiseen members of all political schools constantly voting for tutional constructionist, and upon the ground that the consuch objects-the strict constructionists generally inquiring stitution did not extend to Territories.

H. OF R.]

Relief of Sarah Perry.

[JANUARY, 1824.

The propriety of rejecting the erased or crossed ballot, was advocated by Mr. STORES, Mr. MARTINDALE, Mr. BAYLIES, Mr. FARRELLY, Mr. MALLARY, and Mr. SLOANE; and opposed by Mr. TEN EYCK, Mr. THOMPSON of Kentucky, Mr. ELLIS, Mr. WRIGHT, and Mr. LITTLE.

Those who supported the amendment of Mr. LITTLE, which went also to exclude Mr. ADAMS from a seat in the House, were, Mr. GAZLAY, Mr. LITTLE, Mr. CLARK, Mr. CAMBRELENG, Mr. MANGUM, and Mr. HOGEBOOM. Those who opposed it, were, Mr. WooD, Mr. McDUFFIE, Mr. MALLARY, Mr. STORRS, and Mr. SLOANE. The debate covered the same ground as that of yesterday.]

FRIDAY, January 9.
Relief of Sarah Perry.

on the contested election from the 29th District | was considered, and a blank ballot, not being of the State of New York, turned in effect upon counted, effected absolutely nothing. They rea single point, viz: whether a printed ballot, jected, as derogatory to the character of an having the stroke of a pen drawn through it, American freeman, the idea that he could be should or should not be admitted as a valid intimidated into acting the farce of depositing vote. From the returns of the inspectors of a blank ballot; but were answered by the fact the election, it was admitted, on all hands, that that, in that part of the State of New York, the two candidates came within a single vote great influence is exerted over voters by the of having an equal number: the same returns, agents of great land companies, to whom voters or rather the certificates accompanying them, are indebted on account of their farms; one stated that one of the votes for Isaac Wilson of these companies, (the Holland Land Compawas of the description mentioned: the printed ny,) owns a tract which covers six entire counletters were distinctly legible, but a dash with ties, and its agent exercises a well-known and a pen was drawn across the whole name: on powerful influence in political matters, &c. this account the inspectors rejected the vote, and it was not counted. The omission of this ballot, after the deduction on each side for erroneous returns, gave Mr. Adams a majority of one. The advocates of Mr. Wilson contended that, as the ballot contained no other name, and it was not to be presumed that the elector would give in a blank ballot, the mark with the pen ought to be disregarded, and the vote counted as good: for it was possible the voter might have been an old man, and did not see the line across the name, or a simple man, who, intending to vote for Mr. Wilson, had been cheated out of his vote, by having this obliterated ballot put into his hand by an advocate of the opposite candidate, &c. On the other hand, it was insisted that the inspectors were, by the laws of New York, the constitutional judges of the genuineness or fraudulent character of the ballots; that they had decided on this ballot from ocular inspection, publicly, under oath, and with entire unanimity; and that it was no uncommon thing, in that State, to erase names printed on election tickets, and even to put ballots, entirely blank, into the ballot boxes; instances of which were quoted as having taken place in ballotings in the Legislature of New York, and also in Congress. That the voter might have been induced by a fear of offending Mr. Wilson, or some friend of his, to appear to vote for him, while the voter secretly nullified the vote by first obliterating the name. (The ballots are folded up, so as that the name is concealed.) To an objection that the voter must be out of his senses to lose a day in attending the polls merely for the sake of putting in a blank ballot, which effected nothing on either side, it was replied that many other officers besides members of Congress, were voted for at the same time, and that he might have gone to the polls to vote effectually for these, or some of them, without wishing to effect by his vote the choice of Congressman at all. The advocates of Mr. Wilson, however, denied that the instances of blank votes given in the State Legislature, or in Congress, formed a case in point; because, there, the election turning on a majority of the whole number of votes given, blank votes were counted, and therefore did, ultimately and indirectly, affect the election; but in public elections at the polls, the greater number of votes alone

The House resolved itself into a Committee

of the Whole, Mr. TAYLOR in the chair, on the following bill:

A Bill for the relief of Sarah Perry, mother of the late Oliver H. Perry.

Be it enacted, &c., That there shall be allowed, and paid, to Sarah Perry, mother of Oliver Hazard Perry, late a Captain in the Navy of the United States, a pension, or annuity, of three hundred dollars per annum, payable half yearly, from and after the passage of this act, for and during_the_term of her natural life, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated.

Mr. FULLER, of Massachusetts, stated the facts of the case for which the bill was intended to provide. The House were all in the remembrance of the victory obtained on Lake Erie, in 1813, its brilliant circumstances, and its important results. When the death of the gallant officer, who achieved that victory, became known to Congress, in the year 1819, a bill was introduced, and promptly passed, which made provision for the support of his wife and children. For some reason, to Mr. F. unknown, the name of his mother was not inserted in the bill, and she had remained entirely dependent on one of her sons, now no more, who sup. ported her as long as he lived. A second son, who was a Lieutenant in the Navy, continued her support after the death of his brother; but, three years since, was lost at sea by an accident with which the House were all acquainted. It was then that application was made by Mrs.

JANUARY, 1824.]

Relief of Sarah Perry.

[H. OF R.

Perry, whose last dependence was taken from | fidence of one having a personal knowledge of her, for public support. A bill was last year these facts. And I undertake to say that the. brought into the House for her relief, but, from triumphant defeat of your enemies in the enpressure of business, or some other cause, had gagement of the 10th of September, when you been neglected to be acted upon. The present most wanted the moral effect of victory, is bill had the same object. It proposed but a essentially to be attributed to her who is now slender support, and the object of its provision the object of your charity-to her who cast was far advanced in years. He trusted the bill your hero in a perfect mould of heroism-who would pass without opposition. girded on his sword, and bid him go forth and conquer.

Mr. HAMILTON, of South Carolina, asked for the reading of the memorial of Mrs. Perry, which being completed

Mr. HAMILTON rose and addressed the House to the following effect:

I hold it, sir, as a position not to be controverted, that a country or government is quite as much bound by the obligations of gratitude as an individual. That these obligations result from great and extraordinary benefits conferred on the commonwealth, producing claims which it is the province of a just and enlightened nation to canvass and appreciate. And further, that, in a republic like ours, where we give nothing to pride and luxury, these claims, involving a pecuniary bounty, are to be considered in reference to the extent and character of the services on which they are founded; the ability of the Government to discharge them; the existence of absolute want of the party to be relieved, and that the relief itself be controlled by the practice and maxims of a wise and judicious frugality. It is under these principles, which I regard as altogether axiomatic in the polity of every civilized government, that I propose to bring the case of Mrs. Perry.

But I will now, sir, state a circumstance in which the coldest calculation of profit and loss will perceive some justice in her claim.

After the achievement which has rendered the name of Perry so memorable, it was the misfortune of his mother, by the loss of her husband, to be reduced to a situation of difficulty and distress. Her son, with a filial devotion which invariably distinguished him, immediately appropriated a portion of his pay to the support of his parent and her then unprovided younger children. This sacred annuity was paid with the most exact punctuality, until the death of her son. On the circumstances of his death it is unnecessary to dwell. They belong to a mournful portion of our history. It is enough for my purpose to say, that he died in your service, in the performance of duties which you confided to him; and if he had not been commissioned to bear your flag to a distant and insalubrious clime, it is not probable that you would now be discussing this subject.

This pecuniary loss you are bound to make up to his mother, on every principle of justice, laying aside, altogether, the considerations of gratitude. Nor is the force of this claim in any degree impaired by the fact of his not having died in battle. Your Government sent him, in the month of August, to the pestilential banks of the Oronoco, in the performance of important naval and diplomatic functions, where he encountered perils greater and far more loathsome than the hostility of the enemies of his country. These claims of his thrice widowed mother ought not to be destroyed, because her gallant son yielded up his spirit to the ravages of an odious disease, unsolaced by those consolations which would have soothed his last pang, if he had died in the battles of his country.

The claims of this lady are founded on the exalted services of her son, Oliver Hazard Perry, who, in the hour of your utmost need," won for you a victory of vast and inestimable importance. On this claim a peculiar and emphatic strength is conferred by the fact, that your hero did not more entirely owe his life to his mother who gave him birth, than he did those great qualities of soul which enabled him to achieve that incomparable exploit with which he has enriched the renown of his country. If the virtues of the Gracchi are to be attributed to the lofty sentiments with which the daughter of Scipio Africanus imbued their minds, the moral power of Perry is as truly to I come now, sir, to the events posterior to be traced to the enlightened instruction of his the death of Commodore Perry, which have a mother, who, by the course she pursued in his direct relation to the impulse which was given education, seems to have had an early presenti- to public opinion, as to the solemn obligation ment of the rich fruits which would reward her which rested on his country to make provision maternal labors. For such a task this lady was for the surviving objects of his solicitude and eminently qualified. To a vigorous and culti- affection. It is one of the few events of my vated intellect, she unites, in as high a degree life, of which I have just occasion to be proud, as any one I have ever known, a refined sense that, in the Legislature of my native State, in of every thing that is truly elevated and great December, 1819, I moved a series of resoluin human action. A love for true glory, a con- tions, requesting our delegation warmly to tempt of death and danger, an ambition con- co-operate in any measures that might be introlled by an exalted patriotism, and a mag- troduced in Congress, calculated to testify the nanimity partaking of all the generous and gratitude of the country to the memory of noble sympathies of our nature, were the les-Commodore Perry. These resolutions, having sons she successfully and incessantly impressed a direct reference to the subject before you, on the mind of her son. I speak with the con- were unanimously adopted by the Legislature

H. OF R.]

Relief of Sarah Perry.

[JANUARY, 1824

Let us now inquire whether this claim does not come fully within the scope of the prin ciple with which I set out. Does not this lady stand in the light of a benefactress to her country? Did she not nourish, at her bosom, a man who did you a vast and countless service? Did she not instil into his soul those moral elements which fitted him for conquest—that longing after immortality-that shining and transcendent valor-that refined and exalted chivalry, which give an indescribable charm to his whole character?

of a State second to none in its ardent devotion | recurs with all its original force, and may be to a stern, orthodox republican creed. The said to carry a species of moral interest from most propitious circumstance attending this its postponement. impulse from South Carolina was, that the measure was in contemporary accord with the views of a gentleman (Mr. RANDOLPH) now on this floor, who, to an object so patriotic, pure, and grateful, lent the persuasive energy of his eloquence. This gentleman induced the House to adopt a resolution for the appointment of a select committee, to whom was confided the duty of inquiring what provision, comporting with the gratitude of the country, it behooved Congress to make for the family of Commodore Perry. To one, now no more, (my lamented predecessor,) who was a member of this committee, the virtues of whose noble heart were enthusiastically devoted to the subjects of its labors, I am indebted, for a knowledge of the principle by which the committee were governed, in reporting the bill on this subject, on the 28th of February, 1820. This committee, justly regarding the great and eminent services of Commodore Perry, and the indigent situation in which he had left his mother, and immediate family, thought it would not be going beyond the gratitude of the country, and the wants of the individuals to be relieved, that one-half of his full pay and emoluments as a post captain in the Navy of the United States, should be divided between them during certain periods, and on certain contingencies. The very first clause in this bill made a separate and distinct provision for his mother, precisely to the amount of the pecuniary allowance of the bill on your table. When, however, this measure was to be acted upon, some of its friends, from a fear lest the whole bill might be lost in contending for too much, consented to the erasure of this most pious and beautiful feature in the bill; one, the most strongly indicative of the feeling and considerate gratitude of the country. The gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. RANDOLPH,) who was chairman of this committee, yielded to this alteration, more, I have understood, from considerations of policy, than from a conviction of its propriety. [Mr. RANDOLPH here said that he assured the gentleman from South Carolina that he had never yielded this point.] I feel myself strengthened by the declaration of the gentleman, and that I am authorized to say that he has never surrendered his opinion that the mother of your hero has yet an uncancelled claim on your gratitude and justice. I feel that I have a right to appeal to the opinions of this gentleman; for among those who have been distinguished in the parliamentary history of your country, he is the last man who can be accused of ever having advocated a wasteful and unnecessary expenditure of your treasure.

I have preferred, sir, in the narrative I have given you, even the risk of being tediously minute, rather than that a single circumstance should be omitted, calculated to give you a full view of Mrs. Perry's situation. Her claim now

I fear, sir, if these questions are answered coldly, even in the affirmative, amidst the agitation of many topics, odious in their character, and pernicious in their discussion, we have forgotten a part of what we owe to the hero of Lake Erie. Is it an unreasonable trespass upon your time, to ask you to go back with me, for one moment, to that period when the victory of the 10th of September flashed from one end of this Union to the other, with a bright and cheering lustre, chasing back to the regions of eternal night the clouds and darkness which once seemed to have rested on your destiny, and, in the light of its glory, giving new ardor to valor, fresh hopes and confidence to patriotism! There was not a heart, among seven millions of freemen, amidst all the distractions of party, to which it did not bring gladness and exulta tion: for the victory was perfect in its kind. It was complete, to entire, sweeping and overwhelming subjugation. It gave security to fifteen hundred miles of your frontier, and the blow which went home to the pride of your foe, palsied the uplifted arm of his savage ally, and the tomahawk fell harmless to the earth. Amidst these events, your hero stands forth in high and resplendent relief. But let me not spoil the moral grandeur of a scene which be longs, by the joint destiny of glory and genius, to the pencil of some future artist who shall be worthy of his theme, in feeling, in full force, all its matchless sublimity. Let his canvas, then, breathe with all the animations of life, and glories of art. To him be confided the task of representing your hero in the midst of a carnage unexampled in the annals of modern warfare, carrying victoriously the tacties of Rodney to a dazzling excess, never contem plated by that hardy veteran in the intensity of his valor.

There are, Mr. Chairman, some posthumous claims of gratitude which survive the individ ual, and remain on this side of the grave. It is when the object of our gratitude is removed beyond the reach of our kindness, that the just and enlightened instinct of this noblest senti ment of our nature induces us to go forth and seek for those our benefactor loved best, and on them to lavish the tributes of this consecrated obligation. No stone, erected by his country, marks even the spot where the remains of

JANUARY, 1824.]

Relief of Sarah Perry.

[H. OF P

our gallant countryman are mouldering into "ahe, as the foundation of the remarks I intend to cold clod of the valley; " but this pittance, poor submit, that the principle on which the present as it is, which is asked for his parent, will be application rests, has been already settled in the more consoling to his manes than monumental act passed by a former Congress, making proglories, in which the genius of Chantry and Ca- vision for the wife and children of the lamented nova might contend for mastery. Death has Perry. What was the inducement to the pasnot paid the obligations of gratitude you owe sage of that act? Was it not because the deyour hero. They survive in the person of the ceased hero was endeared to the nation by venerable being who gave him birth. The his eminent services; and because, by his unforce of this truth it is in vain for you to escape. timely death, his wife and his little ones, the It is but a cold and heartless sophistry, which principal sufferers by an affliction which coverattempts to discriminate between the gratitude ed our land with mourning, were deprived of of a country or Government, and that which the means of decent subsistence? Why should becomes an individual. They are obligations the aged and venerable mother of the deceased of equivalent authority, and rest upon the sound- be excluded from the benefit of a similar proness of the same principle. vision? Was she less deeply affected by the Let us now, sir, inquire, whether the propos- tidings of his death? Who can adequately coned annuity of three hundred dollars to Mrs. ceive the anguish of a mother who mourns for Perry is not fully within that frugality which her first born? Must she be excluded because ought to govern our bounty. Does this sum she was not the object of his tender regard, as allow for any thing more than the absolute sus- well as his wife and his children; or because tenance of life? Do you give, in such an the obligation on his part to maintain her in deamount, one farthing to pride or luxury? Let cency and comfort was less sacred, less imperishme next ask, whether the payment of this sum able? The tie which binds the parent to the is within your ability? On this point I am ad- child, and the child to the parent, as it is the monished into silence by the ridicule which eldest, so it is, also, the latest of human obligawould await such a discussion. Nor will I per- tions. The sentiment which draws a son to a mit you to plead economy, when I see so little virtuous and exemplary mother, to whom he of it employed in matters which have a per- owes an immense debt of gratitude and duty, sonal reference to yourselves, and in objects constitutes one of the noblest and most refined over which we have a direct control. The affections of the human heart. It begins with testimonies of your extravagance are about me. his being-he is nourished by her strengthThe cost of one of those columns which uphold" from lips that he loves" he learns the lessons the dome of this cheerless waste of magnificence, of truth, of wisdom, and sincerity; and by her would provide a fund, the interest of which would plastic hand, whilst his heart is yet soft and ducsupport the parent of our hero during the rem-tile, he is moulded to virtue, to manliness, and nant of her life; and all the expense of the proposed annuity would twice over be paid, during its utmost duration, from the amount which we annually pay out of the public Treasury for newspapers. Precedents of self-gratification it seems are never dangerous. But, in bestowing a pittance on the mother of your gallant benefactor, there may be something superlatively perilous in the example. Let me not be told that you have already done enough in providing for the widow and children of Commodore Perry. I say, in this you have done nobly; but something yet remains to complete your benefaction, to which you are urged by the strongest claims: for the situation of his mother is equally as exigent, to say the least of it, as that of his wife and children; and the relations of the one to the object of your gratitude, are quite as proximate as those of the other.

Mr. HENRY, of Kentucky, said he did not rise with the hope of emulating the thrilling and persuasive eloquence of the honorable gentleman from South Carolina. He was far, very far from proposing to himself an effort so vain, so unavailing. It would be his endeavor to present to the committee a few plain considerations, proving, as he conceived, that the provision contemplated by this bill was strictly compatible with the established practice and the sound policy of the Government. I shall assume, said

patriotism. Tell me not of the influence of learning and philosophy; or of the acknowledged authority of paternal example. These are indeed essential: they are capable of doing much. But all these will be insufficient to make any man great, if the proper, the indispensable foundation be not laid in the nursery. I appeal to every honorable gentleman to recollect the infinite benefits he derives from the loveliest, the best, and most virtuous half of our species, and then, to say, if he can, that the picture I have attempted to delineate is exaggerated. We have heard repeated allusions to the brilliant achievements and wonder-working example of the hero of Lake Erie. Has it never occurred to the committee, that to the early training and correct discipline of the venerable lady whose name has been so often mentioned, he was indebted for the infusion of those principles which bore him upwards in the path of life; and finally rendered his own name illustrious, and covered the annals of his country with a flood of glory?

Mr. WICKLIFFE, of Kentucky, being so unfortunate as to differ in opinion from the gentlemen who had addressed the House in favor of this bill, by way of trying the strength of the House on the subject, moved to strike out the enacting clause of the bill, (in effect to reject it.) Mr. W. said he felt, and sensibly felt, the force of the