of the United States, of the ninth day of September last, is in full force and operation..

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this thirteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, and the seventy-fifth of the independence of these United States.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

DECEMBER 17, 1850.

To the Senate of the United States :—

I HEREWITH transmit a letter from the secretary of war, communicating a report of a board of officers, to which, in pursuance of a resolution of the senate, passed on the 30th of September last, were submitted the questions proposed therein relative to the expediency and necessity of creating additional grades of commissioned officers in the army, and of enacting provisions authorizing officers of the army to exercise civil functions in emergencies to be enumerated, and restraining them from usurping the powers of civil functionaries.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

JANUARY 3, 1851.

To the House of Representatives:

By a resolution passed by the house of representatives on the 24th day of July, 1850, the president was requested to cause to be prepared and communicated to the house certain opinions of the attorneys-general therein specified. On inquiry, I learned that the force employed in the attorney-general's office was not sufficient to perform this work; consequently, I employed Benjamin F. Hall, Esq., a counsellor-at-law, on the 9th day of September last, to execute it, and requested him to commence it immediately. I informed him that I was not authorized to give any other assurances as to compensation than that it rested with Congress to provide and fix it. I believe Mr. Hall to be, in all respects, competent and well fitted for the task which he has undertaken, and diligent in the performance of it; and it appears to me that the most just mode of compensation will be to make a per-diem allowance of eight dollars per day for the time actually employed, to be paid on the certificate of the attorneygeneral.

I also transmit herewith a portion of the manuscript prepared in pursuance of said resolution, with a letter from Mr Hall to me, indicating the mode in which he thinks the work should be prepared and printed, which appears to me worthy of consideration and adoptior by the house.

FUGITIVE SLAVE PROCLAMATION.

FEBRUARY 18, 1851.

WHEREAS information has been received, that sundry lawless persons, principally persons of color, combined and confederated together, for the purpose of opposing by force the execution of the laws of the United States, did, at Boston, in Massachusetts, on the fifteenth of this month, make a violent assault on the marshal or deputy marshals of the United States, for the district of Massachusetts, in the courthouse, and did overcome the said officers, and did, by force, rescue from their custody a person arrested as a fugitive slave, and then and there a prisoner lawfully holden by the said marshal or deputy marshals of the United States, and other scandalous outrages did commit in violation of law:

Now, therefore, to the end that the authority of the laws may be maintained, and those concerned in violating them brought to immediate and condign punishment, I have issued this my proclamation, calling on all well-disposed citizens to rally to the support of the laws of their country, and requiring and commanding all officers civil and military, and all other persons, civil or military, who shall be found within the vicinity of this outrage, to be aiding and assisting, by all means in their power, in quelling this and other such combinations, and assisting the marshal and his deputies in recapturing the above-mentioned prisoner; and I do, especially, direct that prosecutions be commenced against all persons who shall have made themselves aiders or abettors in or to this flagitious offence; and I do further command that the district attorney of the United States, and all other persons concerned in the administration or execution of the laws of the United States, cause the foregoing offenders, and all such as aided, abetted, or assisted them, or shall be found to have harbored or concealed such fugitive, contrary to law, to be immediately arrested and proceeded with according to law.

FUGITIVE SLAVE MESSAGE.

FEBRUARY 19, 1851.

To the Senate of the United States :

I HAVE received the resolution of the senate of the 18th instant, requesting me to lay before that body, if not incompatible with the public interest, any information I may possess in regard to an alleged recent case of a forcible resistance to the execution of the laws of the United States in the city of Boston, and to communicate to the senate, under the above conditions, what means I have adopted to meet the occurrence; and whether, in my opinion, any additional legislation is necessary to meet the exigency of the case, and to more vigorously execute existing laws.

The public newspapers contain an affidavit of Patrick Riley, a deputy marshal for the district of Massachusetts, setting forth the circumstances of the case-a copy of which affidavit is herewith communicated. Private and unofficial communications concur in establishing the main facts of this account; but no satisfactory official information has as yet been

received, and in some important respects the accuracy of the account has been denied by persons whom it implicates. Nothing could be more unexpected than that such a gross violation of law, such a high-handed contempt of the authority of the United States, should be perpetrated by a band of lawless confederates, at noonday, in the city of Boston, and in the very temple of justice. I regard this flagitious proceeding as being a surprise, not unattended by some degree of negligence; nor do I doubt that, if any such act of violence had been apprehended, thousands of the good citizens of Boston would have presented themselves, voluntarily and promptly, to prevent it; but the danger does not seem to have been timely made known or duly appreciated by those who were concerned in the execution of the process. In a community distinguished for its love of order and respect for the laws-among a people whose sentiment is liberty and law, and not liberty without law, nor above the law-such an outrage could only be the result of sudden violence, unhappily too much unprepared for to be successfully resisted. It would be melancholy, indeed, if we were obliged to regard this outbreak against the constitutional and legal authority of the government as proceeding from the general feeling of the people, in a spot which is proverbially called "the Cradle of American Liberty."

Such, undoubtedly, is not the fact. It violates without question, the general sentiment of the people of Boston, and of a vast majority of the whole people of Massachusetts, as much as it violates the law, defies the authority of the government, and disgraces those concerned in it, their aiders and abettors.

It is nevertheless, my duty to lay before the senate, in answer to its resolution, some important facts and considerations connected with the subject.

A resolution of Congress, of September 23, 1789, declared :-
:-

"That it be recommended to the legislatures of the several states to pass laws making it expressly the duty of the keepers of their jails to receive and safe keep therein all prisoners committed under the authority of the United States, until they shall be discharged by the course of the laws thereof, under the like penalties as in the case of prisoners committed under the authority of such states, respectively; the United States to pay for the use and keeping of such jails, at the rate of fifty cents per month for each prisoner that shall, under their authority, be committed thereto, during the time such prisoner shall be therein confined, and also to support such of said prisoners as shall be committed for offences."

A further resolution of Congress, of the third of March, 1791, provides that "Whereas Congress did, by a resolution of the 23d of September, 1789, recommend to the several states to pass laws making it expressly the duty of the keepers of their jails to receive and safe keep therein all prisoners committed under the authority of the United States: in order, therefore, to insure the administration of justice

"Resolved by the senate and house of representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, in case any state shall not have complied with the said recommendation, the marshal in such state, under the direction of the judge of the district, be authorized to hire a convenient place to serve as a temporary jail, and to make the necessary provision for the safekeeping of prisoners committed under the authority of the United States, until permanent provision shall be made by law for that purpose; and the said marshal shall be allowed his rea

sonable expenses, incurred for the above purposes, to be paid out of the treasury of the United States."

And a resolution of Congress of March 3, 1821, provides that "where any state or states, having complied with the recommendation of Congress in the resolution of the twenty-third day of September, 1789, shall have withdrawn or shall hereafter withdraw, either in whole or in part, the use of their jails for prisoners committed under the authority of the United States, the marshal in such state or states, under the direction of the judge of the district, shall be, and hereby is, authorized and required to hire a convenient place to serve as a temporary jail, and to make the necessary provision for the safekeeping of prisoners committed under the authority of the United States, until permanent provision shall be made by law for that purpose; and the said marshal shall be allowed his reasonable expenses incurred for the above purposes, to be paid out of the treasury of the United States." These various provisions of the law remain unrepealed.

By the law of Massachusetts, as that law stood before the act of the legislature of that state of the fourth of March, 1843, the common jails in the respective counties were to be used for the detention of any persons detained or committed by the authority of the courts of the United States, as well as by the courts and magistrates of the state. But these provisions were abrogated and repealed by the act of the legislature of Massachusetts of the 24th of March, 1843.

That act declares that "no judge of any court of record of this commonwealth, and no justice of the peace, shall hereafter take cognizance, or grant certificate, in cases that may arise under the third section of an act of Congress, passed February 12, 1793, and entitled, 'An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters,' to any person who claims any other person as a fugitive slave within the jurisdiction of the commonwealth." And it further declares that "no sheriff, deputy sheriff, coroner, constable, jailer, or other officer of the commonwealth, shall hereafter arrest or detain, or aid in the arrest, or detention, or imprisonment in any jail or other building belonging to this commonwealth, or to any county, city, or town thereof, of any person, for the reason that he is claimed as a fugitive slave."

And it further declares that "any justice of the peace, sheriff, deputy sheriff, coroner, constable, or jailer, who shall offend against the provisions of this law, by in any way acting directly or indirectly under the power conferred by the third section of the act of Congress aforementioned, shall forfeit a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars for every such of fence, for the use of the county where said offence is committed, or shall be subject to imprisonment not exceeding one year in the county jail."

This law, it is obvious, had two objects: the first was to make it a penal offence in all officers and magistrates of the commonwealth to exercise the powers conferred on them by the act of Congress of the 12th of February, 1793, entitled "An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters," and which powers they were fully competent to perform up to the time of this inhibition and penal enactment; second, to refuse the use of the jails of the state for the detention of any person claimed as a fugitive slave.

It is deeply to be lamented that the purpose of these enactments is quite apparent. It was to prevent, as far as the legislature of the state could prevent, the laws of Congress, passed for the purpose of carrying

into effect that article of the constitution of the United States which de clares that "no person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due," from being carried into effect. But these acts of state legislation, although they may cause embarrassment and create expense, can not derogate either from the duty or the authority of Congress to carry out fully and fairly the plain and imperative constitutional provision for the delivery of persons bound to labor in one state, and escaping into another, to the party to whom such labor may be due. It is quite clear that, by the resolution of Congress of March 3, 1821, the marshal of the United States, in any state in which the use of the jails of the state has been withdrawn in whole or in part from the purpose of the detention of persons committed under the authority of the United States, is not only empowered, but expressly required, under the direction of the judge of the district, to hire a conve nient place for the safekeeping of prisoners committed under authority of the United States. It will be seen, from papers accompanying this communication, that the attention of the marshal of Massachusetts was distinctly called to this provision of the law by a letter from the secretary of the navy, of the date of October 28th last. There is no official information that the marshal has provided any such place for the confinement of his prisoners. If he has not, it is to be regretted that this power was not exercised by the marshal, under the direction of the district judge, immediately on the passage of the act of the legislature of Massachusetts of the 24th of March, 1843, and especially that it was not exercised on the passage of the fugitive slave law of the last session, or when the attention of the marshal was afterward particularly drawn to it.

It is true that the escape from the deputy marshals in this case was not owing to the want of a prison or place of confinement; but still it is not easy to see how the prisoner could have been safely and conveniently detained, during an adjournment of the hearing for some days, without such place of confinement. If it shall appear that no such place has been obtained, directions to the marshal will be given to lose no time in the discharge of this duty.

I transmit to the senate the copy of a proclamation issued by me on the 18th instant in relation to these unexpected and deplorable occurrences in Boston, together with copies of instructions from the departments of war and navy, relative to the general subject. And I communicate, also, copies of telegraphic despatches transmitted from the department of state to the district attorney and marshal of the United States for the district of Massachusetts, and their answers thereto.

In regard to the last branch of the inquiry made by the resolution of the senate, I have to observe that the constitution declares that "he shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States," and that “ Congress shall have power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrection, and repel invasions." From which it appears that the army and navy are, by the constitution, placed under the control of the executive; and, probably, no legislation of Congress could add to or diminish the power thus given, but by increasing or diminishing, or abolishing altogether, the army and navy. But not so with the militia. The president