XIV. military and naval establishments. To this it was ob- CHAPTER jected that it was necessary to keep up a good show of defense as a support to the negotiation lately recom- 1800. menced, but of the success of which no accounts had yet been received; and the motion, after a three days' debate, was rejected fifty-nine to thirty-nine. Among the speak- June 10. ers in this debate was John Randolph, a very young man, scarcely of age, a singular mixture of the aristocrat and the Jacobin-an aristocrat by birth, education, and temperament; a Jacobin, at this time, out of enthu siasm for France, and during all his life out of a sort of Ishmaelitish opposition to the exercise of authority by any body but himself. In jealousy, envy, caprice, and passion, he ever exhibited the familiar characteristics of that unhappy neutral sex sufficiently common in Eastern countries, though rare among us, to which he was said to belong. In his speech upon this occasion, with that insolence which never forsook him, Randolph spoke of the officers of the army and navy as "a handful of ragamuffins," who consumed the fruits of the people's labor under pretext of protecting them from a foreign yoke. Being at the theater a night or two after with some other members of Congress, two or three young officers entered the box where he sat, jostled against him, repeating the word "ragamuffin," and when, in order to avoid a quarrel, he rose to leave, they pulled him by his coat and otherwise insulted him. The next day Randolph addressed a letter to the president not less characteristic than his speech. Claiming to hold, in common with Adams, "the honorable station of servant of the same sovereign people," and on the ground that his application required no preface of apology, he proceeded, as he expressed it, "without the circumlocution of compliment," to set forth his case as XIV. CHAPTER one in which the independence of the Legislature had been attacked, the majesty of the people insulted, and 1800. the president's authority contemned; and he ended with demanding action on the president's part "commensurate with the evil, and calculated to deter others from any future attempt to introduce the Reign of Terror." Randolph doubtless expected to place the president in a dilemma between sympathy for the officers and respect for the rights of a representative. But he found the tables very quietly turned upon him. The president sent a message to the House inclosing Randolph's letter, as to which he observed that, as it related to the privileges of the House a matter not proper to be inquired into except by the House itself-he had sent it to them without any further comments either on its matter or style; but as no gross improprieties on the part of persons holding commissions in the service of the United States ought to be passed over without due animadversion, he had directed an investigation into the matter complained of, for the purpose of obtaining a statement of facts such as might enable him to decide on the course which duty and justice might demand. It was proposed to refer this message, with its inclosure, to a select committee-a step which Randolph vehemently opposed. Adhering to the doctrine maintained by his party in the case of Lyon-whom he seems also to have taken as a model of Republican plainness and simplicity in manners-he insisted that the House had no jurisdiction in the matter, and that to assume it on this occasion might prove a bad precedent. He wished, as in his letter, to shift off the whole responsibility of inquiry and punishment upon Adams, who, as commanderin-chief, had, so he maintained, abundant authority in the matter. But the House were almost unanimously ས XIV. of opinion that, in a question so serious as that of their CHAPTER privileges and that certainly was one of the grounds on which Randolph's letter had placed the matter-the pres- 1800. ident had acted with great discretion in referring the whole subject to them. A special committee was accordingly appointed, from which a report was soon made severely censuring not the style only, but object also, of Randolph's letter to the president. Whatever might have been the writer's intentions, this letter was pronounced by the committee as in itself little short of a breach of the privileges of the House, being an attempt to transfer to the president the jurisdiction over a matter of which the House itself was the peculiar and exclusive judge. As to the alleged insult witnesses had been examined; the officers implicated had denied any knowledge that Randolph was in the box; and the whole testimony as to what was said and done was so contradictory, that, in the committee's opinion, no case requiring any action appeared. This report was adopted in spite of the earnest efforts of Randolph's party friends; and he was thus obliged not only to put up with the retort which his own insolence had provoked, but himself to submit to the censure of Congress; while no punishment of the officers could be obtained-for, of course, after this, the president took no further steps in the matter. This was a lesson by which a wiser man might have profited; but a peevish, sneering, and quarrelsome insolence was so ingrained a part of Randolph's sickly nature, that not even the severest lessons of experience could restrain it. Though the proposal to return to the former peace establishment had been rejected, great anxiety was felt by a part of the Federalists on the score of the national expenses, which had, indeed, been the great argument on the part of the opposition. From a statement submitted XIV. CHAPTER by the Secretary of the Treasury, it appeared that if the additional twelve regiments were completed to the es1800. tablishment-as yet only 3400 men had been enlisted, though all the officers had been appointed-and if the building of the seventy-fours were continued, a new loan of five millions would be necessary to meet the expenses of the year. Under these circumstances, though not willJan. 15. ing to go quite the length of the opposition, a bill was introduced by the Committee of Defense, which presently Feb. 20. became a law, suspending further enlistments for the additional regiments, but empowering the president, in case war should break out during the recess, to renew enlistments at his discretion. No additional appropriation was made for the seventy-fours; and the loan required was thus reduced to three millions and a half, which the May 7. president was authorized to borrow. As means of paying the interest on this and the preMay 13. vious five million loan, additional duties were imposed of two cents and a half per pound on sugar-candy and half a cent per pound on brown sugar, raising the entire duty to two cents and a half, also two and a half per cent. additional on all goods hitherto paying ten per cent. ad valorem, including all woolens, linens, and silks, which were thus made to pay the same twelve and a half per cent. as manufactures of cotton. The duties on wines were also increased so as to range from twenty-three cents to fifty-eight cents per gallon, Madeira still standing at the head of the list. The numerous insolvencies produced by the rage of land speculation and by the uncertainties of commerce, aggravated as they had been by the conduct of the belligerents, had made evident the necessity of laws for the discharge of insolvent debtors. The impolicy as well as cruelty of imprisonment for debts occasioned by the fluc XIV. tuations of trade and the uncertainties of speculation had CHAPTER begun to be felt; and several of the states had already tried their hands at the enactment of insolvent laws. 1800. More than once, at preceding sessions of Congress, the project had been brought forward of a general bankrupt law for the Union. Such a law was now passed, mod- April 4. eled after the English bankrupt law, and, like that, extending only to merchants and traders. But another act gave to all persons imprisoned on executions for debt issued out of the Federal courts the right to discharge themselves from imprisonment-their property, should they acquire any, remaining still liable for their debtson taking an oath of poverty; and this oath might also be taken with the same effect, even though no execution had issued, at any time after thirty days from the rendition of judgment. The tract of territory in the northeast corner of the present State of Ohio, reserved by Connecticut out of her cession to the United States, and thence known as the "Connecticut Reserve," had, as already has been mentioned, been sold by Connecticut, jurisdiction and all, to a company of speculators. They had surveyed it into townships, and, under their auspices, a thousand settlers or more were already established on it. To these speculators the jurisdiction was of no pecuniary value, and was even likely to prove a serious embarrassment; while, on the other hand, it was much for their interest to obtain from the United States a direct confirmation of the Connecticut title, hitherto only inferentially acknowledged, and the more so as Connecticut, avoiding all risks, had only given them a quit-claim deed. On the other hand, it was an object for the United States to extinguish the claim of jurisdiction. In this mutuality of interests originated an act of Congress authorizing the April 28. |