XVI. CHAPTER of the House was the reapportionment of representation, in accordance with the new census recently completed. 1802. The old ratio of one representative to each thirty-three Jan. 14. thousand in federal numbers was still retained. The result of the new census, and of the new apportionment founded upon it, will appear in the following table: Northwest Territory (Ohio).. Indiana Territory. Mississippi Territory 65,438 380 3,304 69,122 49,852 6,153 8,268 64,273 544377 District of Columbia.. Total.... 10.076 3,244 783 14,093 4,309,656 896,749 111,146 5,319,762 141 In conformity to the suggestions of the president, the emoluments of collectors of the customs, surveyors, and naval officers, were limited, by an act still in force, to $5000, $3500, and $3000 respectively. Some other salaries were also reduced, but the late increase to the cabinet officers was retained. The army was reduced to the peace establishment of 1796, to consist of three regiments, one of artillery of twenty companies, and two of infantry of ten companies each, amounting in the whole to 3000 men. There were also retained a corps of engineers, to consist of seven officers and ten cadets, to have their head-quarters at West Point, there to constitute a military academy, under the superintendence of the senior officer, two cadets annexed to each of the A CHAPTER XVI. twenty companies of artillery, being the students. professor of French and drawing was afterward added; but this paltry establishment, the superintendence of 1802. which was quite incompatible with the proper duties of the engineers, who were needed elsewhere, was very far short of the elaborate plan which M'Henry had drawn up just before his resignation, from notes furnished by Washington, and which ultimately became the basis of the present West Point Academy. Under the act of the last session, the navy, by selling the supernumerary ships, had been already reduced to thirteen vessels. The appropriations for improvement and increase were limited to a quarter of a million, and the building of the six seventy-fours, for which timber had been collected, was thus brought to a stand still; nor were they, in fact, ever completed, the timber being cut up for smaller vessels, or allowed to go to decay. The purchase of sites for navy yards by the late Secretary of the Navy was attacked by a committee of the House as having been made without authority; and nothing saved the yards, or a part of them, from being sold, except the circumstance that to remove the timber there deposited would cost more than the yards would sell for. expenditures by the late Secretary of the Navy, under this head, for land and improvements, had amounted to about $200,000; an expense which he fully justified against the cavils of the committee by reminding them that as Congress had directed the seventy-fours to be built, and had appropriated money for that purpose, yards must of necessity be hired or purchased, and that experience in building the frigates had proved that to purchase was altogether the cheaper. It was attempted, also, to abolish the Mint, but that did not succeed. Another small saving was made by the repeal of the late Judi The XVI. CHAPTER ciary Act, which formed, indeed, the great measure of the session. It was early brought forward by Brecken1802. ridge in the Senate, and the speeches upon it constitute Jan. 6. the earliest reported debates of that body. Gouverneur Morris took the lead for the Federalists, and greatly distinguished himself. Before the debate was over, the greater part of the senators had spoken. The Judiciary Act, and especially the appointments made under it, had been held up to popular odium from the moment of its passage as an unworthy maneuver, having no other object except to plunder the treasury for the benefit of the Federal leaders, ousted by the public voice from the control of the other departments of the government. Several of the state Legislatures had instructed their senators and representatives in Congress to urge the immediate repeal of the act, Returns of the business hitherto transacted by the Federal courts were moved for and obtained, from which it was argued that the late change was entirely unnecessary, especially as the Sedition Law had expired, while the proposed repeal of the internal duties, and the diminution of suits by British creditors, would still further diminish the business of the courts. It was maintained, on the other side, that the new system had become necessary through the exigencies of justice; and even admitting that the provision made by it was somewhat more ample than was necessary, that was an error on the right side, and would save to suitors, in the prompt decision of cases, vastly more than the new system would cost. Besides, those superfluities might be retrenched without repealing the act. Indeed, a reestablishment of the old system was quite out of the question. It was also urged, and with great positiveness, that, XVI. whether the act was good or bad, as the new judges had CHAPTER been appointed for life, that appointment amounted in substance to a contract on the part of the public, which, 1802. consistently with the spirit of the Constitution, could not be set aside. To none of these arguments would the Republicans listen; and the bill finally passed the Senate, sixteen to Feb. 3. fifteen-one of the administration members being ab sent, and another (Ogden, of New Jersey) voting against it. In the House the debate was renewed with still great- Feb. 13. er earnestness. Giles, in the course of it, made a furious onslaught upon the whole judiciary system, and, indeed, upon the entire policy of the late administrations. At length, by means of a midnight session, now first resorted to for such a purpose, the Committee of the Whole was forced to report the bill, which presently passed the March 1. House, fifty-nine to thirty-two. Eustis, the Boston rep- March 3. resentative, was the only administration member who voted against it. Jefferson appears to have been very doubtful, at least previous to the meeting of Congress, whether the judges had not a freehold in their offices of which they could not be constitutionally deprived. But he did not hesitate to sign the act. Nor, indeed, whatever might be thought of the expediency of the repeal, could there be any solid doubt of the power of Congress in the matter, the repeal being, as it was, a bona fide one, and not a mere trick to deprive the judges of their offices, with intent to establish those offices anew and to give them to others. Having thus destroyed the work of the Federalists, a bill was brought in and presently passed by which the April 29 terms of the Supreme Court were reduced to one annually, which a majority of the judges was authorized to XVI. CHAPTER hold. Instead of three circuits as formerly, six were constituted, but somewhat different from those of the re1802. pealed act, Maine, Kentucky, and Tennessee not being included in the arrangement. A single judge of the Supreme Court was to be assigned to each of these circuits, to hold semi-annual courts in each district, with the district judge for an associate. In case they differed on a point of law, the matter was to go up by certificate to the Supreme Court. This system, with some addition to the number of Supreme Court judges, and an increase of circuits and districts, remains in force to the present day. It answered well enough for a certain period, but its inadequacy has long since become fully apparent; and the almost hopeless accumulation for years past (1851) of business before the Supreme Court gives but too abundant occasion, at least to the unfortunate suitors, to lament that the act of 1801 was ever repealed. While the Senate were busy with the repeal of the Judiciary Act, the House attacked the internal taxes, including the duties on domestic distilled spirits, and on licenses to retail them, together with the stamp duties, and the excises on refined sugar, sales at auction, and pleasure carriages. The gross produce of these taxes was about a million annually; but, deducting the cost of collection, and the stamp duties, just about to expire, the nett revenue would be about $600,000, of which $500,000 was derived from the tax on distilled spirits. The objection urged to these taxes was the expensiveness of the collection in proportion to the product-the principal burden of a treatise by Gallatin published sev eral years before-to which were added the old arguments as to their anti-republican character, and the system of espionage which they made necessary. Griswold insisted that, before repealing these taxes, |