Remarks of Jefferson Davis on the bill to establish the Department of the Interior. March 3, 1849.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.

Mr. HUNTER, from the Committee on Finance, to which was referred the bill from the House of Representatives to establish the Home Department and to provide for the Treasury Department an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and a Commissioner of the Customs, reported it with amendments.

Mr. UNDERWOOD moved to take up the bill to establish a Home Department.

Mr. KING hoped that the bill would not be taken up. He thought it would lead to a very extended discussion.

Mr. UNDERWOOD said he was perfectly willing to vote and to say nothing about it.

Mr. CAMERON thought, from indications around him, that the bill would be very fully discussed. He knew gentlemen who were resolved upon entering largely into the discussion whenever the bill should come up, and he believed it would consume the whole day.

Mr. DOWNS hoped the bill would be taken up. It was a very important measure, and he thought it would not take long to dispose of it.

Mr. BRIGHT. I hope the motion will not prevail. There is a great deal of very important business that ought to be attended to, and I think, from the disposition that is manifested in various quarters to enter largely into the discussion of this bill, that, if it be taken up, very little, if any, business will be done. All, or at least a large portion, of the important bills now ready for the action of the Senate, will have to be passed over if the motion of the Senator from Kentucky shall prevail.

If Senators think that this bill can be passed without a thorough examination and full discussion of its merits, they are mistaken. I hope, therefore, that, if it is to be taken up this session at all, it will not be taken up until all the more important business shall have been disposed of.

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. I do not suppose that any Senator is going into a long speech upon this bill at a moment like this. We are all equally interested with the Senator from Indiana [Mr. BRIGHT] in the speedy disposition of the important bills which remain yet unacted upon. If Senators wish to express their views in relation to the measure, they can do so with

out occupying much time, if they choose. If objections to the bill exist, they can be briefly stated. All that I have to say, I can say in a brief space. If we seek only to elicit the truth, to ascertain the facts of the case, to legislate for the good of the country, it will not take long to dispose of this bill.

The establishment of a Home Department has been recommended by one whose name will be honorably remembered as long as our Treasury Department stands. This illustrious man, who is about to close his labors in that department, which he filled with such high honor to himself, and such signal benefit to his country, after mature deliberation, after that investigation which no man not at the head of the department could have made, proposed the bill which is now before the Senate, having passed the House. He is convinced that it was absolutely necessary in his administration of the department to have such a division as is proposed by this bill; and that it will be more so during the next four years, and for every succeeding four years during all coming time. I feel a very peculiar interest in this measure, as every one who comes from a new State must feel. We are peopling the public lands; the inhabitants of the old States are the people of commerce. The treasury belongs to us in common. The Secretaries of the Treasury must be taken from those portions of the country where they have foreign commerce, and therefore they are men who are not so intimately connected and acquainted with the relations and interests of the public lands in the new States as those who control those relations and interests should be, in order to protect and foster the interests of the new States.

Again: no feature is more common in our form of government than its checks and balances-one department checking and guarding the other. Why, then, shall we not carry out that principle to its legitimate extent? Why, then, have we, and why shall we continue an organization which violates that principle? It was a departure from that great principle to put in the same hands in the organization of our Government the collection and the disbursement of the revenue. The one should check the other. The officer who is charged with finding the ways and means to carry on the Government properly, never should have been charged with the disbursement of those ways and means. And this division of the Treasury Department I consider essential to the rigid economy and just accountability which belongs to our Government.

On same subject later on in the debate on the measure.

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. The debate upon the measure

under consideration has assumed a character so different from that which was anticipated when I addressed the Senate in advocacy of the bill, that I am compelled again to ask the attention of the Senate. In doing so, I will express the reluctance I feel to consume any part of the little time which now remains to close the legislation of the session.

Had the measure been opposed directly, and discussed upon its merits, I should not have considered it necessary to reply; but remarks have been made calculated to prejudice the bill, and also those who support it. The Senator from Virginia [Mr. MASON] has presented the question in a form as new as it was unlooked for, and to which it is more disagreeable than difficult to reply. He rests his objection upon party ground, refers to the support given to the bill on the opposite side of the Chamber, seeming thence to draw the conclusion that it deserves opposition from those who, like him and myself, sit upon this. Sir, this argument could only weigh with me in the absence of all reason, when, groping in the dark, without light to direct me, I should find myself reduced to the necessity of following the call of those whose voices assured me of the direction followed by my friends. He says the measure has become popular on the other side, and finds favor with some upon this side of the Chamber. I enter not into the consideration of time when this measure found favor with my political opponents; neither will I scan the motives which may by others be attributed to them as prompting their action. Believing it to be right, I find on the threshold a satisfactory cause for all the support which the measure receives, and am proud to be numbered among the "some upon this side of the Chamber" who support a measure from higher purposes than party advantage or individual benefit; who find in the necessity, the propriety of the act, its justification, and who will not defeat a public measure because the patronage which attaches to it will inure to the benefit of others; still less, far less, because the efficiency it will bring to the executive departments will relieve from embarrassment an administration of the Government by those to whom we are politically opposed.

Sir, I have been surprised to hear it asserted that this is a new proposition, suddenly presented to the Senate. The bill, after debate, passed the House of Representatives, and has been for some time before the Senate. The main proposition is nearly as old as our Government. The first Secretary of the Treasury recommended a division of the Treasury Department, and subsequent experience has brought from time to time additional

recommendations for a measure the propriety of which was so soon perceived in the practical working of our Treasury Department, until the bill now before us was prepared by the present Secretary, Mr. Walker, whose fortune it has been to have charge of the department when expanded territory, enlarged commerce, and a war conducted in a foreign country, brought unprecedented burdens and difficulties upon the department, and fully exemplified the necessity for a new organization. To divide, to classify the official functions, so as to give expedition and simplicity, increased checks and accountability, is the purpose and operation of the bill. Yet it is said to be an extension of the Federal power, a measure repugnant to Democracy.

Sir, I have no occasion to climb the house-top and proclaim my own democracy; I have grown with it, and all who know me recognize me best in the only political mantle they have ever known me to wear. Nor, sir, do I believe my democracy so feeble a plant that it requires to be surrounded with props, and is in danger of falling if left alone. But on the present occasion there is no want of supports the highest and most honored. A measure, the principle of which bears the sanction of Washington, Madison, Monroe, and Secretary Walker, could scarcely endanger a democratic reputation which was worth preserving, though these names may render it necessary, if Democracy be the basis of opposition, to trumpet it loudly, lest the fact should not be known. It is a strange confusion of ideas which identifies the creation of a new department, the appointment of new officers, with an extension of Federal power. In the progress of our Government this had been a frequent occurrence; and in its future growth and ramification must continue to occur. One Secretary, at an early period of our national history, had charge of both the Navy and Army Departments. It has been necessary to divide them, and to erect many bureaus in each; the agents have been multiplied, that the powers might be well executed. Extended intercourse with the Indian tribes has required new agencies and superintendents; the expansion of our population has produced, with each village which rose as the forest fell, the necessity of new post routes and offices, new judicial districts, new collection districts-enlarged the patronage, increased the action of the Federal Government; but will it thence be contended that its constitutional power has been magnified, that functions not delegated have been usurped?

Sir, my belief has been, and is, that the Constitution of the United States would suffice for any extent of territory which

should be covered by people sufficiently honest and intelligent to administer it; but, with widened surface, and multiplied population, there must be a lengthened list of agents too; nor did it ever occur to me that in this the Constitution would be violated, or Democracy overthrown.

Mr. President, there are two modes in which this bill may be defeated-either by amending it, and causing it, for the want of time, to be lost between the Houses of Congress, or by consuming the time which remains of the session in discussing the merits of a bill upon which the opinion of the Senate has been clearly expressed. To prevent the first, I will vote against all amendments, and to avoid the second will be as brief as circumstances will justify.

I always feel respect for a voice which is raised against the encroachment of the Federal Government, and always feel ready to cooperate with those who declare a purpose to restrain it to its constitutional limits; but, sir, to restrain is not to cripple or to destroy. Within their sphere the powers of the General Government are supreme, entitled to the respect and support of all; to be maintained and defended with the same zeal with which encroachment upon the reserved rights of a State should be resisted. If there be one class which, more than all others, owe this respect and support, it is that which is especially devoted to guarding against encroachment. I was, therefore, surprised to hear the Senator from Virginia, [Mr. MASON,] whilst arguing for restraint upon the Federal Government, assert that it had nothing to do with our domestic relations. Under what other head than domestic relations will he place the district courts, the transmission of the mails, the collection of revenue, the intercourse with Indian tribes, the disposal of the public lands, the protection of frontier inhabitants, and the many other duties of the General Government to the people of the United States?

Mr. MASON. If the honorable Senator will allow me, I will explain. I did not say that the Federal Government had nothing to do with domestic relations. I said the Federal Government was created to provide for foreign relations; but if it was necessary to give it some share of power over our internal relations, over the Patent Office, Indian bureau, the public lands, &c., it should be subordinate. Being formed to take charge of our exterior relations, we should not extend its power to our interior relations any further than was absolutely necessary.

Mr. DAVIS. It was not my memory, but my hearing which was at fault, as appears by reference to the note I made of the