The Enquirer

CONGRESSIONAL REGISTER.

HOUSE OF

REPRESENTATIVES.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 31.

DEBATE ON THE YAZOO CLAIMS.

(continued.)

Mr. Lyon. After having taken a view of the subject now before the house during the last session in all its shapes and bearings, and after having, in a very ample and explicit manner, given the reasons which governed my vote at that time, it was my intention to have given a silent vote on this occasion.—The hope of changing the mind of a single member does not now call upon me to rise; no, sir, the uncandid insinuations, the undeserved reproaches and criminations from a member from Virginia have caused me to break through that silence I had imposed upon myself. Yet since I am up, permit me to remind you, sir, of that view, and in a very brief manner of those reasons which will in every stage of this business induce me to adhere to the contemplated compromise. It seems that the government of Georgia in 1795, made an agreement with certain companies which was not fulfilled by the grantees, nor consummated by the government of Georgia, for the sale of a large part of their western lands; accordingly the legislature again offered those lands for sale, and by solemn legislative and executive acts, did sell and by deed convey 35 millions of acres of those lands to certain other companies for which they received the compensation agreed on. That those grantees having it in their power to shew to purchasers the best possible evidence of a good and authentic title, did sell the property—thus purchased to other purchasers. who had the best right imaginable to put faith in the authenticated documents and title papers presented to them, documents and title papers as good as any ever obtained from an individual by another, or from a state or a nation by a purchaser. Notwithstanding which the succeeding legislature not liking the bargain, assumed or attempted to assume the power of reclaiming the property, and passed an act purporting their intention of invalidating the title given by their predecessors, as well as for the destruction of the records and every evidence of the title given by them.

It appears that the purchasers when they found Georgia offering to cede those lands to the United States, gave warning and notice of their claims to the chief magistrate of the union, in consequence of which, or for some other cause, provision for a compromise with the claimants was made in the law which authorised the holding a treaty with Georgia, respecting the cession of those lands. Commissioners of the United States, agreeable to the powers vested in them by that provision, have met the claimants, and have, it seems, agreed on terms of compromise, which in my opinion are very advantageous to the United States, which compromise is now before this house for its sanction.

I stated last year that under my impression of the validity of the title of the claimants, the compromise was more advantageous to the nation than could be expected, more advantageous, to be sure, than I had previously expected could have been made. I still think it an advantageous bargain on account of the revenue which will arise from the sale of the residue of the lands. Seven eighths of thirty five millions, to which an unexceptionable title can then be given, a title which good farmers and useful settlers will not fear to improve under. Advantageous I say, also, on account of the benefit to be derived from the early settlement of some of the new lands, and in the best situation of any of the government claims. A country intersected by many navigable water, and through which may be made a secure communication with the union to Natchez and New-Orleans, a road which in the present state of things is frequently infested with murderers and freebooters.

Nothing could be more surprising to me than the opposition, this, in my opinion, reasonable, necessary and profitable compromise has met with both last session and this. I say profitable because it takes not a cent out of the treasury nor from any other fund but the land itself, which however wrong it was to purchase it, knowing it to be sold to others whose claim was in a measure recognized by the contemplated compromise at the very outset of the negotiation. However wrong, I say, it might have been for the United States to have become the purchasers, they have not paid, nor are they bound to pay a shilling from any other fund than the land itself, notwithstanding all this clamour about robbery. Such has ever been my opinion of public faith, that although I doubt not that bribery was used in the legislature of Georgia in the transaction of 1795 to a certain degree, their successors and the state were bound to abide by the solemn contract. I say solemn because it appears to be confirmed by the executive of the state against whom I do not recollect any charge of bribery to have been made, had that executive (who was on the spot and must have been a better judge of the corruption talked of than we can be) arrested, by his witholding hand, the completion of the contract, and refused his signature to those papers, which enabled the purchasers to convey their purchase to others, I should now say the title being incomplete we have nothing to fear from it, we want no compromise—this no doubt would have been done had the executive supposed that the people of Georgia were injured, and that they would support him in that refusal. But, sir, the honors and preferments retained by and conferred on so many of those persons charged with the bribery, leads me to believe that there were causes unknown to me which led to the uneasiness on the part of the people of Georgia, with regard to the sale in 1795, and led to the attempt at resuming the right to the lands in 1796.

In the course of this discussion, we who wish for a compromise of this perplexing business, this business, which seems to be kindling the greatest discord in the nation, have been charged with an intention of committing a robbery which is far to exceed all the petty larcenies of the former administration, and such of us as have aided to depose the former and support the present administration are threatened with being for the future considered as federalists, let our professions be what they may. For my part I can assure the member who threatens us, that it never in my life gave me pain to be called a federalist in the true sense of that word, in the sense in, which the word was used by the great man who said, "we are all federalists, we are all republicans," but, sir, it gives me pain to hear and to see the character of the head of one of the departments of our government lugged into this debate, and so illiberally treated. The man I respect highly both for his integrity and talents, in the first of which in my opinion he stands behind no man in this nation, and although he has the misfortune to suffer the censure of the member from Virginia, I believe he enjoys almost universal applause for the great zeal, fidelity and sound discretion with which he has discharged the important functions entrusted to him.

From the drift of the speeches delivered by the member from Virginia, from his call for the post-master-general's report of a list of his contracts, and from the invitation he has given to an examination of that report, I am led to consider it a duty I owe to myself, in this house & in the face of the world to take up that report and explain the nature of the contracts which there appear in my name. I find my name seven times mentioned in that report ; the first is in the 12th page for a contract for carrying the mail from Cincinnati to Detroit, the second is in the same page, and is from Marietta to Cincinnati; these two contracts I never solicited or bid for, but the post-master-general having advertised for proposals and having received none that he thought reasonable, they being new routes and to be let for one year only, he wrote to me offering the price they stand at, & I undertook to get the business done; for the performance of the latter contract I gave every cent I received, and without saving one penny for a great deal of trouble, risk and perplexity, I had taken upon myself to get it, effected; from the other I saved a few dollars towards paying me for the care, trouble, and responsibility I had sustained on the occasion; long before these contracts were out, I informed the post-master-general that I should take neither of them again, and that contract from Cincinnati to Detroit was let to another person at 105 dollars 60 cents more than was given me : this may be seen in the 22d line of the 20th page of the same report.

The third time my name is mentioned is in the same 12th page, and is from Hartford to Fort Massac, a distance of about 180 or 190 miles, for which 654 dollars 75 cents is paid, out of this 60 dollars is to be paid for ferriage. For some part of this route I am obliged to give much more than a proportionate share of what I receive, some other parts I give a trifle less, sometimes my own horses carry the mail. I cannot with precision tell what is lost or gained in it, but it cannot be 50 dollars either way.

The 4th contract is also in the same page, it is from Russelville to Eddygrove or rather Eddyville, it is 90 miles for which 240 dollars is paid, this is as low if not lower than the price, given any where south or west of this place, & I give to the person who performs it the whole amount of what I receive. The 5th and 6th times my name is mentioned in that report is in the 25th page, those are merely a renewal of the two last mentioned contracts which had expired in 1804 ; all those contracts were made before I was elected to my present seat in this house, before I had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with the present post-master-general, and before I ever spoke with him.

The 7th contract is noticed in the last page of the post-master-general's report, which is from Massac to New Madrid, from Kaskaskias to Cape Girardeau. from Cohokia to St. Louis, a distance of more than 300 miles for 315 dollars, out of which more than 150 must be paid for ferriage at the rate ferriages stood at the time of the contract.

This is the true history of the contracts, by which it is insinuated that the post-master-general has bribed me. I never was bribed, sir, it is not all the lands and negroes my accuser owns that could tempt me to do a thing which honor or conscience dictated to me to avoid ; I could, sir, if it was pertinent, shew how the over vigilance of the present post-master-general has deprived me of the benefit of the only profitable contract I ever made with the government, a contract made with his predecessor for which he very improperly in my opinion considered void on account of some words in it not being exactly consonant with the intention of the contracting parties; believing however the post-master-general designed to do what he thought right, he has not lost my esteem, nor do I think his character can be injured by the braying of a jackall or the fulminations of a madman. But, sir, permit me to enquire from whom these charges of bribery, of corruption, and of robbery come ; is it from one who has for forty years in one shape or other been entrusted with the property and concerns of other people and has never wanted for confidence, one whose long and steady practice of industry, integrity, and well doing has obtained him his standing on this floor ? Is it from one who sneered with contempt on the importunity with which he was solicited to set a price on the important vote he held in the last presidential election. No, sir, these charges have been fabricated in the disordered imagination of a young man whose pride has been provoked by my refusing to sing encore to all his political dogmas. I have had the impudence to differ from him in some few points and some few times to neglect his fiat. It is long since I have observed that the very sight of my plebeian face has had an unpleasant effect on the gentleman's nose, for out of respect to this house and to the state he represents, I will yet occasionally call him gentleman. I say, sir, these charges have been brought against me by a person nurtured in the bosom of opulence, inheriting the life services of a numerous train of the human species, and extensive fields, the original proprietors of which property in all probability came no honester by it than the purchasers of the Georgia lands did by what they claim. Let that gentleman apply the fable of the thief and the receiver in Dilworth's spelling book, so ingeniously quoted by himself to his own case, and give up the stolen men in his possession.

I say, sir, these charges have come from a person whose fortune, leisure and genius, have enabled him to obtain a great share of the wisdom of the schools, but who in years, experience and the knowledge of the world, and the ways of men, is many, many years behind those he implicates, a person who from his rant in this house seems to have got his head as full of British contracts and British modes of corruption as ever Don Quixotte's was Supposed to be of chivalry, enchantments, and knight errantry, a person who seems to think no man can be honest and independent unless he inherited lands and negroes, nor is he willing to allow a man to vote in the people's elections, unless he is a land holder.

I can tell that gentleman, I am as far from offering or receiving a bribe, as he or any other member on this floor, it is a charge that no man ever made against me before him, who from his insulated situation, unconversant with the world, is perhaps as little acquainted with my character as any member of this house, or almost any man in the nation, and I do most cordially believe that had my back and my mind been supple enough to rise and fall, with his motions, I should have escaped his resentment.

I, Sir, have none of that pride, which sets men above being merchants, and dealers, the calling of a merchant, is in my opinion, equally dignified with that of a farmer or a manufacturer. I have for great part of my life, been engaged in all the stations of merchant, farmer and manufacturer, in which I have honestly earned, and lost a great deal of property. In the character of a merchant I act like other merchants, look out for customers, with whom I can make bargains advantageous to both parties ; it is all the same to me, whether I contract with an individual or the public; I see no constitutional impediment to a member of this house serving the public, for the same reward the public gives another ; whenever my constituents or myself think I have contracted inconsistent with my duties, as a member of this house, I will retire from it.

I came to this house as the representative of a free, a brave and a generous people—I thank my creator that he has given me the face of a man, not that of an ape or a monkey—and that he gave me the heart of a man also, a heart which will spare to its last drop in defence of the dignity of the station, my generous constituents have placed me in. I shall trouble the house no further at this time, than by observing that I shall not be deterred by the threats of the member from Virginia from giving the vote I think the interest and honor of the nation requires, and by saying if that member means to be understood that I have offered contracts from the post-master-general, the assertion or insinuation has no foundation in truth, and I now challenge him to bring forward his boasted proof.