CHAPTER tion to the Constitution was confined to the question V. of the vice-presidency and the majority in Congress un1792. der the new apportionment. The opposition concentrated their votes on George Clinton as vice-president. The Federalists supported John Adams, not because they approved all his political theories, but because they believed him an honest and capable friend of the Constitution. Washington again received the unanimous vote of the electors, the number being increased under the new apportionment, and by the admission of new states, to a hundred and thirty. Of the votes for the second candidate, Adams received seventy-seven and Clinton fifty. All the votes of the New England States, including Rhode Island and Vermont, which had not voted at the former election, and the entire vote of Connecticut, which had then been divided, were given to Adams. Instead of one vote in New Jersey and eight out of ten in Pennsylvania, given to him at the first election, he now obtained the entire support of those two states, except one vote in Pennsylvania given to Clinton. He received, also for the first time, the entire vote of Delaware and Maryland, with six out of the seven votes of South Carolina; but the five Virginia votes given to him at the first election were now withheld. Clinton received the entire vote of New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. The Kentucky electors voted for Jefferson as their second candidate. One of the South Carolina votes

was given to Burr.

Nov. 5. The second Congress, meanwhile, had reassembled for its second and concluding session. In his opening speech the president dwelt at length on the state of Indian relations, his unsuccessful efforts to re-establish peace in the Northwest, and the necessity of an efficient Indian Department to regulate affairs on the frontiers in a spirit

V.

of justice and humanity, as the only means of security CHAPTER against perpetual Indian wars. The measures taken in consequence of opposition to the excise were recited, and 1792. the president's firm intention was expressed to enforce the collection of the tax. The prosperous condition' of the revenue formed a topic of congratulation, and the adoption was recommended of a systematic and effectual arrangement for the regular redemption of the public debt as fast as the terms of the Funding Act would allow. An account was given of the progress of the mint, which had already commenced operations by the coinage of half dimes. In consequence of projects believed to be on foot for establishing settlements on the Mississippi within the territory claimed by Spain, under color of the Georgia Yazoo grants, attention was called to the means of preventing aggressions by citizens of the United States on the territory of foreign nations.

wants.

The report of the committee on St. Clair's defeat, made just at the conclusion of the late session, in exculpating that commander, had thrown a good deal of blame on the quartermaster general, the contractor for supplies, and, by implication also, on the Departments of War and the Treasury, the report implying that the army had not been properly provided for, or money duly furnished to meet its This report had excited a good deal of feeling on the part of the officers implicated, who desired an opportunity to vindicate themselves. The report being under consideration in Committee of the Whole, Dayton Nov. 13. moved that the Secretaries of War and the Treasury be. directed to attend the House, and to give such information as might be required. This motion roused at once into action the jealousy of executive influence felt by the opposition. It was vehemently resisted as unconstitutional, a dangerous precedent, and threatening to subject

V.

CHAPTER the House to the influence and control of the secretaries. In this view of the matter, Williamson, Tucker, Madison, 1792. Giles, Page, Venable, White, Clark of New Jersey, and even Murray, Fitzsimmons, and Livermore, concurred. The motion was supported by the mover, by Ames, Lawrence, Boudinot, Gerry, and Smith of South Carolina. Gerry ridiculed the alarm which some members seemed to evince on this subject. The secretaries would attend merely to give such information as might be required, not as members or as ministers to influence the determinations of the House. The motion, however, failed to pass, and finally, on Madison's suggestion, the matter was sent back to the original committee for further investigation, Before this committee the secretaries and other parties. interested were allowed to attend for the purpose of giving explanations-a precedent ever since followed in similar cases. Toward the end of the session a supplemental report was made, modifying and explaining away many of the censures contained in the first report.

Nov. 19.

Another not less vehement debate presently arose on a motion by Fitzsimmons to refer that part of the presi dent's message relating to the redemption of the public debt to the Secretary of the Treasury, to report a plan for that purpose. This reference, warmly opposed by Madison, Mercer, Findley, Page, and Baldwin, was supported by Fitzsimmons, Williamson, Hillhouse, Murray, Smith of South Carolina, Sedgwick, Ames, Lawrence, Livermore, and Gerry, as coming within the express provisions of the act establishing the Treasury Department, Nov. 21. and was finally carried by thirty-two votes to twentyfive. Another resolution was passed at the same time, directing the secretary to report a plan for paying up at once the two millions advanced by the Bank of the United States as an offset to the two millions subscribed

y.

to the stock of that institution, and which, by the terms CHAPTER of the loan, was reimbursable in annual installments of $200,000, with interest at six per cent.

The idea of paying off this debt to the bank had originated with Hamilton, who proposed to appropriate to that purpose a part of the proceeds of the loans recently negotiated in Holland under the authority formerly given to pay off the over-due installments of the French debt. In consequence of the dethronement of Louis XVI., news of which had just arrived in America, and the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly, leaving no authority in France at that moment competent to give a discharge, directions had been sent to Gouverneur Morris to suspend payments on account of the French debt until further orders. Not to lose the interest on this money, Hamil ton proposed to appropriate it to pay off the debt to the bank, authority being first obtained to negotiate a new loan of two millions out of which to meet the payments on the French debt whenever they should be resumed, Not only would this arrangement prevent any temporary loss of interest, but, should the new loan be negotiated on terms, as favorable as those recently obtained, an an nual saving would accrue to the United States of about $35,000, the difference between six per cent., the rate of interest paid to the bank, and the rate at which the latest Dutch loans had been obtained.

In the interval between these references to the Secre tary of the Treasury and his report thereon, some warm speeches were made upon quite a different topic. Since the famous debate upon slavery at the second session of the first Congress, about two years before, that question, having been found so inflammable, had hardly been touched upon in the House, the administration party and the opposition being both alike afraid of it. The IV. B B

1792.

CHAPTER Abolition Society of Pennsylvania had indeed presented, V. at the last session, a memorial calling upon Congress to 1792. exercise, for the suppression of the slave trade, those

powers which, by the report of the Committee of the Whole, entered on the journals of the House, Congress had been declared to possess. Re-enforced by others from the abolition societies of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, and from several local societies in Maryland, that memorial had been referred to a special committee. As that committee had made no report, memorials had been presented at the present session from the abolition societies of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, recalling the attention of Congress to the subject; but these, as yet, had been suffered to lie upon the table without reference. Afterward a separate petition had been presented from Warner Mifflin, a philanthropical Quaker of Delaware, on the general subject of negro slavery, its injustice, and the necessity of its abolition. At the time of its presentation, this document had been read and laid upon the table without comment. Two Nov. 26. days after, Steele, of North Carolina, called attention to it by observing "that, after what had passed at New York, he had hoped the House would have heard no more of that subject. To his surprise, he found the business started anew by a fanatic, who, not content with keeping his own conscience, undertook to be the keeper of the consciences of other men, and, in a manner not very decent, had obtruded his opinion on the House." After some complaints that such a petition should have been presented, Steele moved that it be returned to the petitioner by the clerk, and that the entry of it be erased from the journal. The petition, it chanced, had been presented by Ames, to whom Mifflin had applied for that purpose, as the Delaware member happened to be absent.