H. of R.] Georgia Militia Claims. [DEC. 29, 1824. called the militia into the field, sir, as a direct conse- evidence of Mr. Lincoln and the Georgia commissioners, quence of your policy, was greatly increased; it was ob-you array the solemn and positive declaration of two viously the policy of Georgia, and her safety required highly respectable individuals against the reasonings and that the war should be carried into the enemy's country; mere impressions of a single highly respectable person. but, when it was reasonable to expect that the President Thus, admitting the evidence of each of those commiswould authorize such necessary retaliatory measures, sioners, the scale greatly preponderates in favor of the the Secretary of War, by letter of the 30th of May, 1793, claimants, and the mind rests perfectly satisfied that before alluded to, informed the Governor of Georgia these militia claims were not at all contemplated as a that, "from considerations of policy, at that critical pe- part of the consideration referred to in the treaty of cesriod, relative to foreign powers, and the then pending sion. Is it asked, what then constituted the expenses treaty with the Northern Indians, it was deemed advisa- referred to in the treaty of cession? If the fact is estable to avoid, at that time, offensive expeditions into the blished, as I am sure it is, that these claims ought to Creek country." If Georgia had been permitted to carry have been paid by, and are now due from the United the war into the enemy's country, long ere the conclu- States, why ask such a question? But, lest a want of insion of that war those bold intruders would have been so formation upon this particular point should seem to furseverely chastised, as to have brought it to a speedy ter- nish an objection to the admission of these claims, I will mination, and thereby have saved much expense and trouble the House with a very brief detail of some of the bloodshed, and given perfect security to the state. But circumstances which induced perhaps the principal part the President exercised a controlling power, and your of the expenses referred to. This, however, cannot be policy made it necessary that Georgia should bear the considered as important, because the expenses which evils which resulted from a protraction of the war, and grew out of the military arrangements made in defence she submitted to the sacrifice. This submission courted of Georgia, were incurred by the United States; for, that desolating tempest of savage depredation which whether the Governor of Georgia, when arranging the laid waste the frontier settlements of Georgia. It, there- | detence of that state, acted under the authority and as fore, became imperiously the duty of the Governor of the agent of the President, or as constitutional agent of Georgia to continue the exercise of his constitutional the United States, the United States are bound to pay powers in defence of that state. And now, when Geor- the expenses incurred, as, by the Constitution, the United gia has submitted to the sacrifice, when she has shed States guaranties to each individual state protection her blood to subserve your policy, will you say that the against invasion. The expenses which were incurred by militia, who were constitutionally in service-who were the military operations in defence of Georgia cannot, in service, in fact, under the control and direction of the therefore, be viewed as within the des ription of expenPresident of the United States, and whose service your ses referred to in the treaty of cession, because they policy made absolutely indispensable, have no just claim were not incurred by that state. This, however, is atupon you? It is impossible--you cannot! By a letter tempting to discuss again a point which is already too addressed to a committee of this House in the year 180, clear to admit of elucidation. In giving the promised Mr. Lincoln, then Attorney General of the United States, detail, a critical statement of the items to the precise expressed an opinion that these claims were finally ad- amount, will not, I presume, be expected at this time, justed by the treaty of cession between Georgia and the under existing circumstances. In the year 1787, the LeUnited States; which opinion was founded upon a stipu- gislature of Georgia passed an act, directing the enlistlation in that treaty, which bound the United States to ment of fifteen hundred men, to be formed into two repay to the state of Georgia one million two hundred and giments, and authorized the Governor and Council of that fifty thousand dollars, "as a consideration for the expen-state to raise two other regiments, to consist of seven ses incurred by that state (mark the expression!) relative to the ceded territory;" for he viewed these militia claims as within the description of expenses referred to by that treaty. Yet he did not recollect, when acting as a commissioner on the part of the United States, on that occasion, whether the commissioners on the part of Georgia considered these claims as satisfied by the treaty; nor did he recollect what were the particular expenses referred to; he could only state his impressions, which were, that these claims were finally adjusted by the treaty. Mr. Lincoln's construction and impressions were bottomed upon the erroneous supposition, that these claims originally formed a debt against the state of Georgia. Sir, Georgia never did acknowledge them as forming a debt against her, nor can any legislative act of the state be found which authorized the service; neither has Georgia ever, directly or indirectly, assumed to pay these claims. She always viewed them, and properly too, as originally forming a debt against the United States. In opposition to Mr. Lincoln's reasonings and mere impressions upon this subject, we have the solemn and positive declaration of two of the commissioners on the part of Georgia They say that "the militia services, which are the basis of the present application, were not at all contemplated as a part of the consideration referred to in the articles of cession." Will you reject the evidence of the Georgia commissioners because of their supposed identity of interest with that state? Why then admit the evidence of Mr. Lincoln, who stood in the same relation to the United States? If you admit the evidence of Mr. Lincoln, you are bound to admit the evidence of the Georgia commissioners. If you admit the hundred and fifty volunteers each; the whole were to allotted to those troops is 1,981,240; this, By two several acts of the Legislature of 12,840 00 DEC. 29, 1824.] Georgia Militia Claims.-Niagara Sufferers. cember, 1793, and the second on the 22d of February, 1796, the sum of [H. of R. feel humbled by the recollection, that it has been, here35,654 00 tofore, made to my country, repeatedly made, and made in vain. In the name of the deceased soldier, I claim for the widow and orphan some small portion of the price of the blood of the husband and father. They are the children of sorrow and affliction-miserable subjects of squallid poverty-the destitute widows and or phans of deceased soldiers-even the decrepid soldier himself, who thus appeals to your humanity, your sense of Justice. Then let not a cold, calculating, unfeeling policy dictate to you the rejection of so just a claim. Mr. DWIGHT, of Massachusetts, denying all hostility to the claims of Georgia, which had just been so ably advocated by the member from that State, thought that it was nevertheless due to the gentleman from New York, (Mr. TRACY,) who was engaged in the discussion of a subject previously before the House, and which had, at his own motion, been suspended yesterday, to leave the subject of the Georgia claims until that discussion was finished-and, with this view, Mr. D. moved that the report of the Committee of Military Affairs, referred to in the gentleman's motion, be laid upon the table for the present. Which motion was carried. NIAGARA SUFFERERS. On motion of Mr. TRACY. the House again resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the bill further to amend the act authorizing payment for property lost, captured, or destroyed by the enemy, in the late war with Great Britain, and for other purposes-Mr. CAMPBELL. of Ohio, in the Chair. Mr. TRACY rose in reply to the speech of Mr. BARHe observed that it was not his inBOUR, yesterday. was appropriated for the purpose of extinguishing the Indian title to the territory within the limits of Georgia. Besides this, the state had been obliged to hold frequent treaties with the Indians, commencing in the year 1773, for the purpose of restoring and preserving peace, and fixing on temporary boundary lines. On the subject of Indian treaties, our own experience has been such as will enable us to form some tolerable estimate of the immense expense the state of Georgia must have thus incurred: estimating the amount on this item, including presents to the Indians, with incidental expenses, it will be considered very moderate at $200,000 00 Making, in the aggregate, the sum of $1,491,187 20 These expenses come within the description of expenses referred to in the treaty of cession, because they were incurred by the state of Georgia; and these are the expenses referred to. We are informed by the report of the Secretary of War before alluded to, that, at the time when the service was performed, for which compensation is now asked, a hostile disposition pervaded the greater part of the Indian nations within the United States; that a serious war then existed between the Uni ed States and the numerous tribes of Indians in the country northwest of the Ohio, and that a predatory war was carried on between the territory southeast of the Ohio, (now the state of Tennessee,) and the Cherokee Nation of Indians, the expenses of which were principally defrayed by the United States. And that, at that time to, troops were kept in pay at the expense of tention to have entered further into the debate on this the United States on the frontiers of South Carolina. question, than he had already done on the present as Shall Georgia, alone, be considered as unworthy the no-well as at former sessions. He did hope that of those tice and protection of the United States? Is she, alone, who thought with him on the subject of this bill, there driven to the humiliating necessity of appealing, so re- would have been enough on every side to have sustainHe was well aware that his situation, as peatedly, on behalf of her citizens, to the justice, the ed its cause. magnanimity of the United States, and shall such ap- the representative of the sufferers, detracted much from peal finally be in vain? Or, do you conceive that the the weight of any thing he could advance on the subantiquity of these claims furnish an objection to their ject; but, as he found himself left alone to sustain this admission? The neglect of the United States has made controversy, he could only regret that the task had fallthem stale. Will you reject the claims on the supposi- en on one so very inadequate to do it justice. Mr. T. then went into a consideration of the princition that it is difficult, at this remote period, to investigate their merits clearly? The evidence in support of ples of national law, as they had been laid down by the the facts on which they are predicated, is strong and gentleman from Virginia, with the most of whose posiconclusive. But it will be said, perhaps, that many, tions he felt inclined to coincide. He did not think, he and, it may be, that most of the individual claimants said, of maintaining that government was bound to pay are dead. Then, in the name of justice, I demand just- for all losses suffered in a state of war-but only in the ice to their offspring. No, they are not all dead; many very case in which the gentleman from Virginia had live, the oppressed subjects of infirmity and extreme admitted this obligation, viz: when the character of poverty. Too many live, witnesses of the injustice and property was changed in consequence of military occuHe might, indeed, object to the gentleman's ingratitude of that government, in defence of which pancy. they have so gallantly fought. But it may be that their doctrines, that a government such as ours is not bound claims are transferred to strangers. Would the exist- by the same rules as the ancient despotisms of Europe. He would meet the genence of such a fact discharge the United States from a But this was not necessary. strong moral and political obligation to pay these claims? tleman on his own ground. If Government changed the Surely not. Then why withhold, yet longer, from these character of the property, and in consequence of this claimants, what they had a right to receive at your change, it was afterwards destroyed, the Government hands, thirty years ago? How has Georgia deserved is bound to pay. On this ground he was willing to rest such treatment? She has ever been devoted to the the claims of the Niagara sufferers. He here referred to American Union, true to the American character: she the report of the committee printed at a former session has gallantly defended the Union, long barred the ap-on this subject, as containing evidence that the destrucproach of the infuriated savage to the interior states, while she received the death stroke of the Indian tom ahawk in her own bosom. Her frontier has been deluged by the blood of her citizens, slaughtered in defending the United States: and still justice, sheer jus. tice, is withheld from them. Once more she appeals, on behalf of her neglected, suffering citizens, to the just ice, the magnanimity of the American people; and in making this appeal, even I, (a very humble American,) VOL. K-6 tion was in consequence of the connection that government had with the property. He insisted that the sufferers were not bound to show that the destruction was on the allowed principles of civilized warfare; and to sustain the title to indemnity by individuals who suffered loss, it was sufficient to show that it was caused by the public use of their property. He confessed himsel unable to discover, with any precision, what the usages of civilized war were, as applied to this subject. H. of R.] Niagara Sufferers. [DEC. 29, 1824. ing to a certain extent. But, secondly, and principally, that the Government was bound by an obligation in all respects perfect; so perfect, that, if the same obligation existed between two private individuals, it might be pursued and enforced in a court of law. He understood the gentleman from North Carolina, (Mr. WILLIAMS,) as maintaining that the destruction of New ark by the American troops was a justifiable act. [Mr. WILLIAMS explained, that he had only referred to the report of Gen. M'CLURE.] But whether it was, or was not, the enemy themselves had avowed that they destroyed On the first of these points, he felt assured that the the buildings because they had been used and occupi- peculiar circumstances of those whose cause it was his ed by our army. duty to plead, and for whose sufferings a remedy was Mr. T. denied that he had misunderstood the provi-proposed by the bill, must, when duly considered, be sions of the acts of 1816 or 1817, or had misrepre-owned to create an obligation which, though it might sented them, as the gentleman from North Carolina not be of a legal kind, was nevertheless something more seemed to suppose. He contended that the law of than a mere appeal to humanity. Were it, indeed, no 1816 covered the whole ground on which the claimants more, it ought not to be disregarded; for a government rested their demands. They asked for no better law is, in this respect, in the same situation as a private infor no new principle. They only sought to have that dividual-it must be humane, if it can, even where no act carried into effect. They only wished for some tri- connection whatever has previously existed between bunal that could decide according to its provisions. But the sufferer and its own acts. Suppose, for illustration, this was denied them. After passing the act, Congress that the Niagara frontier, instead of being wasted by a had suspended its execution; and yet they suffered it savage enemy, had suffered equal injury by an earthto stand upon the statute book as if in mockery of the quake. Could there be a question, that, in such a case, complaints and the sufferings of a large class of our fel- there would exist an obligation on the Government to low citizens. The principle laid down by the gentle- afford what relief was in its power? Could he not refer man from Virginia, was the very principle of that law- to more than one example in which the Government had it was an honest principle-such as every man would ap- done this, not only to its own citizens, but even to forply to his neighbor, and in his own concerns. Under eigners? The people of New Madrid, in Missouri, when that law a tribunal was appointed to adjudge these suffering from the effect of earthquakes in that portion claims, and that tribunal had decided that these claims of the Union, had received relief from the Government; came within the law. This was the only judicial deci- and even the people of Venezuela, who resided at a sion on the subject before the House The law of 1817, distance from our boundary, had been relieved by the he insisted, confirmed the principle of that of 1816-nor government, in a still more liberal manner. Would any had he ever been able to find a case where the principle one deny that the Government in this case performed a it laid down was disputed or denied. The peculiar duty? The principle, then, of abstract benevolence, had hardship of these claimants was, that, while Congress attached to it a certain degree of obligation. laid down a rule, it refused them the means of bringing themselves within it. If Congress will only act on the principle of their own law, or will suffer others to act under it, it is all these sufferers ask. As to compelling each individual to come here with his petition, it is an endless business. Some tribunal should be erected with power to decide under the laws as they now exist. But, as he feared there was but little probability of this being done, the bill presumes that the cases adjudicated have been rightly decided, and proposes that the rest be settled on the same foundations. He admitted the force of what was said, as to a supposed case of buildings occupied the first day, and destroyed the last day, of the war—but he contended that all danger from this construction was obviated by the third section of the bill, which restricted that provision to the cases already adjudicated. It any gentleman was prepared to say that the cases which came fairly under the law of 1816 ought not to be paid, why not repeal the law? It should be either repealed or acted upon. [At this stage of the debate, Mr. T. gave way for a motion for the committee to rise; and to-day resumed his remarks, of which the following is a summary account:] But the claims of the Niagara sufferers did not rest on this ground. The fact that the destruction of their property was in consequence of some connection it had with the Government, and that the devastation thus brought upon them was great, and wide, and overwheiming, not only injuring, but ruining, those on whom it came, certainly entitled their case to a peculiar degree of regard, and created an obligation which exceeded in its strength that which he had before been considering. The gentleman from Virginia had certainly been cor rect in maintaining that the government was not strictly bound in cases of mere humanity as in those of abstract justice. He knew how indefinite the nature and extent of imperfect obligation was in itself, and had been left by the ordinary writers on these subjects. Yet he might be pardoned in insisting that, in a case like that before the committee, the policy of our country, the nature of our Union, its design-all created a greater obligation on a government like ours, than on Governments like those of Europe, to equalize public calamities. Yet this too, he owned, was indefinite-no precise line could be laid down in reference to which it could be said, Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther. But must we, therefore, do nothing? In rising to address the House, Mr. T. observed, that, It had repeatedly been urged by those who opposed when, yesterday, called by a sense of duty to attempt a the bill, that other losses occasioned by the war, might reply to the objections which had been urged against as well demand indemnification as those on the Niagara the bill, he had labored under a sense of embarrasment, frontier. But, certainly, in obligations of this nature, which had, in some measure, caused him to do less just there might be degrees arising from circumstances. ice to the subject committed to him than he might oth- The injuries occasioned by war, though widely spread, erwise have done, and he was not without a fear that the were sometimes slight. These, surely, did not create same cause might now produce a similar effect. He such an appeal as when people had literally been ruinwould, however, endeavor not to be diffuse in what he ed-all their prospects of future comfort destroyedhad to advance. His object had yesterday been, and every hope prostrated. He would illustrate this princistill was, to shew that the principle of the measure con-ple by a familiar case. The obligations of a father to an templated by the bill was defensible on two grounds: 1. That the Government was, in this case, bound by that sort of obligation which had properly been stated by the learned gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. P. P. BAR BOUK,) as an imperfect obligation, and which, though it certainly did not go to the extent of a perfect and legal obligation, was nevertheless to be recognized as bind adult child were not legally different from those he owed to any other citizen. Yet he would venture to say that there was not one gentleman in this committee, who, if that father's son should lose his all, and he were utterly to refuse him relief, because he had another son whose crop had been slightly injured, would not call him a monster. The obligations of a Government were of the same nature; and it was no reason why it should not relieve some of its citizens, whose sufferings had been the greatest, that it could not relieve all who had in any degree suffered. [H. of R. had to buy---not to sell. There was, it is true, a great influx of public money--but they got little or none of it. The country farther back from the enemy might be enriched---but they, instead of being enriched, were ruined. I hold, said Mr. T. that the imperfect obligation of which I have been speaking, is increased in proportion But it had been objected, that it was not good policy to the degree of connection of the property with the to grant this indemnity: 1st, because it would diminish Government which induced the loss. Now, by referring the ardor of our frontier citizens in defence of the counto the history of the late war, every one will be convinc- try and of their own property. Mr. T. said, he would ed that, on the Niagara frontier, the connection of the not insist that patriotism was a higher and a stronger country with the Government, by military occupation, motive than the love of property; but the very fact, that existed to a far greater extent than on any other of the so many more persons presented claims on this Governfrontiers. The government, for its own purposes, hav-ment, than ever got any thing allowed them, was itself ing a general reference to the conducting of the war, sufficient to prevent any thing like indifference or secuconcentrated in that district of country a large number rity. He fancied there were but few men on that fronof troops, whose presence and accommodation gave the tier, or on any other, who would quietly suffer their whole frontier a military character. houses to be burnt, that they might afterwards have an opportunity of coming to this House with a claim for indemnification. It had been urged, too, against the policy of the bill, that, if once its principle was allowed, the finances of the Government would be ruined. He saw no force in this argument. Should more resources be required from the nation for such an object, he believed that nobody would object more to paying for it, than to paying for the support of the army, the navy, or the fortifications. The same objections might be urged against the one as the other. The man in the interior might just as well say, I will not pay for the army; it is not needed; I will not pay for the navy-I have no concern in commerce; I will not pay for the fortifications— my farm is safe; as to say, I will not pay for the losses on the frontier, because I do not live there. The right of remuneration was not, indeed, so completely recognized at present, as the demands of the army or navy; but were it once adopted as the settled policy, to pay for such losses, there would be no more difficulty in raising funds for this purpose than is now experienced for the army or navy. The gentleman from Virginia had said, that, if there existed no treaty stipulation respecting slaves, and the losers of them should come to Congress with a demand for indemnification, he should have opposed the demand on the same ground that he opposed the present bill. Now, said Mr. T. I have to reply, first, that the case put by the gentleman does not arise, since there is a treaty stipulation with respect to slaves-(a stipulation by which I apprehend other claims to a great amount have been sacrificed)-but if it had arisen, the claim on this government for compensation for slaves carried off would be far from equal in strength to that of the Niagara sufferers for their buildings destroyed. | A great difference exists as to the character of the property, the one being real, the other personal. An equally great difference respects the facility with which the two kinds of property might be protected. There were other points in which they differed, which he would not stop to examine-but these were sufficient to show that the claim of those proposed to be benefited by the bill was much stronger than that of persons who had lost their negroes. The argument, that payment for such losses would induce an enemy to make universal desolation of private property, in order to ruin the financial means of the Government, was equally unfounded. In addition to the fact, that the Government would make the indemnification after the war was closed, and when the revenue resources would justify, it might also be observed, that the motive which restrains an enemy from acts of wanton desolation, is not, that the loss by the citizen is not as distressing to the country as a loss by the Government, but the fear of retaliation, the abhorrence of the whole civilized world, and, he hoped, a proper sense of human rights, which civilization and christianity had produced, afforded the only protection against such outrages which a Government could rely upon. He presumed it was unnecessary for him to go into a long detail of facts to prove to the committee that the sufferings on the Niagara frontier had been of a most poignant, severe, and aggravated kind. Whoever had the least knowledge of the history of the war, could not entertain a doubt on that subject. So far as extent of human misery could go in giving validity to any claims, these were most abundantly established. The gentleman from North Carolina had, indeed, said, (he took no notes of his speech, but quoted from it as reported,) that he had been credibly informed that that frontier had been, on the whole, rather benefitted than injured by being made, to the extent it was, the seat of war. Now, the gentleman might have been credibly so informed, but he could assure him not correctly. There could be In illustration that this principle of indemnification no greater mistake than to say that that region had been was not so altogether new as the gentleman had supposbenefitted by the war. If the gentleman gave the leasted, Mr. T. alluded to the fact, that the British Governcredit to history, he could not but know that the reverse ment had given to their Canadian subjects on the Niawas true-that, instead of being benefitted, it had suf- gara frontier, about $300,000, and had adopted other fered the utmost injury and distress by the war. The measures, by which a remuneration to the full extent of gentleman had said, that great opportunities were en- their losses was making. He then proceeded to show joyed of making money there-that the highest prices why the claims of our citizens on this Government were were obtained for commodities, and large amounts of much stronger than the Canadians were on theirs. In public money expended. He would not deny that, as to their case, there was no pretence of a perfect obligation; a certain portion of the country in the neighborhood of it was never pretended that the destruction of their prothat which was the immediate scene of war, this, to a perty was occasioned by its occupation by the Bricertain extent, might be true; but this fact, unhappily, tish; they had spent millions to defend them, had not increased instead of diminishing the suffering of these brought the war to their doors, and had ha no conclaimants. It was the highest aggravation of their suf-nexion with them, except for the purpose of defence. ferings. The highest prices were given for produce― but these persons were not agriculturists. Flour was, indeed, selling at forty dollars per barrel---but they raised none. Those of them who owned farms had their farms immediately on the border utterly wasted. All pursuits of agriculture were interrupted, and the dearer provisions were, the worse it was for them. They But, with our Government, the case was totally different. Is the obligation of this Government to our citizens, less, or its sympathies more cold, than the British Government, to its remote colonial subjects? Adverting to the debate of yesterday; Mr. T. quoted the observation of Mr. BARBOUR, that if, by any act of the Government, individual property was withdrawn H. of R.] Niagara Sufferers. from its pacific position, by the Government, or invested | with a warlike character, the Government was bound to indemnify the owners for any loss they might sustain by that act. So far the gentleman from Virginia-- who had thus acknowledged, that if the pacific character, which personal and individual property has attached to it, is changed, there is created, on the part of the Government, a distinct obligation, which he called a per-fect obligation--such a one as, between individuals under similar circumstances, could be enforced in a court of justice. Now, I do firmly believe, said Mr. T. that the case of the Niagara claims is altogether sustainable upon this position of the gentleman from Virginia. That gentleman has come to the conclusion, indeed, that these claims do not come within his definition, but without any reference to the facts to see whether they do so or not. The proposition which I make is affirmative, that they do come within it, and I expected that the gentleman would have endeavored to show that they do not. But he did not do so. He seemed, after establishing his case of perfect right, to take it for granted that these cases had nothing to do with it, whereas, the circumstances of them do refer them to the very principle which the gentleman laid down. The true question for the House to determine, in regard to these claims, said Mr. T. is, was there any act of this Government, relating to the property destroyed, which induced a change of its pacific character, and clothed it with a warlike character, and did that change produce its destruction? If this change was thus effected, it is a rule, prescribed by common sense and justice, admitted by the gentleman from Virginia himself, that the claimants ought to be indemnified. It is not for us to dive into the recesses of the human heart, to search for the motives which lead to that destruction of property. For, if there was a just cause for this destruction of property by the enemy, we ought not to advert to other transactions, in other times and places, to account for it. [DEC. 29, 1824. quired a belligerant character. If the Government had had, as, in theory at least, it ought to have had, places for the protection of its property, and barracks to shelter its troops, whenever it carried on its military operations, and those places had been occupied, instead of the private buildings, by the troops and stores of the ar my, then the destruction of the private buildings would have assumed a very different character. The policy of the Government, however, having made this ground the scene of war, without these ordinary appendages to a military frontier, the houses of individuals were made to serve the purposes of public buildings. What, Mr. T. asked, was the natural conclusion of the enemy from this state of things? They reasoned to themselves, that, in destroying those buildings, thus used, they would not merely destitute that frontier, but protect their own territory. This was the unanswerable conclusion to which, upon the facts before them, military men would necessarily come. In this view of the subject, a character was given to the property thus occupied for offensive purposes, different from that which it would have borne, if occupied for defensive purposes only. If, for example, said Mr. T. the enemy had come to invade the city of New York, and we, for the defence of the city, had taken possession of private buildings, I should say that the right of the enemy to destroy those buildings would be very different from that which he held in regard to those buildings on the Niagara frontier, which our troops occupied for offensive purposes. M. T. here recurred to some of the testimony taken in regard to these claims, to shew that the facts existed in a degree even stronger than he had stated-exhibiting a state of things to justify the destruction of property on the Niagara frontier not only for general causes, but for the particular cause of the justifiable presumption that the property occupied as barracks, &c. was the property of the United States, and the certainty that the property within those buildings, at least, was the property of the In regard to the general nature of the operations on Government. Mr. T. here read extracts from the testithe Niagara frontier, during the late war, Mr. T. proceed. mony of Gen. Porter, whose public reputation and standed to show, that they were such as to change the char-ing in the country gave weight to whatever he said, to acter of the whole of the property on that frontier, from shew, that, so general was the occupation of private a pacific to a belligerant character. The House ought buildings by the authority of the United States, that he to bear in mind always, that our military operations on could not, upon reflection, recollect a single building on that frontier were of an offensive character, because he that frontier, fit for barracks, hospital, quarters, &c. which thought that consideration placed these claims on had not, at one period or other of the war, been princiground to make the argument in their favor conclusive. pally or exclusively occupied for one or other of those Our troops were not carried there to protect the fron- purposes. There were many other witnesses to the same tier from invasion by the enemy. That was not the pur- purpose, whom it would be impossible to discredit. pose, nor the object of the collection of the troops there. Mr. T. particularly dwelt upon the fact disclosed by the If the Government had not, for its own purposes-wise testimony, that the people of Buffalo, through their comones, no doubt-chosen to make that border the theatre mittee of safety, had remonstrated with Gen. McClure in of war, there was no human probability that there would December, 1813, against his quartering troops in that have arisen there any of the consequences which did village, expressly stating that, if he did so, they had actually occur. Of one fact in regard to this matter, reason to apprehend the destruction of their property as there could be no doubt, namely, that the Government the consequence; to which General Mc lure said, in was, as a Government, totally destitute of any public reply, that he would pledge his honor that indemnity property on that frontier. They had neither barracks, would be paid by the Government for any losses which nor hospitals, nor arsenals, nor warehouses for the de- might be sustained, &c. Mr. T. did not mean to attempt posite of public property. Yet the Government chose to sustain these claims on the ground of Gen. McClure's to carry on offensive wat from that frontier, by a con- promise, but he quoted the fact to show conclusively, tinued series of invasions of the territory of the enemy. and to carry conviction to every mind, that there did For all the purposes of hospitals, barracks to shelter the exist a state of things there which left no doubt, either soldiers at all seasons of the year, depositories of public on the minds of the people or of our military commandstores, &c. they had to rely on the buildings of the in- ers, that military occupation of the private property habitants, which they made free and general use of. would, in all probability, subject it to destruction. Gen. When these things were considered, Mr. T. said, that it McClure, whilst making the reply which any honorable would be discovered that the notoriety of this fact must man or patriot would do on such an occasion, insisted on have established, in the mind of the enemy, a positive taking possession of the buildings, which were, indeed, conviction, that the offensive movements on the part of indispensable to the shelter of the force under his comour troops, were entirely dependent on the use of indi- mand. Not long after this, the enemy came. Mr. T. vidual property, and that measures of defence against stated the circumstances of their coming, and the manthis warfare must include the destruction of that proper- ner and time of their destroying the property. With ty. It was thus that the property on that frontier ac- regard to the motives of the enemy, genilemen might |