settle there, is incapable of a peaceful or satisfactory result, however it might be as to one already settled.

The settlement under such a proposition will be made with a view to this object, especially as political importance depends on it. These settlements will be advanced by extreme means and collisions will ensue. The agitation of this subject on the plains and prairies beyond the Mississippi, on the borders of civilized life, will be no more peaceful or conciliatory than in the rest of the country or in the halls of Congress. The application of popular sovereignty to this subject, to be exercised by the people in a Territory, while it is settling and while a Territory, is a delusion. This is what the Missouri compromise line was professedly repealed to try, and the experiment is either an intended duplicity, or it is a failure, and should be frankly and magnanimously abandoned, notwithstanding a national political convention may have endorsed it. It is, however, highly probable that the representatives of the slaveholding States, constituting a majority of the party in power, considering their people regard themselves as having secured an advantage in the Kansas bill, will not abandon the experiment, especially as the slaveholding power has already possession in Kansas, with a President to sustain it. It is true that power may, for a time, prevail. The experiment may proceed, the people in Kansas may be dragooned into submission, and power may, for a time, continue that vassalage which usurpation produced, but the end is not yet. Can it be expected that a slaveholding State, made such by such atrocities, can ever be admitted into this Union by any votes given by the representatives of a free people?

From the manifestations thus far presented by this experiment, we have full reason to expect that violence will continue so long as this apple of discord is continued in Kansas, and that any question involving it subjected to their solution will "suffer violence, and the violent will take it by force."

If this matter is not settled by Congress by the admission of Kansas as a free State, or the restoration of the compromise line, or some equivalent provision, then this experiment must proceed until the people will elect a President who will stop the execution of laws which usurpation has produced, and which the House of Representatives, in the exercise of a legitimate power and duty, have found to be void; even although of such usurpation the Senate decline to believe, and refuse or neglect to enquire.

J. COLLAMER.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

AUGUST 11, 1856.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. WILSON made the following

REPORT.

[To accompany Bill H. R. 353.]

The Committee on Private Land Claims, to which was referred House Bill 353, "for the relief of Talbot C. Dousman," adopt, as their own, the report from the House Committee on Private Land Claims, submitted by Mr. Thorington on the 23d May, 1856, and for the reasons therein set forth the committee are of the opinion that the claimant is entitled to the relief provided in said bill; they therefore report the same back, without amendment, and recommend its passage.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, May 23, 1856.

Mr. THORINGTON, from the Committee on Private Land Claims, made the following report:

The Committee on Private Land Claims, to whom was referred the petition of Lyndsay Ward, James Duane Doty, and T. C. Dousman, executors, &c., praying that an act may be passed requiring the Commissioner of the General Land Office to issue a patent for a certain parcel of land described in the said petition, to Talbot C. Dousman, as in other cases, according to section 5 of the act of 1823, respectfully report:

That they have examined the papers and proofs, and they find that on the 9th day of September, 1823, James Veaux presented to the commissioners appointed in the act of 1823 to hear and determine the claims of persons to tracts of land occupied and cultivated by them in the Green Bay settlement, on the 1st of July, 1812, his claim, and the testimony to support it, to a tract of land described as follows:

"Commencing at low-water mark on Fox river and running west eighty arpents, and bounded on the north by a certain tract occupied by the United States garrison, west by wild lands, south by a certain tract claimed by John Baptiste Longevine, sen., and east by Fox river, being five arpents in breadth."

That the said commissioners decided that the claim be confirmed, and that it was not in conflict with any confirmation before made, (vol. 4, Am. State Papers, Green's edition,) and that they gave their certificate to the correctness of the proceedings had before them.

That although by the act these proceedings confirmed and made perfect the title, vesting the same in the said Veaux, yet the said tract of land was embraced in a report made by the said commissioners to the Secretary of the Treasury, upon all the unsettled claims in Michigan.

That the Secretary of the Treasury, instead of executing or carrying into effect the law of 1823, and instead of selecting the doubtful and uncertain claims from those which were confirmed, decided to lay all the claims before Congress, and submit all the decisions of the commissioners to it for supervision, refusing to cause the claims actually confirmed by law to be surveyed, and patents to be issued to the claimants.

That on the 17th of April, 1828, Congress passed an act to confirm certain claims passed upon by the commissioners, excluding those in the county of Michilimackinac and also certain lands occupied by the United States for military purposes; that about the time of the passage of this act the President of the United States (upon erroneous representations) was induced to make a large military reservation of land in the vicinity of Fort Howard at Green Bay, amounting to five or six thousand acres. In this tract was included the land of James Veaux. The confirmatory act of 1828 was therefore of no benefit to him in procuring him the evidence of his title, as the Secretary, after its passage, refused the patent, because his land was thus embraced in the reservation.

That the title to the land continues in this condition, although the post, as a military station for troops, has been abandoned, and every part of the reservation has ceased to be occupied for military or government purposes; that the lands are not now required for such purposes, notice having been given during the last year by the Secretary of War for their sale; and that no compensation was ever made to the said Veaux for thus taking his land.

The action of the War Department seems to render it necessary, to relieve the claimants, to pray for an act of Congress in their behalf.

It further appears that the said Veaux, on the 19th day of July, 1824, by deed duly executed and recorded, sold the said tract of land to one Michael Dousman, and that the said Dousman having died in the year 1854, did, by his will, appoint Henry T. Backus, Lindsay Ward, and James D. Doty, his executors; that Talbot C. Dousman, one of the petitioners, is the son and one of the heirs of said Michael Dousman, and that he is the sole owner of the said interest and lands of James Veaux, as appears from duly certified copies of deeds duly executed and recorded.

Under these circumstances, your committee herewith report a bill requiring the Commissioner of the Land Office to cause said tract of land to be surveyed in the same manner as other private claims to lands at Green Bay, and that he be required to issue a patent to the

said Talbot C. Dousman, as in other cases, and according to the provisions of the act of 1823, and recommend its passage.

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, March 7, 1856.

SIR: In reply to your inquiry of the 6th instant, and in the case of Jacques Veaux, I have the honor to submit the following:

1st. That the claim presumed to be referred to is entered in book No. 1, being a report of the commissioners on Green Bay claims, as follows:

"Claims at Green Bay.-Entry of a tract of land.

"I, James Veaux, do hereby enter my claim to a certain tract of land situated in the county of Brown, and Territory of Michigan, bounded and butted as follows: Commencing at low water mark on Fox river and running west eighty arpents, and bounded on the north by a certain tract occupied by the United States garrison, west by wild lands, south by a certain tract of land claimed by John Baptiste Longevine, sen., and east by Fox river, being five arpents in breadth. Witness my hand, at Green Bay, this 9th day of September, A. D. 1823.

"JAMES VEAUX, his x mark."

(State Papers, vol. 4, p. 706, D. Green's edition.) See testimony on same page before the board; and on page 707 their decision is as follows:

"DETROIT, October 31, 1823.

"In the preceding case of James Veaux, the commissioners decide that the claim be confirmed; it is not to conflict with any confirmation heretofore made."

This office has decided that the confirmatory law which is properly applicable to the report embracing this claim, is the act of April 17, 1828, entitled "An act to confirm certain claims to lands in the Territory of Michigan." The second section of said act expressly designates and operates on said volume 1, but with certain limitations and restrictions as stipulated in the third section; one of which is, that the confirmation shall not be so construed as to extend to "any lands occupied by the United States for military purposes."

Now as this claim is for a tract which, it appears, would fall within the boundaries of the Fort Howard military reserve, according to the limits of that reserve, as delineated on a map in this office, bearing the Secretary of War's recommendation of the 1st of January, 1829, and the President's order for the reservation of the 2d of March. fol. lowing, it has been held and treated as excluded from confirmation. The original grounds of exclusion from confirmation are taken away by the abandonment of the Fort Howard reservation. The sale of that reservation, however, is made subject to the control of the Secretary of War by the act of March 3, 1819.-(See United States Statutes at Large, vol. 3, p. 520, chap. 88.)

For information as to whether any proceedings have been ordered under that act that would interfere with any present contemplated confirmation, I respectfully refer you to the War Department. With great respect, your obedient servant,

Hon. JAMES THORINGTON,

THOS. A. HENDRICKS,

Commissioner.

Of the Committee on Private Land Claims H. of Reps.