perienced are, therefore, not at liberty to let it escape consideration, that the exercise of this right of sovereignty is not left a vagrant, capricious, or despotic act of power. In all well-regulated communities, it must be a creature of law: and it is our pride and boast that this principle is recognised and protected. Our Government is emphatically a Government of laws, and not exactly a Government of precedents, which may be arbitrary, and shape an individual case. If the prescribed provisions of law are not strictly observed in this exercise of sovereignty, it is difficult to define the rules by which it is regulated and secured. It is apprehended to be a point established, that, in every legitimate exercise of the right of suffrage by the freemen, they are to yield obedience to existing ordinances and regulations, and cannot be supposed to act in their sovereign capacity, except they act in obedience to the express laws they have caused to be enacted. A perfect conformity to all the requirements would seem, therefore, essential to the consummation of the act of election. I also consider, that, while without the law, whether in their individual or corporate capacity, the freemen are estopped from claiming any right or privilege, nor can they confer any. Any non-conformity to the statute of elections by one portion of freemen, is never to be construed to impair the rights of another portion of freemen, who hold rights in consideration of their fidelity to the laws in such case made and provided. Imperfect rights can never sustain competition with perfect rights. From this view of the principles bearing upon the case, I am persuaded that the depositing, assorting, and counting of the ballots rendered by the freemen, and the sealing up and returning the amount deposited, in the form, time, and manner expressly prescribed, to the ultimate State tribunal of decision, in order that the aggregate will of the freemen may be known, is imperatively required to consummate the act of election, and perfect a choice. The requisites of the statute of the State are guards placed around the sacred character of the elective right, to preserve its purity, and give to its exercise all the necessary protection and solemnities; are therefore to be considered parcel of it, and essential; and their particular application by the law and usages of Vermont, is by the freemen; and I dwell with much emphasis upon the fact, it is their act, as they select and appoint special agents, whose character and conduct they know, and in whom they repose especial confidence. This settled order of business, touching elections, as prescribed by the respective States, it would seem, is obligatory on the decisions of the House of Representatives, regarding the elections of its members, unless "the Congress, by law, have altered such regulations." This conclusion is founded on the fourth section of the Constitution of the Union; it is also founded on the broad basis of good sense, so far forth as it limits discretion, and the range of decisions, to the system of rules prescribed in the law of each respective State. It shields, also, from the imputation of caprice and irregularity, the exercise of the right of suffrage, the manifestations of the will of the freemen, and the decisions of the representative body of the nation: and, inasmuch as the law of the State is not in derogation of the Constitution, or any law of the Union, but pursuant to the Constitution, I feel much confidence that the statute of the State, the practices of the freemen, and the official expositions and decisions under it, will be respected. JANUARY, 1820. That I may not be misunderstood, I ask leave to remark that, under a case of impeachment of State proceedings, the power of the House, and the duty of its committee, I apprehend is to inquire whether, in all the stages of proceedings, the Constitution of the Union, and the State regulations as to time, place, and mode of proceedings, have been observed; and if, in the investigation, it is found the State regulations are agreeably to the Constitution, and the requisites of the law have been regarded, the proceedings of the freemen and decisions of the State tribunals are in good faith to be recognised and accredited; otherwise the State law is an act of supererogation, and a nullity. Hence I admitted the persuasion, that the House of Repre sentatives would never assume a power which can only be exercised by the Congress, and, therefore, the State laws and proceedings would be adjudged plenary, except previously modified by a law of Congress; and that, on the contrary, if the law is in derogation of the Constitution, or the proceedings are not pursuant to the statute, or provided the agents of the freemen have been fraudulent, or the tribunals of decision have been perverse and corrupt, then, indeed, the procedure is nugatory, and will be so declared; then the power of the House will be found remedial, and sufficiently ample. As a regard to the will and prerogatives of the freemen, and a tender care of their interests, is ever a paramount inclination and duty with a faithful Representative; and as this case may seem to involve their rights and interests, and a mistake in reasoning on this case may happen, whereby their just rights may, in fact, be sacrificed, I would inquire, for whom is this investigation instituted? Not for the freemen. They have no petition here; their rights are not implicated; they do not feel injured. I repeat, the freemen of Vermont have preferred no claim; and yet, as Representatives, it becomes the House and its committees to cherish the rights of those freemen who have been industrious and faithful to their own rights, and who, by their diligence, have shown fidelity to the law. I repeat, they ask no other intervention; they have taken no step; they care not. The law is the guardian of their rights, and they know it; and they ask no other exercise of guardianship here. The freemen of Vermont are also aware that vigilance is their only safeguard, the title deed of their immunities. They ask not for the few who have not been industrious and faithful to their rights; they ask not that the beneficial and liberal system of legislative wisdom and providence should be made a sacrifice on the unhallowed altar of indolence and indifference, or that the consummated rights of the faithful should be immolated. I beg leave to say, had I respected the rights of the freemen less, or had I been less sensible of the paramount motives which influence honorable members, I should have withheld reiterations of these facts; I should have contented myself with saying the freemen are not injured. Decide as members may, the freemen of Vermont have their full representation; the freemen of the Union are not injured, for Vermont has but its due proportion of representation. Who are these petty town and county officers, whom my opponent speaks of as giving members to this House? They are the fathers and guardians of the freemen's interests; the choice men of each corporation; selected, yes, approved and appointed by the freemen themselves, as their legal and respected depositaries, and their agents to perform and fulfil for them the law, that not one jot or tittle thereof fail of its accomplishment; their acts are the acts of the freemen. This question should be stripped of all bias for the freemen, except to sustain the institutions which define and regulate their immunities. By whom is it asked that State regulations should be disregarded? Certainly not by the freemen. Such as have neglected the legal modes and certainties, and abandoned their rights which the law sustains, would have been estopped, by reason of their own laches, from asking the prostration or suspension of a State system; for the favor of law is not towards them. I beg leave to ask, of whom is the destruction of a State system required? The Constitution and law of the Union are not asked; but it is asked of a branch of Congress, the people's Representatives. And shall one branch of the law-making power do it, under the arbitrary doctrine of precedent alone? No. Ours is a Government of express laws. Adjudicated precedents of practice are, not unfrequently, beneficial, and perfect the provident work of a Legislature, and, in all cases of doubt and ambiguity, they the rather lean to prop freemen's diligence and fidelity. For any individual, then, should "shame light" upon a system established by a State sovereignty? The answer is to the case and in point. The case is a case of strict right between individuals. H. OF R. town, wanting in any of the requirements of the law, must be deemed illegal, and be rejected. Comment is probably unnecessary, yet I trust I shall be indulged in remarking, it is an acknowledged principle that the will of the freemen, unaccompanied by any act, cannot consummate a choice, because there can be no manifestation of their will. In towns where the choice is to be determined by ballot, the will of no individual freeman can be accounted any thing, except he makes deposite of his vote in the ballot box, for canvass, at the legal time and place. And in order that the ag gregate vote of the freemen may be manifested, every political corporation must make deposite of the amount of its votes at the legal place, to the appointed board, and in legal time. As, in the first instance, the ballot deposite is the highest possible manifestation of the will of the individual freemen, precisely in the same manner, in the second instance, the deposite is the highest and most solemn manifestation of the aggregate will of the freemen of the State. The portion omitting to do this prescribed act have abandoned their rights, and, by their own laches, have rendered their rights imperfect and inchoate, and the power of reclaiming or perfecting them is lost. Before I proceed to an examination of the precedents quoted by my opponent, I respectfully ask leave to urge that the use of precedents arrayed against the check usages, or precautionary ordinances of States, is only to be justified on an extraordinary occasion. They are to be used with great caution and the soundest discretion, at all times, and are never to be adopted to destroy legal certainty, or to extend the consummation of an act beyond the statute period of conclusion. Even the sovereign power of Congress has its limitations, and an integral portion of that authority has its restraints. I hold it correct in principle, that, until the Constitution shall have been modified, or until the Congress shall have altered, by law, the State election regulations, and made a uniform course of practice, the decisions touching elections cannot be uniform, but must be graduated to the varying and peculiar regulations of each State respectively. The requisites of return, &c., prescribed in the law of Vermont, were suggested by practical abuses, or welland will of the freemen, and were intended as checks founded apprehensions of imposition on the fair rights and adequate guards against their recurrence and existence. The like evils may only sectionally occur, and the like apprehensions may arise from causes purely local. The like remedies and precautions will not, therefore, generally demand legislative interposition. And to break down provisions of this character by the power of precedents, adopted under other circumstances, cannot be friendly to the dearest rights of freemen. In this view of the subject, I proceed to remind the committee of my opponent's remark, that "the proceedings in the State may always be considered prima facie correct." The proceedings in a State, done fairly, and conformably to law, in my opinion, are more than prima facie correct; they are as record evidence, which cannot be contradicted or altered by parol testimony. Neglect or mistake may defeat the rights of the freemen, by reason of not perfecting the evidence of a fact, or the legal manifestation of their will. The plea of neglect, or mistake, cannot be urged to contradict, vary, or destroy a legal proceeding, nor defeat a legal and vested right. State proceedings may be destroyed, by showing there was corruption. Actual fraud, or corruption, in any stage of the proceedings, and in whatever shape it satisfactorily appears, eradicates an otherwise consummated right; because it determines it no record, no act. I urge these doctrines the more strenuously, because the case under consideration is a question of strict right between two individuals. My opponent does not allege corruption, nor prove fraud; his parol testimony therefore is inadmissible, and altogether insufficient to impeach legal State proceedings, and my rights, which are sanctioned by the highest tribunal thereof, and consummated by the signature of the Chief Magistrate and the seal of the State. I consider my right to a seat in the House of Representatives identified with the rights of the greatest number of diligent freemen, The uniform principles of decision in the New Engwith the law, and the decisions of the State authorities. land States, as I have been informed by honorable genI contend, for yet other reasons, that the statute of tlemen, have been strictly with their laws. And if the Vermont is to be in force, and its requirements to be laws and decisions of States are to be held of no weight held inviolate. Deducible from it are the soundest rules and nugatory, I am of opinion the safer course is for of evidence; the best of which the case is susceptible."the Congress" to alter the State regulations by law, I hold on to this ground with the more confidence, because, in so doing, I conform to the decisions of the last and final tribunals of the State-I mean the tribunal of canvass, and the representatives of the State in General Assembly, to whom the committee of canvass report. Here it was solemnly and explicitly decided by actual vote, after due debate and deliberation, that the votes of the freemen in any incorporated and that the altering or nullifying them by mere precedents is questionable and rarely to be tolerated. Inasmuch as precedents of this character are alleged by my opponent to exist, I proceed to examine them. The detailed report of cases, with all the facts and reasons governing the precedent, are necessary to find its analogy and relationship to the case in consideration. The cited case of Georgia is an entirely differ H. OF R. ent case. The reasons for non-compliance with the exhibits a most unnatural state of things; as the only law regarding returns, was not urged as a laches of power, competent to create a new power, is the "Conthe freemen, but was a providential prohibition. The gress," and they may do it by law. In the present maxim that the "act of God injures no man," in this case I desire it may not be forgotten that the return is case has all its force, and is not to be disputed; the the act of the freemen, and the omission of return by decision was correct. It can have no bearing in the any portion is their own laches, as the returning agent present case, which was an abandonment by the free-is a creature of their own appointment, and his legal men of their legal rights, as, in the case of the town neglect concludes a forfeiture. of Goshen, they neglected to make return, not only The case from Massachusetts, of Baylies and Turwithin the legal period, but even to this day. And in ner, named by an honorable member of the committee, the towns of Fairhaven, Plymouth, and Mansfield, the regarding the addition or omission of “junior," is a case was determined against them, under solemn ad- case, in my apprehension, distinctly marked as inapjudication, by reason of their own acts. They did not plicable. The freemen, in that case, felt aggrieved, obey the law, by reason of indolence, or a want of and they petitioned. In the investigation of the case diligence, neither of which is a competent plea to delay in which this decision was had, it was found that Turor change the operation of law, or to arrest and subvert ner, senior, lived out of the district, and was ineligible its commandments. The case of Georgia, by an exam- by the law, and as dead; and therefore the freemen ination of it in its details, shows that the returning are not to be supposed to vote for a person dead in officer is admitted to have made use of all due dili-law, or natually dead. I believe it is a settled princigence. And the allegation was, that, by reason of an unusal and tremendous storm, or hurricane, by which the country was inundated, bridges were swept away, and the ways were rendered impassable, he was prevented by this act of God from fulfilling the law. There is, therefore, no similitude in the cases, and the precedent does not apply, and in fact is no precedent; it is a solitary case. The fact to be decided was as to the admission of proof of the alleged act of providential prohibition regarding return. So far as regarded this point, it may be received, and stand as an unsettled, solitary precedent. Inferences, remarks, or decisions, beyond the point in issue, or submission, are exta-judicial and without the case, and cannot be drawn in as precedent. This I judge to be a distinction correct in principle, and warranted by practice. The present case was a non-observance of law, without The ting the appellation of "junior," may be sufficiently ple in judicial proceedings, that the affixing or omitcertain; and it becomes a fact to be inquired into, whether the person be well designated and known by either description, as well by one name as the other; and I consider, in a case of ineligibility, or actual death, the fact is clearly ascertained. cases of "jun." are a matter of fact, and may be inquired into, and are not to be measured by the same rule as legal laches, which produces a forfeiture. It is to be judged of according to the best evidence produced. And, in my judgment, the distinction is palpable between this class of cases and the present case, where in the original return an entirely distinct name is entered. Mallory and Hammond, in no case, can come under one and the same description of person, or be understood, under any circumstances less than any alleged providential excuse; it was an essential legislative interference, which may give a new name, legal laches of the freemen-the fact is acknowledged as designating one and the same person. The case by my opponent, that the law was not complied with. of Woodbury, by my opponent, was brought to this The decision called for was, I repeat, as to evidence class of precedents; the cases are not analogous, for regarding the cause of failure, and they decided not the reasons assigned. If we pass to the evidence to "receive any evidence on that point;" all besides is which my opponent has produced, we shall find that to be considered argument. It might be logic in that the settled rules of evidence, in constant practice peculiar case. There is, however, an important dis-in our courts, invalidate his evidence. The original tinction in that from the present case which I have officially sealed certificate returned is the declared and here mentioned. The doctrines of precedent should best evidence, and made so by express law. And this never set statutes at defiance, and bring into contempt evidence, by my opponent's exhibit, shows no such fact the acts of a Legislature; they are to be taken in their as his having received any vote in the town of Woodmost strict sense, and are never to abolish express, bury. The copy record of a town is by no means fixed, Constitutional law. The doctrine of precedent, equal evidence. The case appears to me analogous to in any other view, is perilous and dangerous in the the case of a deed of conveyance; for instance, the extreme. It "assumes power without control, on the original and sealed deed conveys two hundred acres of spur of the occasion, and after the fact, and makes its land; the copy of it spread upon the record puts down decision the law and the judgment." If there is "fixed the amount conveyed at one hundred acres. I apprelaw," it must be followed: if there is no law, "the hend no legal doubt could be raised on a question judgment on any particular case is the law of that made, which ought to have the precedence, and which single case only, and dies with it." And this is more is the highest and best evidence, the original or the emphatically a sound principle, under our Govern- copy. The statute in section six, in my view, intimates that the Legislature had the same view. They The extra-judicial remarks in the cited precedent not only made the sealed, original certificate, donc in case are of such dangerous measure as to place States statute form, the legal evidence in the previous secin a humiliating predicament. The freemen, in their tions, but in the cited section they direct "that the sovereign capacity, pursue duties and perform acts, committee appointed by the General Assembly, for the agreeably to their laws, which they enacted as bar-purposes mentioned in the act," "shall preserve and riers of safety, and within which they reposed in confidence. Yet, after all, a precedent never promulgated can sink its character and importance; destroy, by a touch, the mainspring of its power, and dissolve all its sanctions and securities. It is a predicament which ment. lodge the original certificates with the Secretary of State, until after the first session of Congress for which the said election is held." The guards and provisions of the act of the Legislature of Vermont are to be regarded as so many admo nitions of the fallibility of human conduct and testimony, and are, therefore, to be held as a definitive standard, whereby are to be ascertained the highest and only legal manifestation and expression of the will of the freemen. I therefore feel constrained to repeat, that the original certificate made out and sealed in the presence of the meeting of freemen, and returned to the tribunal of aggregate canvass, and which is sustained by all the prescribed legal forms and official solemnities, is the best evidence. And that the copy of the record of the town of Woodbury, and the affidavits procured and adduced by my opponent to contradict the original certificate, to make the most of them, are as objectionable and uncertain; and their admission to even an equality would be a disregard of settled principle, unlawful, and dangerous in practice. In deed, it is unsafe to forget that the treacheries of memory, and the perverse motives which too often actuate human conduct, are usually more multiplied after the general result is known in defeat, and revived by contest, than they are at the consummation of a fact happening before the case is made out. And, besides, any adjudication under the circumstances of the case, and after the fact, repudiating statute evidence, would, in its character and consequences, be ex post facto. The petitioner nor the sitting member is to be put in contest with express law, nor can they be injured by the fair and full operation of the law of election. By this only can either be entitled to the honor of a seat as a member on the floor of Congress; and they ought not only to disclaim, but disdain to occupy a seat on any other tenure. The freemen are not injured by the law. The question, so far as regards them, is this: Shall a majority of the freemen, who have regarded the integrity of their rights, been diligent in their duty, and obedient to law, prevail? Or, shall that portion of freemen prevail who, like the unwise virgins, did not trim their lamps, who neglected their rights and duties, and who were unfaithful to the law? Mr. Mallary, who instituted the present contest, received a less number of the legal votes of the freemen of Vermont than did either of the sitting members from that State; and I declare this in all soberness, under the authority of express law, and by virtue of the sanction of the legal State authorities, who have so declared the law and the fact; and I do it more boldly, as collusion or fraud is not alleged in any stage of the proceedings. The habits of the freemen, by usage, are in conformity to the law; they have decided for the law, and in practice they have observed it in its strictness, except the small number of from two to three hundred. The agents of the freemen, and the tribunals of the law, have decided for it. The Constitution of the Union authorizes it, and, from an imperative sense of duty to the freemen, to the law, and the State authorities, and to the Constitution of the Union, I solicit the representative branch of Congress and its committee to confirm the law of the State, and every and all its provisions, guards, and solemnities, according to the long settled judicial usages of construction, and the rules of evidence. Nor can I doubt it. Detection of frauds upon the law, and impositions upon the freemen, will receive rebuke. A prodigal use of power will not be sanctioned anywhere. I therefore would move the committee to view the case in the following order, and make their decision accordingly. The facts and statement of my oppo H. OF R. nent justify this classification of the points in contest, viz: 1st. Ought the adjudications of the State legislative tribunals of canvass to be overruled, and their decisions to be reversed, which were made in conformity to the law and the usages of the States, and in all verity and good faith? This point involves the towns of Fairhaven, Plymouth, and Mansfield, whose votes my opponent claims. The attention of the committee is respectfully called to the law of the State, entitled "An act for electing Representatives to the Congress of the United States, and directing the mode of their election." The policy and provisions thereof are easy to be understood; and the decisions were conformed to the letter and spirit of the law. 2d. Can the votes of Goshen be adjudged legal, and ought they, upon any principle, to be counted for the petitioner? The votes of this town were not returned at the legal period, nor have they been returned to the present day; there is, therefore, no legal evidence of any votes having been given at all by the freemen of said town of Goshen. The original certificate has not been exhibited, nor is it believed there is any precedent or any decision relative to this case. 3d. Is the petitioner's claim to the count of votes said to be given in the town of Woodbury, substantiated by the best evidence? And ought the said votes, claimed to be given for my opponent, on the evidence exhibited, to be taken down in the estimate of votes to be made here to defeat my rights? And is the statute evidence, the original official return of the returning officer, repudiated? I cannot allow myself, for a moment, to entertain an idea that the House of Representatives, or its committee, will so decide as virtually to repeal or render nugatory the cautious and prudent enactments, the express law of a State sovereignty, or the deliberate decisions of its authorities; or that the plainest and most settled rules of construction and evidence will be prostrated; or that these guaranties of the freemen will become as lodgers or exiles in the metropolis. The present period, marked by the absence of political asperity and party prejudices, is perhaps a favorable period to alter by law the election regulations of States, and to substitute a uniform system. This, however, is a different consideration, and only advanced at this time in allusion to arguments before suggested, touching power. It is a remark frequently made, that precedents are not necessarily, and ought rarely to be binding on a legislative body. The views taken of a subject may be different; motives extraneous may bias the judg ment, and give to it erroneous tendencies. The times through which we have just passed, I think, give additional force to the remark, and induces the necessity of caution and technical nicety in their admission, if admitted at all, to justify a contested and doubtful exercise of power. I wish it most distinctly understood that I rest my case on the law of the State, and the Constitution of the Union. I strenuously and boldly urge that the power of the House of Representatives, and its committee, as judges of the election, returns, and qualification of members, are limited to the law of the State and the Constitution; they are to inquire and decide whether either have been infringed, and whether all proceedings have been done in good faith. H. OF R. Proceedings. JANUARY, 1820. mediation of State authorities, as a course less humiliating to State sovereignties, and for both, more dignified than a conflict between written and unwritten law. I make no pretensions to legal precision; still I feel a degree of confidence that members having legal acuteness will recognise the distinctions to which I have alluded. I have treated the subject as I honestly view it, and as involving policy, principles, and interests, of more than individual concern, chiefly in consequence of doctrines assumed by my opponent, possibly by the loose manner of putting down precedents he has urged, and the danger of their extension or progression in application beyond points not definitively in issue, under the original reported case. I respectfully submit for consideration my views of the case, and the case itself. O. C. MERRILL. They are not authorized to step behind a Constitutional statute, except to see whether its provisions have been regarded. The statute is the act of the freemen, and is the expression of their will; and it is as vitally important to them as the deposite of their ballots. The House of Representatives, without the co-operation of the other branch of Congress, cannot pass behind the law of Vermont, to alter or contradict it, without the exercise of unconstitutional and dangerous power. They would do no act of friendship to the freemen, by throwing to all the winds their statutes and their policy, and exercises within it. I have examined the manuscript decisions touching elections, and I find none at variance with the ideas and principles I have suggested. The decisions on points in issue, from my observation, either sound in fraud, or are matters of fact, which, by settled judicial precedent and practice, have been considered suitable matters to be inquired into under proper pleas. They have never decided that rights legally abandoned, or rights lost by legal laches, might be reclaimed and perfected out of legal "time, place, and manner." They have attached to, and involved in their reports extra-judicial inference Mr. WENDOVER presented a petition of the and remark, which I think no man will declare is to Chamber of Commerce of the city of New York, be drawn in as precedent. The cases of "junior," as praying that the credit now allowed by law for I have treated them, I consider familiar to lawyers and the duties on goods imported into the United judges, and known under legal authority. Other cases States may not be changed to a cash payment, and of inquiry and decision, as to qualifications of voters, that a moderate duty may be imposed on all sales whenever acted upon, were, I believe, expressly allegat auction.-Referred to the Committee of Comed to have been received contrary to law, and by reason of imposition or deception. The general character of questions made, and decisions had, are of this class, and did not arise, nor appear in decision, in opposition to express law. I can find no case, where, in the course of inquiry as to qualifications of voters, the State statutes have not been esteemed the standard tests. Should I have overlooked any cases of different character, and which may bear on the present case, they should be published, in order that conflicting decisions, tribunals, and laws, may find the necessary remedy. I remember (and presume it is within the knowledge of others) at the last Congress, in the case of Mercer and Mason, a question as to the legal construction of the election law of Virginia was raised incidentally in committee. The section in point was considered ambiguous, and susceptible of two constructions, by several professional members of the committee. Inquiry was, therefore, gone into, to ascertain the practical definition or exposition of the law by the State of Virginia; and when that was satisfactorily found, the decisions of the committee took the same direction. I, therefore, for my constituents, protest against the relevancy and authority of inference and remarks made extra-judicially, and extraneous of the point strictly in issue, and the more especially when they tend to nullify State laws, repudiate State practice, and consequently draw after them unlicensed and dan gerous power. If, however, it is deemed correct that decisions made here, under any circumstances, are paramount law, wherefore are they not promulgated? And the mode and reasons which gave them being and power should have equal publicity. It should be generally known whether they passed after solemn argument and profound investigation, or whether silently, and without question. States, then, might modify or repeal their laws altogether, and "the Congress" might direct that original votes be received and returned without the merce. THURSDAY, January 6. Mr. SWEARINGEN presented a petition of the president and directors of the Central Bank of Georgetown and Washington, praying for a renewal of their charter, with certain modifications and amendments therein stated; which was referred to the Committee for the District of Columbia. Mr. ANDERSON, from the Committee on the Public Lands, made a report on the petition of William McIntosh, accompanied with a bill for his relief; which bill was read twice, and committed to a Committee of the Whole to-morrow. The Committee on the Public Lands were discharged from the further consideration of the resolution submitted by Mr. WoODBRIDGE on the 17th ultimo, directing them to inquire into the expediency of providing for the final adjustment of the ancient titles to land within the Territory of Michigan; and the resolution was referred to the Committee on Private Land Claims, with directions to make the said inquiry. the President's Message as relates to the public Mr. COBB, from the committee on so much of buildings, made a report, which was read; when Mr. C. reported a bill making appropriations to supply the deficiency in the appropriations heretofore made for the completion of the repairs of the the President's House, and the erection of two north and south wings of the Capitol, for finishing new Executive offices; which was read twice, and committed to a Committee of the Whole to morrow. The SPEAKER laid before the House a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, transmitting a statement of the expenditure and application of the moneys drawn from the Treasury on account of the Navy, during the year ending the 30th of |