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that part of the law which fixes the mode of our compensation, but more especially to the amount we are authorized to receive. Sir, repeal the law, reduce our wages to the old standard of six dollars per day, and they will be satisfied. They generally think this compensation adequate.Upon this point some of us entertain a different public will, so clearly expressed on this occasion, and to try the consequence. But we are called upon by gentlemen to refund a part of the money which we have received under the compensation law. This is taking higher ground than I have seen taken in the newspapers, or than I have anywhere heard in conversation. The law was not corruptly procured. It was passed in this House upon mature deliberation, and received the solemn sanction of all branches of the Government. I never conceived it unjust or improper in me to receive the amount of compensation thus afforded. I have never felt any compunctious visitings of conscience for this part of my conduct. When this shall be the case, I hope I may be faithful to manifest a duty. Conceiving then, sir, that I am neither called upon by the voice of my constituents, or of justice, to refund any part of the money conferred on me by the compensation law, I shall vote accordingly. Let other gentlemen follow the dictates of their own enlightened reason and conscience in the decision of this question.

supported, and its benefits received by men far greater and better than myself; men whose talents admired, and whose virtues I revered. Sir, this subject might have received a correct and just disposition in tranquillity and friendship. It involves no great intrinsic difficulty. I have witnessed with regret, the extreme sensibility and excitement manifested in the course of the dis-opinion. I am disposed, however, to bow to the cussion. Expressions have escaped a gentleman, wounding to my feelings, and to the moral sense and dignity of the Committee. A slander has been cast, by some persons, upon the good people of the United States, as possessing infidelity and laxity of moral principle. Republicanism and infidelity have been represented as inseparable companions; but, sir, our religious history repels this unfounded imputation. This Republic is the soil, where, in my apprehension, refined morality and undefiled religion will flourish to the latest ages. I hope the character of our debates will not militate against this consoling idea. Is it possible, sir, that the good people who crowd our gallery, have been constrained to hear language uttered upon this floor, calculated to awaken in their bosoms the mingled emotions of pity, astonishment, and disgust! But, sir, to return to the subject more immediately under consideration. In this Government, all authority is derived from the people. They are the repository of power, and the fountain of honor. From them we have received our official elevation. We are their public agents; and to them we are responsible for our conduct. In short, sir, I hold tha: the people have a right to instruct their Representatives; and that it is our duty to obey, under certain qualifications, the voice of our constituents. To the Governor of the Universe, we are under obligations, paramount to any which we can owe to man. Should the instructions of my constituents, therefore, conflict with the Constitution, or with my ideas of moral propriety, (an event which I by no means anticipate.) I should not hesitate how to act. Only two alternatives would be presented to my choice; to disregard their instructions, or to resign my seat in this honorable body. As to public sentiment and feeling on the compensation law, I can only add my testimony in favor of the declaration of honorable members, who have assured you that it is generally disapprobated and condemned.

Mr. Chairman, I have no ambition to detain you by repeating narratives and arguments which have been afforded by gentlemen, founded on the manifestation of public opinion, strongly evincing the propriety of repealing this offensive law. will only say, that in the district in which I have the happiness to reside, the effect of the compensation law was electrical. It aroused into active opposition, not only those who had been habitu ally engaged in politics, but also many who had seldom if ever been seen before on the political theatre. It is high time, then, that this law, which has received such universal denunciation, should be repealed. I should have been happy to have acted upon this subject earlier in the session. The people are undoubtedly opposed to

I know it has been said that the course I advocated would drive men of talents, learning, and integrity, from the National Councils. Upon this argument, I do not at present hazard an opinion; but I will say, that if an evil of this kind should be produced and ascertained, in the good sense and virtue of the community it would find its corrective. The people of the United States are too well informed; they too strongly desire their own prosperity and happiness to suffer a consequence of this description long to exist without applying the appropriate remedy.

There is certainly one aspect in which this subject can be viewed, which augurs well for the purity and stability of our republican institutions. It demonstrates that the people are jealous of what they deem to be their rights; that they are watchful over the conduct of their public agents. On this subject, however, some think they have mistaken the true path of interest. Whether this is the fact time will disclose. Our experience on this subject will, moreover, add another proof of the excellency of the form of our Government. It will show that the people, without wading through blood and slaughter, by resorting to Revolutionary measures, have it in their power, in the exercise of the elective franchise, to abrogate what they conceive to be unjust or oppressive laws, and to substitute others, in their opinion, more consonant to the Constitution and the principles of rational liberty.

Mr. HULBERT, of Massachusetts, said, less than one year ago, after long discussion and mature deliberation, we passed the law which is now in review before us. There does not now exist a

single objection against the measure worthy of notice, which was not then repeatedly and vehemently urged; nor was there one argument which could then be used in favor of the passage of the law which may not at this time, with greater force, be brought against its repeal. Shall we not then abide by what we have done? Shall the senseless clamor which we have heard make us give up our opinion and oppose the dictates of our own consciences? Shall we now repeal this law which we so lately passed, and which we still deem essential to our country's good? No, it would be a gross violation of our public duty, and a cruel act of self degradation. To use the language of Burke, it would be touching the bottom of humiliation; our lead would be brought up covered with mud.

Sir, the adoption of the propositions now before us would surely hang us on one of the horns of this dilemma. We must either confess ourselves guilty of extreme rashness in the vote we gave last session, or of cowardice in the one we now give.

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was the thief. He declared that he had repented of his crime, and had come to make restitution, which he faithfully did to the utmost farthing. Sir, the conduct of that man I have always admired, and if, like him, I could consider myself a felon, I would follow his example: I would confess my guilt, and hasten to make restitution to the people; I would vote for the proposed amendment. But I have no consciousness of guilt, and therefore I will make no confession. I will abide by what I have done. Sir, I have seen in newspapers stories of thieves, who, having swallowed the money they had stolen, had emetics forced down their throats to compel them to disgorge their ill-gotten gains. I hope that that process did not suggest to the gentleman the proposition he has made.

Can it be possible that the honorable gentleman really wishes the repeal of this law? No, he shakes his head-he denies it. I am left, then, to conjecture the object he has in view. Sure Í am that no unworthy motive can govern him. He is as much above what he can think dishonorable conduct, as the sublimest flight of the eagle is above the creeping reptile.

Mr. Chairman, I well remember that the proposition for raising the compensation of members of Congress was first suggested to me by my honorable friend from Kentucky, (Mr. JOHNSON.) He requested my opinion as to the propriety of the measure. After taking time to deliberate on the subject, I assured him that I approved of his plan, and would give it my cordial support. I rejoiced that the motion would come from one who was above all suspicion of mean and sordid views-one who had proved his patriotism, and was then bleeding with the wounds he had received in the service of his country. Sir, I was faithful to my promise. I gave him all the support I could: I gave him my vote, and I rejoiced with him when the law was passed, for I thought it essential to the public good. With what pleasure did I see that honorable gentleman rise in his seat, a few days since, in defence of the law! I thought it due to himself and his friends that he should defend the measure he had originated. I listened to his animated and powerful argument, and it strengthened and confirmed the opinion I had adopted. But with what surprise and regret did I hear him concluding his speech with a motion to repeal or modify the law he had so nobly defended! I cannot deny that it gave me pain.

I cannot, said Mr. H., refrain from expressing my astonishment, that a motion to repeal this law should have come from the honorable gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. RANDOLPH.) At the last session he not only voted for the law, but the utmost powers of his wit and eloquence were exerted to procure its passage; and even at this session he has declared his mistaken confidence in the justice and propriety of the measure, and has poured a torrent of ridicule upon the opposition to it. But now that honorable gentleman is not contended with moving the repeal of the law; no, he goes a giant's stride beyond that; he proposes that we should be compelled to restore to the Treasury whatever we may have received beyond the amount of the former compensation. How these propositions can be consistent with the course heretofore taken by him, I will leave to the great ingenuity of that gentleman to show; for I must acknowledge that it is far beyond my power. Sir, the honorable gentleman has repeatedly declared, that, if he had voted against the passage of the law, he would sooner have thrust his hand into his neighbor's pocket and purloined his money, than to have taken from the Treasury one cent beyond the old allowance of six dollars per day. You will permit me, sir, to say, that, since I gave my vote for the law, I would as soon confess myself guilty of theft and robbery, as to vote for the last amendment proposed by the honorable gentleman. We have You will allow me, sir, to advert to the report received nothing more than what a law consti- of the committee which has been made upon this tutionally passed-a law which the mover of this subject. That report is manifestly the producamendment still declares to be just and righteous-tion of great talents. It bears on every page the gave us. Why, then, refund the money? I do stamp of powerful intellect. It is an unanswernot care for the pitiful sum in question; no, I able argument in support of the present law, and would not contend a moment for that. But I yet it concludes by recommending its repeal! Sir, will contend for principle, for consistency. I re- the speech of the honorable gentleman from Kenmember being present in my early youth when a tucky, and the report I have mentioned, remind stranger entered the room, and, reminding theme of war elephants, which sometimes in the head of the family of a theft which had been heat and confusion of battle turn from the enemy committed upon his goods many years before that and trample down their owners. time, confessed, with tears in his eyes, that he

Sir, what objections have been made against

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Compensation Law.

JANUARY, 1817.

find resigning their seats, because they cannot endure the sacrifice which their situation requires of them? This causes a constant succession of new and inexperienced members; distracts the councils of the nation, and forbids the hope of the establishment of a broad and lasting system of policy, which shall look to the permanent prosperity and glory of the country.

Sir, I will dwell no longer on this point. I am confident that the cool and deliberate opinion of the people will be, that the compensation is not too high.

this law? Is the present compensation too great? Few, very few, have made the assertion. The honorable gentleman from Kentucky, (Mr. DESHA,) it must be admitted, has taken that ground, and has declared that the old allowance of six dollars per day was sufficiently high. He has made a minute calculation of the expenses, which he thinks would reasonably be incurred by attending a session of five months, and concludes that a member might carry home to his family about four hundred and fifty dollars. I know that that honorable gentleman is incapable of stating anything which he does not think perfectly correct, and no An objection which has been very strenuously one will doubt that he lives in this city in a style urged against the law, is this, that the compensabecoming a gentleman. But if he can save the tion should have been an allowance per day, and sum he names, he surely must have an art in man- not a salary. I have ever considered the contest aging his affairs which very few of us possess. on this point as a mere dispute about words. Admitting, however, the accuracy of his state- Surely it makes no difference with the Treasury, ment, I would not wish for a stronger argument to whether the fifteen hundred dollars, to be taken show, that the late compensation was quite insuf- from it, be received in the former or the latter ficient. It would give us only four hundred and mode. The amount which the people have to fifty dollars, to defray all the expenses of our fam- pay, is the same; and it is no high compliment ilies for five months, and to compensate us for to their understanding, to suppose that they regard our abandonment of our professions or occupa- the form, and not the substance of things. Why tions, and the consequent derangement of our should there be anything so frightful in the idea private affairs. Even the gentleman himself, on of a salary? Sir, the President of the United reflection, seemed startled at his own argument, States receives a salary. So does the Vice Presand hastened from it, to tell us how much honor ident, who presides over the highest Legislative we receive by being members of Congress. Honor, branch of the Government. Look throughout sir! are we chamelions, that we can live on air? the government of the Union, and that of the in1 must acknowledge that I fear we shall prove dividual States, and how frequent, how common ourselves rather too much like those strange an- are salaried officers! Are not the judges of our imals; for if we now repeal this law, we shall highest courts of that description? I know it will prove at least that we can change our opinions be answered, and truly, that the judges are obliged quite as easily as they can change their colors. to spend the whole of the year in courts, in the But, if we can live on honor, will it feed and study of the laws, and otherwise in the performclothe our families? No, sir, while we are strut-ance of their high duties. And what, sir, is the ting here, inflated with honor, they may be freezing and starving at home. And you will allow me, sir, to say, that he who can forget his wife and children, although he may have a sound head, must have a rotten heart, and is unfit for a legislator.

duty of a member of Congress? Will we have fully performed it by having faithfully attended the several sessions? No, sir; he who legislates for eight millions of people; he to whose care the destinies of the nation are in a considerable degree committed, should keep his eye steadily fixed on the public weal-should consider himself constantly in the service of his country. There cannot, then, be any incongruity in the ideas of legislator and salary.

I have never seen the objection to the amount of compensation placed in a stronger point of view, than has been done by an honorable gentleman, who lately resigned his seat on this floor, (Mr. Mayrant, of South Carolina.) In his letter of It is amusing to notice upon what opposite resignation, he says, the present compensation grounds this mode of compensation has been delaw opens the door of Congress to virtue and tal-nounced. The Legislature of one of the States ents, and costs his constituents, beyond what they formerly paid, less than one cent and one-fourth of a cent each, per year.

It has ever been my opinion, that the allowance to members of Congress should be such, as would draw into the councils of the nation men of distinguished talents and information, from all parts of the Union, whether rich or poor. Nothing can be more important to the people, than that their Representatives should be men of that description, and that they should be placed above temptation to abandon their seats for offices in the gift of the Executive, or for lucrative employments in private life. Trace the subject to the commencement of our Government, and how many members of both branches of the Legislature do we

has resolved that it was beneath our dignity to make ourselves salaried officers; that is to say, it was beneath our dignity to place ourselves on a level in that respect, with the President of the United States. At the same time, meetings of patriots in other parts of the country were as stoutly resolving, that we had taken to ourselves too much consequence, and had exalted ourselves quite too high. Sir, I cannot think that the opposition to the mode of compensation is supported by any substantial reason. It appears to me to be, generally, the last resort of those who had determined to raise a clamor against the law, at all events, and who, being forced to admit that the present compensation is not too high, seized on this objection, in the true spirit of Goldsmith's school

master, that, even though vanquished, they might argue still.

Mr. Chairman, it has been repeatedly asserted, that it is indelicate and improper for members of Congress to determine their own compensation. Sir, there is a perfect, and I hope it will be an entirely satisfactory answer to this objection. When the original draught of the Constitution, as made by the Convention, was proposed to the people for adoption, it contained an article expressly prohibiting Congress from passing any law for raising the compensation of its own members, which should take effect before an election should have intervened. This article was rejected, and left out of the Constitution. The people, then, have decided the question. They have determined that it is proper for us to fix our own compensation: and, sir, having made up our minds to raise the allowance, it would have been a false delicacy an affected disregard of self-interest, not to have embraced in the provision the present Congress. But it is said that the voice of the people commands the repeal of this law. Sir, I deny the fact. Gentlemen have mistaken the clamor of newspapers, and the noise of party spirit, and faetious demagogues, for the voice of the nation. No one, I trust, entertains a higher respect for the cool and deliberate opinions of the people, than I do. But I have heard no such opinion on this subject.

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President. But I beg my colleague not to be too much alarmed. I am sure he would, on a fair and impartial trial, be acquitted of both those charges. But should he now, with no better reasons than he has yet offered, vote to repeal the law, which he so lately zealously supported, he would richly deserve to be indicted for that offence, and I am confident that there could not be empannelled in this country an honest jury who would not find him guilty.

Since grand juries have been brought into this debate by my colleague, to prove that the voice of the people is against this law, I must say, that I recollect only two who have acted on this subject. One of those grand inquests in a northern State (Vermont) presented, as a great grievance, that we raised our compensation at a time when an inauspicious season threatened want and famine. Sir, when we passed the law that State was, as usual, one hundred feet, be the same more or less, under snow! and yet the evil that threatened those wise men, at the time they made the presentment, was a drought! Another grand jury, in Georgia, placed in a very singular predicament some of the Representatives of that State, whom I now see in their seats. Although those honorable gentlemen voted with all their might against the law, yet they were presented because they did, on other subjects, make long, laborious, and tedious speeches, and also because they did not make like speeches against the compensation law.

Mr. Chairman, this voice of the people has produced one very wonderful effect. It has made my honorable friend (Mr. PARRIS) fall most desperately in love with the Legislature of Massachusetts. This I rejoice to learn, and I hope he will prove no fickle lover. For years past that gentleman has been quarrelling with that Legislature; but there can be no doubt that his reconciliation and attachment are unfeigned, for he has given the strongest proofs of their sincerity. He has informed the Committee that he has received certain resolves from that Legislature, requesting

The first clamor against this law, which I remember to have heard, and to have thought worthy of notice, was raised in the greatest commercial city in the Union. An important election was about to take place. A meeting of one of the parties was called, at which, resolutions were passed, denouncing in bitter terms the compensation law, and charging it to the account of their political opponents. This immediately produced violent recrimination, and the charge was furiously retorted. Sir, the accusation on both sides was unjust. The compensation law was no party measure. It, however, soon became fashionable in various parts of the Union, for the great polit-him to vote for the repeal of the compensation ical parties to attack each other with this formidable weapon. Federal and Democratic demagogues contended who should be foremost and loudest in denouncing the compensation men: the artillery of the press was opened upon us; Legislatures attacked us with resolves; grand juries presented us; and mobs hung us-in effigy! This, sir, is the voice of the people, which we are so solemnly bound to obey, and which has spread such consternation within these walls!

My honorable friend (Mr. PARRIS) has told the Committee that he now stands presented by a grand jury, for having voted for the compensation law last session; he has declared, that it is the only time in his life he has been in that sad predicament, and he appears to be much agitated on the subject. Sir, I do not wish to add to the afflictions of my honorable friend; but I must remind him, that it is not the only time he has been thus unkindly noticed by a grand jury. He stands presented for attending a caucus last Winter in this city, for the nomination of a candidate for

law; and that, although he voted for that law last session, and then thought it a just and necessary measure, and still thinks so, yet he feels himself bound to obey the request he has received, and shall cheerfully give up his own opinion. Do the Committee wish for any further evidence of his sincere devotion? They will then do my colleague the justice to recollect, that he never even named the Legislature, without making a very low and reverential bow.

Sir, I too have received copies of certain late proceedings of the Legislature of Massachusetts. That honorable body has been pleased to resolve that the compensation law, passed last session, "is an innovation upon the custom, and not congenial with the Republican principles of our Government," and has requested me, among others, to use my influence to effect its repeal. I will not obey the request. I will vote against the repeal, and will surely oppose it with the little influence I may have. My judgment and my conscience plainly point out to me that course. My opinion