secretary of war had assigned to the pension office, of which the bank was the agent, the business of receiving, examining, and deciding on applications for the benefit of this act, not because the law was, strictly speaking, a pension law, but because the whole subject bore so much analogy to the pension system, as to make it proper to commit its general management to the pension office. But having thought proper to discontinue the employment of the bank and its branches so far as related to payments under the act of 1832, the order to this effect had been accordingly issued by virtue of the authority of that law.

The president of the bank considered the error of the government to lie in the construction of the law as to the places of payment. The word “places” must be used in its ordinary and common sense meaning. Philadelphia was a place; New York was a place; and in authorizing the secretary to designate a place, it must have been intended that he should point out the general locality of the city or town, and not the banking-house, where payment was to be made; that he should arrange the pensioners according to localities, by paying them at the agencies most convenient to their respective residences. Such arrangements had often been authorized before. But the instructions did not direct the place where, but the person by whom, payment should be made in that place. No authority was given to the secretary to change the agent.

In the senate, the message of the president was referred to the committee on the judiciary, who made a report in accordance with the views of the bank, concluding with a resolution, " That the department of war is not warranted in appointing pension agents in any state or territory where the bank of the United States or one of its branches has been established.”

In the house, the committee of ways and means, to whom the message was referred, reported in coincidence with the views of the president and secretary. They also recommended a repeal of the several provisions constituting the bank and its branches pension agents under the invalid acts, and the acts of 1818 and 1820, and reported a bill accordingly.

Early in the session, (December 17, 1833,) the president nominated to the senate, as directors of the bank of the United States, on the part of the government, for the year 1834, James A. Bayard, of Delaware, in the place of Saul Alley, and Peter Wager, Henry D. Gilpin, and John T. Sullivan, of Philadelphia, and Hugh McElderry, of Baltimore, to the sar offices. The last four named gentlemen were the government directors who made the report to which allusion has been made, and which animadverted upon the conduct of the board of directors. The nomination of Mr. Bayard was confirmed on the 21st of January, 1834. The question on the nomination of the others was several times post

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poned, until the 27th of February, when it was decided in the negative : the votes averaging about 20 to 25.

On the 11th of March, a message was sent to the senate, renominating the same gentlemen. The president disclaimed the right to call in question the reasons of the senate for rejecting any nomination. He thinks proper, however, to communicate his views of the consequences of the act of the senate, if it should not be reconsidered. He then defends the conduct of these directors, for which he conceives that they had been rejected. If, for performing a duty lawfully required of them by the executive, they were to be punished by rejection, it would be useless and cruel to place men of character and honor in that situation. Hence, if the nomination of these men was not confirmed, the bank would hereafter be without government directors, and the people must be deprived of their chief means of protection against its abuses. Mr. Bayard having refused to accept his appointment, there was now no government director.

The message was referred to the committee on finance. from the committee, by Mr. Tyler, was made the 1st of May. The report said that the president disclaimed all right to inquire into the reasons of the senate; yet he undertook to infer from circumstances what these reasons must have been, and argued at large against their validity. If he could not inquire into them, he could not with propriety assume them, and make them the subject of comment. The committee regretted the intimation that the names of other persons might not be sent to the senate. They could not see why no others should be nominated in this case as well as in other cases of rejection. If the offices should remain unfilled, the fault would not be the fault of the senate.

The message renominating Messrs. Wager, Gilpin, Sullivan, and McElderry was considered, and the question on their appointment was determined in the negative : ayes, 11; noes, 30.

No farther nominations were made during the session.

An investigation was made at this session into the affairs of the postoffice department. A report was presented by Mr. Ewing, from the postoffice committee, representing the department in a state of embarrassment, its debt being upwards of $800,000 beyond its resources, and mainly attributable to mal-administration and favoritism in making contracts and extra allowances, of which a number of cases are particularized. Its reports, statements and estimates were declared to be so erroneous and defective, as to be unreliable. The report ends with resolulutions declaring not only existing errors and abuses, but defects in the system itself, which needed improvement.

Mr. Grundy, chairman of the committee, in behalf of the minority, made a counter report, which accounted for the insolvency of the depart

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ment, by showing that the deficiency of the yearly income had commenced before the present incumbent came into office, being about $100,000 on his taking possession of the department. This report stated that the debt of the department beyond its available means, was only about $300,000; that this was owing to an illusory system which had ever prevailed of accounting for the expenses of the department; and that the postmaster-general, as soon as the cause was disclosed, had applied the corrective. It showed that sundry improvements had been introduced into the department by the present postmaster-general; and it assumed to correct several statements contained in the report of the majority. It also recommended a more perfect organization of the department.

A few days before the close of the session, the first resolution reported by Mr. Ewing, declaring that large sums of money had been borrowed at banks by the postmaster-general to make up deficiencies in the means of the department, without authority of law; and that, as congress alone has

power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, all such contracts of loans by the postmaster-general were illegal and void, was unanimously adopted : ayes, 41.

The remaining resolutions were then laid on the table; and the committee on the post-office and post-roads was authorized to continue the investigations into the affairs of the department during the recess : ayes, 33; noes, 10.

A committee for the same purpose was appointed by the house. Very full and voluminous reports were made at the next session—the minority of each committee also reporting. Although these reports were on many points discordant, they all concurred in the general conclusion, that a reform in the management of the department was imperiously demanded. The committee of the house, a majority of whom were friendly to the administration, admitted, that "the finances of the department had been managed without frugality, system, intelligence, or adequate public utility;" that “the practice of granting extra allowances had run into wild excesses;" &c. They say in their concluding paragraph :

" “ The committee, in surveying the wide field of their labors, regret only that their reward had not been discoveries of a more pleasing character. They bad hoped that their researches would have brought to light the fruits of an enlightened and well directed labor, instead of proofs of error and neglect. But they have finished the task assigned them with an honest purpose, and to the best of their ability.”

A bill was reported by the senate committee for reforming the admin. istration of the post-office, which passed that body unanimously, and soon after became a law.

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CHAPTER L.

CABINET CHANGES.MISSION TO ENGLAND.-BENTON'S EXPUNGING RESO

LUTION.--FRENCH INDEMNITY. -POWER OF REMOVAL.-BRANCH MINTS.

In June, 1834, Mr. M'Lane resigned the office of secretary of state, and John Forsyth, senator in congress from Georgia, was appointed in his place. Levi Woodbury, secretary of the navy, was appointed secretary of the treasury, in the place of Mr. Taney, whose appointment during the recess, the senate refused to confirm. Mahlon Dickerson, late senator in congress from New Jersey, was appointed secretary of the navy. Mr. Butler's previous appointment as attorney-general was confirmed.

Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, and speaker of the house, was nomi. nated as minister to Great Britain, and rejected by the senate. No nomination to this office had been made since the rejection of Mr. Van Buren, in 1832; and the mission remained vacant until March, 1836, when Mr. Stevenson was again nominated, and the nomination confirmed. During this vacancy, the affairs of the United States with the

government of Great Britain, were in the charge of Aaron Vail, who had been secretary of legation under Mr. Van Buren.

The long delay in making a nomination to fill this vacancy, and the rejection of Mr. Stevenson, were the subject of much speculation and remark. It was said that the president had, at the time of Mr. Van Buren's rejection, avowed the intention of sending no successor.

The alleged cause of Mr. Stevenson's rejection was the fact that he had for a year had the assurance of the mission. The facts in this case were disclosed by letters of Mr. Livingston, secretary of state, Mr. Ritchie, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, and Wm. B. Lewis. The letter of Mr. Livingston to Mr. Stevenson was communicated by the president on the call of the senate. Mr. Livingston's letter to Mr. Stevenson, of March, 1833, requested him “to hold himself in readiness to embark in the course of the summer." And he held this assurance when he suffered himself to be reëlected to congress, and to the office of speaker ; and when the bill passed the house, (himself in the chair,) making the appropriation for an outfit of $9,000, with an annual salary of the same amount. It was presumed, that, if this fact had been known to his constituents, they would not have elected him.

Some senators found an additional objection in the unprecedented

extent to which the practice had been carried of appointing members of congress to office. Thirty-eight—thirteen senators and twenty-five representatives, including Mr. Stevenson-holding, or having within a year held, these offices, had received appointments during the first five years of the administration ; a number nearly equal, it was said, to that of similar appointments under all preceding administrations: a practice, too, which he had himself condemned as tending to corruption. (See letter to Tennessee legislature.]

In explanation of this affair, the president, in his message communicating the correspondence, stated, that the appointment had been made upon the contingency of the consent of Great Britain to open a negotiation in London, which was afterward commenced at Washington. What the negotiation was, or whether there was any motive for the appointment in 1834 which did not exist in 1833, the president did not say. In farther explanation of the transaction, the other letters above mentioned were, at the instance of Mr. Stevenson, presented to the senate. The letter of Mr. Ritchie to Mr. Stevenson was written August 15, 1834, after the message of the president with Mr. Livingston's letter had been communicated to the senate. Mr. R. says :

“I well recollect the circumstances to which you refer. When you showed me the note of Mr. Livingston, we had a great deal of conversation about it. Neither of us regarded the notice in the light of an appointment. In fact, it presented itself as a mere contingency; and we considered it extremely doubtful whether or when you would be appointed, or, if at all; for if the British declined a negotiation, it seemed to be the president's intention to make no nomination at all, not even dur. ing the ensuing session of congress. But this idea struck me, that he might appoint you in case the contingency happened during the recess, and not send you, but Mr. Livingston to France. I suggested that these appointments ought not, and could not be made according to the spirit of the constitution, during the recess of the senate. You promptly and cordially concurred in this view of the subject; and I then determined to write to a friend in Washington, for the purpose of laying this view before the president himself. You approved of my doing so; and, in fact, we agreed perfectly in the course that ought to be taken. We determined to take no notice of Mr. Livingston's letter, to act yourself as if no such letter had been written ; that it would be best not to offer to accept the appointment if made in the summer, and to await the action of the senate, &c., &c.”

The "friend in Washington" to whom Mr. Ritchie wrote, was Wil. liam B. Lewis, who, on the 21st of June, 1834, communicated to Mr. Stevenson extracts of two letters received from Mr. Ritchie in 1833, in