Chapter CXVIII (2)

"Mr. W. said he felt bound to dwell, for a moment, upon this
point. What was the value of an obligation to negotiate 'at a
convenient time?' Was it any thing to be valued? The 'convenient
time' might never arrive, or if it did arrive, and negotiations
were opened, were not the government as much at liberty as in
any other case of negotiation, to refuse propositions which were
deemed disadvantageous to itself? The treaties were suspended,
and could not be revived without the consent of the United
States; and, of consequence, the 'onerous obligations' comprised
in certain articles of these treaties were also suspended until
the same consent should revive them. Could he, then, be mistaken
in the conclusion that, if the treaty of 1800 had been ratified
with the second article forming a part of it, as originally
agreed by the negotiators, the United States would have been as
effectually released from the onerous obligations of the former
treaties, until those obligations should again be put in force
by their consent, as they were released when that article was
stricken out, and the treaty ratified without it? In short,
could he be mistaken in the position that all the inducement, of
a national character, to expunge that article from the treaty,
was to get rid of an obligation to negotiate 'at a convenient
time?' And could it be possible that such an inducement would
have led the Senate of the United States, understanding this
consequence, to impose upon the government a liability to
the amount of $5,000,000? He could not adopt so absurd a
supposition; and he felt himself compelled to say that this view
of the action of the government in the ratification of the
treaty of 1800, in his mind, put an end to the pretence that the
striking out of this article relieved the United States from
obligations so onerous as to form a valuable consideration for
the payments provided for in this bill. He could not view the
obligation released--a mere obligation to negotiate--as onerous
at all, or as forming any consideration whatever for a pecuniary
liability, much less for a liability for millions.

"Mr. W. said he now proposed to consider whether the effect
of expunging the second article of the treaty of 1800 was to
release any claim of value--any claim which France had ever
acknowledged, or ever intended to pay. He had before shown, by
extracts from the fourth and fifth articles of the treaty of
1800, that certain classes of claims were saved by that treaty,
as it was ratified. The claims so reserved and provided for were
paid in pursuance of provisions contained in the treaty between
France and the United States, of the 30th of April, 1803; and to
determine what claims were thus paid, a reference to some of the
articles of that treaty was necessary. The purchase of Louisiana
was made by the United States for the sum of 80,000,000 of
francs, 60,000,000 of which were to be paid into the French
treasury, and the remaining 20,000,000 were to be applied to
the payment of these claims. Three separate treaties were made
between the parties, bearing all the same date, the first
providing for the cession of the territory, the second for the
payment of the 60,000,000 of francs to the French treasury, and
the third for the adjustment and payment of the claims.

"Mr. W. said the references proposed were to the last-named
treaty, and were the following:

"'_Art._ 1. The debts due by France to citizens of the United
States, contracted before the 8th of Vendemiaire, ninth year
of the French Republic (30th September, 1800), shall be paid
according to the following regulations, with interest at six
per cent., to commence from the period when the accounts and
vouchers were presented to the French government.'

"'_Art._ 2. The debts provided for by the preceding article
are those whose result is comprised in the conjectural note
annexed to the present convention, and which, with the interest,
cannot exceed the sum of twenty millions of francs. The claims
comprised in the said note, which fall within the exceptions of
the following articles, shall not be admitted to the benefit of
this provision.'

"'_Art._ 4. It is expressly agreed that the preceding articles
shall comprehend no debts but such as are due to citizens of the
United States, who have been and are yet creditors of France,
for supplies, for embargoes, and prizes made at sea, in which
the appeal has been properly lodged within the time mentioned
in the said convention of the 8th Vendemiaire, ninth year (30th
September, 1800).'

"'_Art._ 5. The preceding articles shall apply only, 1st, to
captures of which the council of prizes shall have ordered
restitution, it being well understood that the claimant cannot
have recourse to the United States otherwise than he might have
had to the government of the French Republic, and only in case
of the insufficiency of the captors; 2d, the debts mentioned
in the said fifth article of the convention, contracted before
the 8th Vendemiaire, and 9 (30th September, 1800), the payment
of which has been heretofore claimed of the actual government
of France, and for which the creditors have a right to the
protection of the United States; the said fifth article does
not comprehend prizes whose condemnation has been or shall
be confirmed; it is the express intention of the contracting
parties not to extend the benefit of the present convention to
reclamations of American citizens, who shall have established
houses of commerce in France, England, or other countries than
the United States, in partnership with foreigners, and who
by that reason and the nature of their commerce, ought to be
regarded as domiciliated in the places where such houses exist.
All agreements and bargains concerning merchandise, which shall
not be the property of American citizens, are equally excepted
from the benefit of the said convention, saving, however, to
such persons their claims in like manner as if this treaty had
not been made.

"From these provisions of the treaty, Mr. W. said, it would
appear that the claims to be paid were of three descriptions, to
wit:

"1. Claims for supplies.

"2. Claims for embargoes.

"3. Claims for captures made at sea, of a description defined
in the last clause of the 4th and the first clause of the 5th
article.

"How far these claims embraced all which France ever
acknowledged, or ever intended to pay, Mr. W. said he was unable
to say, as the time allowed him to examine the case had not
permitted him to look sufficiently into the documents to make
up his mind with precision upon this point. He had found, in a
report made to the Senate on the 14th of January, 1831, in favor
of this bill, by the honorable Mr. Livingston, then a Senator
from the State of Louisiana, the following Classification of the
French claims, as insisted on at a period before the making of
the treaty of 1800, to wit:

"'1. From the capture and detention of about fifty vessels.

"'2. The detention, for a year, of eighty other vessels, under
the Bordeaux embargo.

"'3. The non-payment of supplies to the West India islands, and
to continental France.

"'4. For depredations committed on our commerce in the West
Indies.

"Mr. W. said the comparison of the two classifications of
claims would show, at a single view, that Nos. 2 and 3 in Mr.
Livingston's list were provided for by the treaty of 1803, from
which he had read. Whether any, and if any, what portions of
Nos. 1 and 4 in Mr. Livingston's list were embraced in No 3 of
the provisions of the treaty, as he had numbered them he was
unable to say; but this much he could say, that he had found
nothing to satisfy his mind that parts of both those classes
of claims were not so included, and therefore provided for and
paid under the treaty; nor had he been able to find any thing to
show that this treaty of 1803 did not provide for and pay all
the claims which France ever acknowledged or ever intended to
pay. He was, therefore, unprepared to admit, and did not admit,
that any thing of value to any class of individual claimants
was released by expunging the second original article from
the treaty of the 30th September, 1800. On the contrary, he
was strongly impressed with the belief that the adjustment of
claims provided for in the treaty of 1803 had gone to the whole
extent to which the French government had, at any period of the
negotiations, intended to go.

"Mr. W. said this impression was greatly strengthened by the
circumstance that the claims under the Bordeaux embargo were
expressly provided for in this treaty, while he could see
nothing in the treaty of 1800 which seemed to him to authorize
the supposition that this class of claims was more clearly
embraced within the reservations in that treaty than any class
which had been admitted by the French government.

"Another fact, Mr. W. said, was material to this subject, and
should be borne carefully in mind by every senator. It was, that
not a cent was paid by France, even upon the claims reserved
and admitted by the treaty of 1800, until the sale of Louisiana
to the United States, for a sum greater by thirty millions of
francs than that for which the French minister was instructed
to sell it. Yes, Mr. President, said Mr. W., the only payment
yet made upon any portion of these claims has been virtually
made by the United States; for it has been made out of the
consideration money paid for Louisiana, after paying into the
French treasury ten millions of francs beyond the price France
herself placed upon the territory. It is a singular fact that
the French negotiator was instructed to make the sale for fifty
millions, if he could get no more; and when he found that, by
yielding twenty millions to pay the claims, he could get eighty
millions for the territory, and thus put ten millions more into
the treasury of his nation than she had instructed him to ask
for the whole, he yielded to the claims and closed the treaty.
It was safe to say that, but for this speculation in the sale
of Louisiana, not one dollar would have been paid upon the
claims to this day. All our subsequent negotiations with France
of a similar character, and our present relations with that
country, growing out of private claims, justify this position.
What, then, would have been the value of claims, if such fairly
existed, which were not acknowledged and provided for by the
treaty of 1800, but were left for future negotiation 'at a
convenient time?' Would they have been worth the five millions
of dollars you propose to appropriate by this bill? Would they
have been worth further negotiation? He thought they would not.

"Mr. W. said he would avail himself of this occasion, when
speaking of the treaty of Louisiana and of its connection with
these claims, to explain a mistake into which he had fallen, and
which he found from conversation with several gentlemen, who
had been for some years members of Congress, had been common to
them and to himself. The mistake to which he alluded was, the
supposition that the claimants under this bill put their case
upon the assumption that their claims had constituted part of
the consideration for which Louisiana had been ceded to the
United States; and that the consideration they contended the
government had received, and upon which its liability rested,
was the cession of that territory for a less sum, in money, than
was considered to be its value, on account of the release of
the French government from those private claims. He had rested
under this misapprehension until the opening of the present
debate, and until he commenced an examination of the case. He
then found that it was an entire misapprehension; that the
United States had paid, in money, for Louisiana, thirty millions
of francs beyond the price which France had set upon it; that
the claimants under this bill did not rest their claims at all
upon this basis, and that the friends of the bill in the Senate
did not pretend to derive the liability of the government from
this source. Mr. W. said he was induced to make this explanation
in justice to himself, and because there might be some person
within the hearing of his voice who might still be under the
same misapprehension.

"He had now, Mr. W. said, attempted to establish the following
propositions, viz.:

"1. That a state of actual war, by which he meant a state of
actual hostilities and of force, and an interruption of all
diplomatic or friendly intercourse between the United States and
France, had existed from the time of the passage of the acts
of the 7th and 9th of July, 1798, before referred to, until
the sending of the negotiators, Ellsworth, Davie, and Murray,
in 1800, to make a treaty which put an end to the hostilities
existing, upon the best terms that could be obtained; and
that the treaty of the 30th of September, 1800, concluded by
these negotiators, was, in fact, and so far as private claims
were concerned, to be considered as a treaty of peace, and
to conclude all such claims, not reserved by it, as finally
ratified by the two powers.

"2. That the treaty of amity and commerce, and the treaty of
alliance of 1778, as well as the consular convention of 1788,
were suspended by the 2d article of the treaty of 1800, and
from that time became mere matters for negotiation between the
parties at a convenient time; that, therefore, the desire to
get rid of these treaties, and of any 'onerous obligations'
contained in them, was only the desire to get rid of an
obligation to negotiate 'at a convenient time;' and that such a
consideration could not have induced the Senate of the United
States to expunge that article from the treaty, if thereby that
body had supposed it was imposing upon the country a liability
to pay to its citizens the sum of five millions of dollars--a
sum much larger than France had asked, in money, for a full
discharge from the 'onerous obligations' relied upon.

"3. That the treaty of 1800 reserved and provided for certain
portions of the claims; that payment, according to such
reservations, was made under the treaty of 1803; and that it is
at least doubtful whether the payment thus made did not cover
all the claims ever admitted, or ever intended to be paid by
France; for which reason the expunging of the second article of
the treaty of 1800, by the Senate of the United States, in all
probability, released nothing which ever had, or which was ever
likely to have value.

"Mr. W. said, if he had been successful in establishing either
of these positions, there was an end of the claims, and, by
consequence, a defeat of the bill.

"The advocates of the bill conceded that two positions must be
established, on their part, to sustain it, to wit:

"1. That the claims were valid claims against France, and had
never been paid. And

"2. That they were released by the government of the United
States for a full and valuable consideration passing to its
benefit by means of the release.

"If, then, a state of war had existed, it would not be contended
that any claims of this character, not reserved or provided
for in the treaty of peace, were valid claims after the
ratification of such a treaty. His first proposition, therefore,
if sustained, would defeat the bill, by establishing the fact
that the claims, if not reserved in the treaty of 1800, were not
valid claims.

"The second proposition, if sustained, would establish the
fact that, inasmuch as the valuable consideration passing to
the United States was alleged to grow out of the 'onerous
obligations' in the treaty of amity and commerce, the treaty
of alliance, and the consular convention; and inasmuch as
these treaties, and all obligations, past, present, or future,
'onerous' or otherwise, growing out of them, were suspended
and made inoperative by the second article of the treaty of
the 30th of September, 1800, until further negotiation, by the
common consent of both powers, should revive them, the Senate of
the United States could not have expected, when they expunged
this article from the treaty, that, by thus discharging the
government from an obligation to negotiate 'at a convenient
time,' they were incurring against it a liability of millions;
in other words, the discharge of the government from an
obligation to negotiate upon any subject 'at a convenient time,'
could not have been considered by the Senate of the United
States as a good and valuable consideration for the payment of
private claims to the amount of five millions of dollars.

"The third proposition, if sustained, would prove that all the
claims ever acknowledged, or ever intended to be paid by France,
were paid under the treaty of 1803, and that, therefore, as
claims never admitted or recognized by France would scarcely be
urged as valid claims against her, no valid claims remained;
and, consequently, the expunging of the second article of the
treaty of the 30th of September, 1800, released nothing which
was valid, and nothing remained to be paid by the United States
as a liability incurred by that modification of that treaty.
Here Mr. W. said he would rest his reasoning as to these three
propositions.

"But if the Senate should determine that he had been wrong in
them all, and had failed to sustain either, he had still another
proposition, which he considered conclusive and unanswerable, as
to any valuable consideration for the release of these claims
having passed to the United States in consequence of their
discharge from the 'onerous obligations' said to have been
contained in the former treaties. These 'onerous obligations,'
and the only ones of which he had heard any thing in the course
of the debate, or of which he had found any thing in the
documents, arose under the 17th article of the treaty of amity
and commerce, and the 11th article of the treaty of alliance;
and, in relation to both, he laid down this broad proposition,
which would be fully sustained by the treaties themselves, and
by every act and every expression on the part of the American
negotiators, and the government of the United States, viz.:

"'The obligations, liabilities, and responsibilities, imposed
upon the government of the United States and upon France by the
17th article of the treaty of amity and commerce of 1778, and
by the 11th article of the treaty of alliance of 1778, where
mutual, reciprocal, and equal: each formed the consideration,
and the only consideration, for the other; and, therefore, any
release which discharged both powers from those liabilities,
responsibilities, and obligations, must have been mutual,
reciprocal, and equal; and the release of either must have
formed a full and valuable consideration for the release of the
other.'

"Mr. W. said he would not trouble the Senate by again reading
the articles from the respective treaties. They would be
recollected, and no one would controvert the fact that, when
the treaties were made, these articles were intended to contain
mutual, reciprocal, and equal obligations. By the first we
gave to France the liberty of our ports for her armed vessels,
privateers, and prizes, and prohibited all other powers from
the enjoyment of the same privilege; and France gave to us the
liberty of her ports for our armed vessels, privateers, and
prizes, and guarded the privilege by the same prohibition to
other powers; and by the second we guaranteed to France, for
ever, her possessions in America, and France guaranteed to us,
for ever, 'our liberty, sovereignty, and independence, absolute
and unlimited, as well in matters of government as commerce.'
Such were the obligations in their original inception. Will
it be contended that they were not mutual, reciprocal, and
equal, and that, in each instance, the one did not form the
consideration for the other? Surely no one will take this ground.

"If, then, said Mr. W., the obligations imposed upon each
government by these articles of the respective treaties were
mutual, reciprocal, and equal, when undertaken, they must have
remained equal until abrogated by war, or changed by treaty
stipulation. No treaty, subsequent to those which contain the
obligations, had affected them in any manner whatever. If, as
he had attempted to show, war had existed from July, 1778, to
1800, that would not have rendered the obligations unequal,
but would have abrogated them altogether. If, as the friends
of the bill contend, there had been no war, and the treaties
were in full force up to the signing of the convention of the
30th of September, 1800, what was the effect of that treaty,
as originally signed by the negotiators, upon these mutual,
reciprocal, and equal obligations? The second original article
of that treaty will answer. It did not attempt to disturb their
mutuality, reciprocity, or equality, but suspended them as they
were, past, present, or future, and made all the subject of
future negotiation 'at a convenient time.'

"But, Mr. W. said, the Senate of the United States expunged
this article of the treaty of 1800, and refused to advise and
consent to ratify it as a part of the treaty; and hence it was
contended the United States had discharged themselves from
the 'onerous obligations' of these articles in the respective
treaties, and had, by that act, incurred, to the claimants
under this bill, the heavy liability which it recognizes. If
the expunging of that article discharged the United States from
obligations thus onerous, did it not discharge France from
the fellow obligations? Was not the discharge, made in that
manner, as mutual, reciprocal, and equal, as the obligations
in their inception, and in all their subsequent stages up to
that act? How, then, could it be contended that the discharge
of the one was not a full and adequate consideration for the
discharge of the other? Nothing upon the face of the treaties
authorized the introduction of this inequality at this step
in the official proceedings. Nothing in the record of the
proceedings of the Senate, when acting upon the article,
indicates that they intended to pay five millions of dollars to
render this mutual release equal between the two powers. The
obligations and responsibilities were reserved as subjects of
future negotiation, upon terms of equality, and the striking out
of that reservation was but a mutual and reciprocal and equal
release from the obligation further to negotiate. This much for
the reciprocity of these obligations as derived from the action
of the sovereign powers themselves.

"What was to be learned from the action of their respective
negotiators? He did not doubt but that attempts had been
made on the part of France to exhibit an inequality in the
obligations under the treaty, and to set up that inequality
against the claims of our citizens; but had our negotiators
ever admitted the inequality to exist, or ever attempted to
compromise the rights of the claimants under this bill for
such a consideration? He could not find that they had. He did
not hear it contended that they had: and, from the evidence of
their acts, remaining upon record, as a part of the diplomatic
correspondence of the period, he could not suppose they had ever
entertained the idea. He had said that the American negotiators
had always treated these obligations as mutual, reciprocal, and
equal; and he now proposed to read to the Senate a part of a
letter from Messrs. Ellsworth, Davie, and Murray, addressed to
the French negotiators, and containing the project of a treaty,
to justify his assertion. The letter was dated 20th August,
1800, and it would be recollected that its authors were the
negotiators, on the part of the United States, of the treaty of
the 30th of September, 1800. The extract is as follows:

"'1. Let it be declared that the former treaties are renewed
and confirmed, and shall have the same effect as if no
misunderstanding between the two powers had intervened, except
so far as they are derogated from by the present treaty.

"'2. It shall be optional with either party to pay to the
other, within seven years, three millions of francs, in money
or securities which may be issued for indemnities, and thereby
to reduce the rights of the other as to privateers and prizes,
to those of the most favored nation, And during the said term
allowed for option, the right of both parties shall be limited
by the line of the most favored nation.

"'3. The mutual guaranty in the treaty of alliance shall be so
specified and limited, that its future obligation shall be, on
the part of France, when the United States shall be attacked,
to furnish and deliver at her own ports military stores to
the amount of one million of francs; and, on the part of the
United States, when the French possessions in America, in any
future war, shall be attacked, to furnish and deliver at their
own ports a like amount in provisions. It shall, moreover, be
optional for either party to exonerate itself wholly of its
obligation, by paying to the other, within seven years, a gross
sum of five millions of francs, in money or such securities as
may be issued for indemnities.'

"Mr. W. asked if he needed further proofs that not only the
American government, but the American negotiators, treated
these obligations under the treaty as, in all respects, mutual,
reciprocal, and equal; and if the fallacy of the argument
that the United States had obtained to itself a valuable
consideration for the release of these private claims in the
release of itself from these obligations, was not utterly and
entirely disproved by these facts? Was not the release of the
obligations on the one side the release of them on the other?
And was not the one release the necessary consideration for the
other? How, then, could it be said, with any justice, that we
sought our release at the expense of the claimants? There was no
reasonable ground for such an allegation, either from the acts
of our government or of our negotiators. When the latter fixed
a value upon our obligations as to the privateers and prizes,
and as to the guaranty, in the same article they fixed the same
price, to a franc, upon the reciprocal obligations of France;
and when the former discharged our liability, by expunging the
second article of the treaty of 1800, the same act discharged
the corresponding liability of the French government.

"Here, then, Mr. W. said, must end all pretence of a valuable
consideration for these claims passing to the United States from
this source. The onerous obligations were mutual, reciprocal,
and equal, and the respective releases were mutual, reciprocal,
and equal, and simultaneous, and nothing could be fairly drawn
from the act which operated these mutual releases to benefit
these claimants.

"Mr. W. said he was, then, necessarily brought back to the
proposition with which he started in the commencement of his
argument, that, if the United States were liable to pay these
claimants, that liability must rest upon the broad ground of
a failure by the government, after ordinary, and, in this
instance, extraordinary efforts to collect the money. The idea
of a release of the claims for a valuable consideration passing
to the government had been exploded, and, if a liability was to
be claimed on account of a failure to collect the money, upon
what ground did it rest? What had the government done to protect
the rights of these claimants? It had negotiated from 1793 to
1798, with a vigilance and zeal and talent almost unprecedented
in the history of diplomacy. It had sent to France minister
after minister, and, upon several occasions, extraordinary
missions composed of several individuals. Between 1798 and 1800,
it had equipped fleets and armies, expended millions in warlike
preparation, and finally sent forth its citizens to battle and
death, to force the payment of the claims. Were we now to be
told, that our failure in these efforts had created a liability
against us to pay the money? That the same citizens who had been
taxed to pay the expenses of these long negotiations, and of
this war for the claims, were to be further taxed to pay such of
the claims as we had failed to collect? He could never consent
to such a deduction from such premises.

"But, Mr. President, said Mr. W., there is another view of
this subject, placed upon this basis, which renders this bill
of trifling importance in the comparison. If the failure to
collect these claims has created the liability to pay them,
that liability goes to the extent of the claims proved, and the
interest upon them, not to a partial, and perhaps trifling,
dividend. Who, then, would undertake to say what amount of
claims might not be proved during the state of things he had
described, from the breaking out of the war between France and
England, in 1793, to the execution of the treaty, in 1800? For
a great portion of the period, the municipal regulations of
France required the captured cargoes to be not confiscated, but
paid for at the market value at the port to which the vessel was
destined. Still the capture would be proved, the value of the
cargo ascertained, before the commission which the bill proposes
to establish; and who would adduce the proof that the same cargo
was paid for by the French government?

"This principle, however, Mr. W. said, went much further than
the whole subject of the old French claims. It extended to all
claims for spoliations upon our commerce, since the existence of
the government, which we had failed to collect. Who could say
where the liability would end? In how many cases had claims of
this character been settled by treaty, what had been collected
in each case, and what amount remained unpaid, after the release
of the foreign government? He had made an unsuccessful effort
to answer these inquiries, so far as the files of the state
department would furnish the information, as he had found that
it could only be collected by an examination of each individual
claim; and this would impose a labor upon the department of
an unreasonable character, and would occupy more time than
remained to furnish the information for his use upon the present
occasion. He had, however, been favored by the Secretary of
State with the amounts allowed by the commissioners, the
amounts paid, and the rate of pay upon the principal, in two
recent cases, the Florida treaty, and the treaty with Denmark.
In the former instance, the payment was ninety-one and two
thirds per centum upon the principal, while in the latter it
was but thirty-one and one eighth per centum. Assume that these
two cases are the maximum and minimum of all the cases where
releases have been given for partial payments; and he begged the
Senate to reflect upon the amounts unpaid which might be called
from the national treasury, if the principle were once admitted
that a failure to collect creates a liability to pay.

"That in his assumption that a liability of this sort must go
to the whole amount of the claims, he only took the ground
contended for by the friends of this bill, he would trouble the
Senate with another extract from the report of Mr. Livingston,
from which he had before read. In speaking of the amount which
should be appropriated, Mr. Livingston says:

"'The only remaining inquiry is the amount; and on this point
the committee have had some difficulty. Two modes of measuring
the compensation suggested themselves:

"'1. The actual loss sustained by the petitioners.

"'2. The value of the advantages received, as the consideration,
by the United States.

"'The first is the one demanded by strict justice; and is the
only one that satisfies the word used by the constitution,
which requires just compensation, which cannot be said to have
been made when any thing less than the full value is given.
But there were difficulties which appeared insurmountable, to
the adoption of this rule at the present day, arising from the
multiplicity of the claims, the nature of the depredations which
occasioned them, the loss of documents, either by the lapse of
time, or the wilful destruction of them by the depredators. The
committee, therefore, could not undertake to provide a specific
relief for each of the petitioners. But they have recommended
the institution of a board, to enter into the investigation,
and apportion a sum which the committee have recommended to be
appropriated, _pro rata_, among the several claimants.'

"'The committee could not believe that the amount of
compensation to the sufferers should be calculated by the
advantages secured to the United States, because it was not,
according to their ideas, the true measure. If the property
of an individual be taken for public use, and the government
miscalculate, and find that the object to which they have
applied it has been injurious rather than beneficial, the
value of the property is still due to the owner, who ought not
to suffer for the false speculations which have been made. A
turnpike or canal may be very unproductive; but the owner of the
land which has been taken for its construction is not the less
entitled to its value. On the other hand, he can have no manner
of right to more than the value of his property, be the object
to which it has been applied ever so beneficial.'

"Here, Mr. W. said, were two proposed grounds of estimating the
extent of the liability of the government to the claimants; and
that which graduated it by the value received by the government
was distinctly rejected, while that making the amount of the
claims the measure of liability, was as distinctly asserted
to be the true and just standard. He hoped he had shown, to
the satisfaction of the Senate, that the former rule of value
received by the government would allow the claimants nothing
at all, while he was compelled to say that, upon the broad
principle that a failure to collect creates a liability to
pay, he could not controvert the correctness of the conclusion
that the liability must be commensurate with the claim. He
could controvert, he thought, successfully, the principle,
but he could not the measure of damages when the principle was
conceded. He would here conclude his remarks upon the points
he had noticed, by the earnest declaration that he believed
the passage of this bill would open more widely the doors of
the public treasury than any legislation of which he had any
knowledge, or to which Congress had ever yielded its assent.

"Mr. W. said he had a few observations to offer relative to the
mode of legislation proposed, and to the details of the bill,
and he would trouble the Senate no further.

"His first objection, under this head, was to the mode of
legislation. If the government be liable to pay these claims,
the claimants are citizens of the country, and Congress is
as accessible to them as to other claimants who have demands
against the treasury. Why were they not permitted, individually,
to apply to Congress to establish their respective claims, as
other claimants were bound to do, and to receive such relief, in
each case, as Congress, in its wisdom, should see fit to grant?
Why were these claims, more than others, grouped together,
and attempted to be made a matter of national importance?
Why was a commission to be established to ascertain their
validity, a duty in ordinary cases discharged by Congress
itself? Were the Senate sure that much of the importance given
to those claims had not proceeded from this association, and
from the formidable amount thus presented at one view? Would
any gentleman be able to convince himself that, acting upon
a single claim in this immense mass, he should have given it
his favorable consideration? For his part, he considered the
mode of legislation unusual and objectionable. His principal
objections to the details were, that the second section of the
bill prescribed the rules which should govern the commission
in deciding upon the claims, among which 'the former treaties
between the United States and France' were enumerated; and that
the bill contained no declaration that the payments made under
it were in full of the claims, or that the respective claimants
should execute a release, as a condition of receiving their
dividends.

"The first objection was predicated upon the fact that the bill
covered the whole period from the making of the treaties of
1778, to that of the 30th September, 1800, and made the former
treaties the rule of adjudication, when Congress on the 7th
July, 1798, by a deliberate legislative act, declared those
treaties void, and no longer binding upon the United States or
their citizens. It is a fact abundantly proved by the documents,
that a large portion of the claims now to be paid, arose within
the period last alluded to; and that treaties declared to be
void should be made the law in determining what were and what
were not illegal captures, during the time that they were held
to have no force, and when our citizens were authorized by
law to go upon the high seas, regardless of their provisions,
Mr. W. said, would seem to him to be an absurdity which the
Senate would not legalize. He was fully aware that the first
section of the bill purported to provide for 'valid claims to
indemnity upon the French government, arising out of illegal
captures, detentions, forcible seizures, illegal condemnations,
and confiscations;' but it could not be overlooked that illegal
captures, condemnations, and confiscations, must relate entirely
to the law which was to govern the adjudication; and if that
law was a void treaty which the claimants were not bound to
observe, and did not observe, was it not more than possible that
a capture, condemnation, or confiscation, might, by compulsion,
be adjudged illegal under the rule fixed by the bill, while that
same capture, condemnation, or confiscation, was strictly legal
under the laws which governed the commerce of the claimant when
the capture was made? He must say that it appeared clear to his
mind that the rule of adjudication upon the validity of claims
of this description, should, in all cases, be the same rule
which governed the commerce out of which the claims have arisen.

"His second objection, Mr. W. said, was made more as a wish
that a record of the intentions of the present Congress should
be preserved upon the face of the bill, than from any idea that
the provision suggested would afford the least protection to the
public treasury. Every day's legislation showed the futility of
the insertion in an act of Congress of a declaration that the
appropriation made should be in full of a claim; and in this, as
in other like cases, should this bill pass, he did not expect
that it would be, in practice, any thing more than an instalment
upon the claims which would be sustained before the commission.
The files of the state department would contain the record
evidence of the balance, with the admission of the government,
in the passage of this bill, that an equal liability remained
to pay that balance, whatever it might be. Even a release from
the respective claimants he should consider as likely to have
no other effect than to change their future applications from
a demand of legal right, which they now assume to have, to one
of equity and favor; and he was yet to see that the latter
would not be as successful as the former. He must give his vote
against the bill, whether modified in that particular or not,
and he should do so under the most full and clear conviction,
that it was a proposition fraught with greater dangers to the
public treasury, than any law which had ever yet received the
assent of Congress."