would agree to such an exception for a limited pe- CHAPTER riod." XII. No full report of this debate has been preserved. It 1798. would appear, however, that Varnum and Gallatin said something in favor of Thatcher's amendment, while Giles and Nicholas, with Gordon of New Hampshire, opposed it. Only twelve votes were given in its favor. A large majority of the opposition were themselves slaveholders, while the Federal representatives of the North did not wish to offend their few confederates from Maryland and South Carolina, or to do any thing to add to the prejudices already so generally entertained in the South against the Federal party. Yet Thatcher's opposition to the further spread of slavery was not entirely without fruits. A day or two March 26 after, Harper offered an amendment which was carried without opposition, prohibiting the introduction into the new Mississippi Territory of slaves from without the limits of the United States. Notwithstanding a provision in the act that nothing in it should operate in derogation of the rights of Georgia, a vehement opposition was made by the representatives from that state to the erection of the new territory, unless the bill contained a provision that the consent of Georgia should first be obtained. To this it was answered that the State of Georgia had never been in possession of this territory; that it had remained under the Spanish government until recently ceded; that the right of the United States to it was clear, and that, whether clear or not, it was their duty to retain possession of it till the question of title was disposed of, and distant, and unprotected, and surrounded by Indian tribes as the settlements were, to provide for them, in the mean time, an efficient government; views which the House CHAPTER sustained by a vote of forty-six to thirty-four. This case, XII. it will be seen, had a very direct bearing on the question 1798. a short time since (1850) so violently agitated, of the erection of the Territory of New Mexico, notwithstanding the claims of Texas; yet so inaccessibly wrapped up in records, pamphlets, and newspapers has the history of this period hitherto been, that this case, so exactly in point, was never referred to in that whole discussion. Much of the earlier part of the session was devoted to the consideration of private matters, mostly Revolutionary claims, which had come by degrees to constitute a formidable part of the business of the House. An act was passed authorizing grants of land to the refugees from Canada and Nova Scotia who had joined and adhered to the American cause during the Revolution. At a former session, in spite of a violent opposition, based on the alleged want of power in Congress for that purpose, a sum of money had been granted to the daughters of the Count de Grasse, reduced to poverty by the death of their father, who had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror. That sum had been exhausted, and a new act was now passed, in further acknowledgment of De Grasse's Revolutionary services, granting to his four daughters an annual pension for the next five years of $400 each. Numbers of banished Frenchmen continued to arrive in America, among whom, at this time, were the young Duke of Orleans, afterward Louis Philippe, king of the French, and his two younger brothers. The joy was great in America at hearing of the release of Lafayette from the Austrian dungeon in which he had so long been confined. By way of pecuniary relief to his family, Congress had already appropriated to their use the full amount of his pay as a major general in the American service. XII. The bill making provision for foreign intercourse be- CHAPTER came a sort of party test, and many speeches were made upon it. The opposition maintained that the regulation 1798. of this matter ought to be with Congress and not with the president, and instead of voting a gross sum as heretofore, they wished to limit the number of missions, and to make a specific appropriation for each. Much time was consumed in the business of Senator Blount's impeachment, which was protracted through the whole session without being brought to any point. Every obstacle was placed in the way of it by the opposition, who were not a little alarmed at the idea of the impeachment of members of Congress, for which, as they alleged, the Constitution gave no authority. During the balloting for managers of this impeachment, a scandalous breach of decorum occurred, the first Jan. 30. ever witnessed in Congress. The speaker, having left the chair, had taken a seat next the bar; Griswold and others were seated near; many members, as is usual on such occasions, being out of their proper seats. Standing outside the bar, and leaning upon it, Lyon commenced a conversation with the speaker in a loud tone, as if he desired to attract the attention of those about him, with respect to the Connecticut members, and particularly in reference to the Foreign Intercourse Bill, which just before had been under discussion. Those members, he said, acted in opposition to the opinions and wishes of nine tenths of their constituents. As to their allegation in support of salaries of $9000 to the ministers abroad, that nobody would accept for less-that was false. They were all of them ready to accept any office, were the salary great or small. He knew the people of Connecticut, and that they were capable of hearing reason, having had occasion to fight them sometimes in his CHAPTER OWN district when they came to visit their relations. XII. "Did you fight them with your wooden sword ?" asked 1798. Griswold, in jocular allusion to Lyon's having been cashiered, and to a story which had got into the newspapers since his display of himself at the previous session, that he had been drummed out of the army on that occasion, and compelled to wear a wooden sword. Some other jocular remarks, made by the by-standers, had been received by Lyon in good part; Griswold's taunt either failed to reach his ear, or he affected not to hear it, for, without noticing it in the least, he went on in the same strain as before, declaring that, blinded and deceived as the people of Connecticut were, if he could only go into the state and manage a paper there for six months, he could open their eyes and turn out all the present representatives. Griswold, meanwhile leaving the seat he had occupied, had taken a place beside Lyon, outside the bar. In reply to this last sally, laying his hand on Lyon's arm as if to attract his attention, he remarked, with a smile, "You could not change the opinion of the meanest hostler in the state!" Lyon replied that he knew better; that he could effect a revolution in a few months, and that he had serious thoughts of moving into the state and fighting them on their own ground. "If you go, Mr. Lyon, I suppose you will wear your wooden sword!" so Griswold retorted, at which Lyon turned suddenly about and spat in his face. Griswold drew back as if to strike a blow, but, upon the interference of one or two of his friends, restrained himself and remained quiet. The speaker instantly resumed the chair, and, after a short statement of the foregoing facts, Sewall submitted a motion for Lyon's expulsion. This was referred to a committee of privileges, another resolution being meanwhile adopted, that if either party offered any XII. violence to the other before a final decision, he should be CHAPTER held guilty of a high breach of privilege. Lyon the next day sent a letter to the speaker, in 1798. which he stated, that if he were chargeable with a disre- Feb. 1. gard of the rules of the House, it had grown wholly out of his ignorance of their extent, and that, if he had been mistaken on that point, he was sorry to deserve censure. This letter was also referred to the Committee of Privileges, who reported, the day after, a statement of Feb. 2. facts, and along with it a resolution for Lyon's expul sion. To the passage of this resolution Lyon's Democratic friends made a most obstinate resistance. It was only by forty-nine votes to forty-four that the House consented to go into committee on the subject; and not con- Feb. 5. tent with the statement reported, it was insisted that the witnesses should again give their testimony before the Committee of the Whole. Lyon put in for the consideration of that committee another long statement, in which he threw upon the other officers, particularly the one in command, the blame of the desertion of the post for which he had been cashiered. He repeated the samé thing in a speech against the resolution; but in defending his conduct he made use of a very vulgar and indecent expression, which itself, on Harper's motion, and by the casting vote of the speaker, was referred to the same Committee of the Whole as a new and separate offense. Among the witnesses who had given testimony as to the fact of Lyon's having been cashiered, and his patience at home under allusions to it, was Chipman, the new Vermont senator. By way of rebuttal, Lyon stated in his speech that he had once chastised Chipman for an insult; a statement which drew out from Chipman, in a letter addressed to the House, a full account of the affair referred to, placing Lyon in a most ridiculous light. |