CHAPTER was absent, and the two Maryland Federalists, Craik XV. and Baer, put in blank ballots, thus giving two more

eight that had

1801. states to Jefferson, which, added to the always voted for him, made a majority. The vice-presidency, of course, devolved on Burr. Committees were appointed to inform the Senate and the president elect. To this notification Jefferson made a short reply, in which his satisfaction at the result and his entire devotion to the proper discharge of his important trust were emphatically expressed.

The obnoxious Sedition Act would expire, by its own Jan. 26. limitation, at the close of the present Congress.

A bill,

ordered to be brought in by the casting vote of the speak er, for continuing that law in force, would seem to prove that its friends had been influenced in its original enactment by other motives than a mere desire to silence their opponents. Fortunately, however, for the Federalists, Feb. 21. this bill failed, on its third reading, by a considerable majority. Even the first section of it, aimed against combinations to impede the execution of the laws, however theoretically unexceptionable, might have proved, in the hands of a violent and tyrannical government, backed by an unscrupulous majority, and in the case of unjust laws, a terrible instrument of tyranny.

Feb. 27.

The District of Columbia, erected into two counties, as divided by the Potomac, was placed under the jurisdiction of a circuit court, composed of a chief justice. and two assessors; the judgment of this court to be final in criminal cases, but in civil cases, where the amount in dispute exceeded one hundred dollars in valuesince increased to one thousand dollars a writ of error to lie to the Supreme Court of the United States. By a subsequent enactment, the chief justice of the Circuit Court was made sole judge of the District Court, hav

XV.

ing a jurisdiction like that of the other Federal Dis- CHAPTER trict Courts. All matters relating to probate of wills, administration of intestate estates, and guardianships, 1801. were made cognizable in the first instance by an Orphan's Court, composed of a single judge, with a registrar. Justices of the peace were to be appointed at the discretion of the president. Instead of providing a homogeneous code for the district, the laws of Maryland and Virginia, as they stood at that moment, were continued in force on the north and south sides of the Potomac respectively.

As there was now every prospect of a peace with France, there seemed no longer the same necessity for keeping so many public vessels afloat. Several of those vessels, purchased for immediate use or built of unseasoned materials, were hardly proper for the service, and, upon the recommendation of the Secretary of the Navy, the president was authorized to sell all of them except March 3. thirteen of the largest and best, six of which were to be kept constantly in commission. All the officers were to be discharged except nine captains, thirty-six lieutenants, and a hundred and fifty midshipmen; and those retained were to receive only half pay except when in active service. It appeared from the report of the Secretary of the Navy that materials had been collected for the construction of the six seventy-fours, and grounds purchased or contracted for on which to build them-the sites of the present navy yards at Portsmouth, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Norfolk. The secretary pressed with great earnestness the policy of annual appropriations toward a naval force of twelve seventy-fours and twice as many heavy frigates; or, at least, of providing the materials, so that the vessels might be set up at any time. The Navy Bill, as passed, appropriated

CHAPTER half a million toward the completion of the six seventyfours.

XV.

1801. A collision in the course of the session between the speaker and the reporters of Congressional debates is not unworthy of notice. At the first session of Congress, held in New York, reporters had been admitted to the floor of the House, and the debates had not only been published from day to day in the newspapers, but, at the close of the session, were collected in two octavo volumes, called the Congressional Register. These reports, however, had failed to give entire satisfaction to all the members. They had been vehemently attacked as full of misrepresentations, distortions, and omissions, by Burke of South Carolina, who had proposed to withdraw from the reporters the privilege of the floor. Though not pressed to a vote, the reporters, in consequence of this motion, retired to the gallery. The resumption of this question of reports resulted at the next session in the tacit admission of a discretionary power in the speaker to admit to the floor or the galleries such stenographers as he might think proper. The Congressional Register did not reach beyond a third volume, breaking down in the middle of the second session of the first Congress. After the removal of Congress to Philadelphia, the country was mainly indebted for reports of Congressional proceedings to the enterprise of Mr. Brown, the publisher of the Philadelphia Gazette, who employed a stenographer or two for that purpose, and from whose columns the other papers mostly copied, though the more important speeches then, as now, were frequently written out by the speakThe Aurora also gave occasional reports of its own. In 1796, a scheme was brought forward to employ a reporter as an officer of the House, at a salary of $4000, of which Brown offered to pay a part; but this was

ers.

thought exorbitant, and was not carried.

After the re- CHAPTER

moval to Washington, application was made to the speak

Per

XV.

er by two reporters for seats on the floor, which he re- 1801. fused on the plea that no such seats could be assigned consistently with the convenience of the House. haps, however, the fact that one of these applicants was editor of the National Intelligencer, and that the reports of both were intended for that new organ of the opposi tion, might have influenced Sedgwick's decision. The reporters then applied to the House by memorial; but the speaker's decision was sustained by his own casting vote, and they were obliged to accommodate themselves in the area outside the bar. Not long after, the editor of the Intelligencer took the opportunity to report some proceedings on a question of order in a way not very complimentary to Sedgwick's knowledge or fairness. The speaker denounced this report from his place as grossly incorrect; but the Intelligencer, notwithstanding, still insisted on its correctness; in consequence of which, the speaker instructed the sergeant-at-arms to expel the editor of that paper first from the area outside the bar, and then from the gallery, to which he had retired. Though the same course had been taken with Duane, in 1797, for alleged misrepresentations which he refused to retract, it was brought before the House as a usurpation of authority. It was contended that the speaker had no right to exclude any citizen from the gallery except for disorderly conduct, and a vote of censure was moved. But this motion was decided to be out of order, and so was got rid of. Gallatin then moved an amendment to the rules, the effect of which would have been to restore the reporter to the gallery, and to deprive the speaker of the power to remove him; but upon this motion, also, a direct vote was avoided, and it received the go-by by

XV.

CHAPTER means of the previous question. On the subject of giv. ing publicity to the proceedings of Congress and affording 1801. facilities to reporters, the opposition, for obvious reasons, had always taken the liberal side.

The sixth Congress terminated, late at night, on the March 4. third of March. Early the next morning, without waiting to attend the inauguration of his successor, ex-President Adams left Washington for his residence in Massachusetts, carrying with him, as the only acknowledgment of his past services, the privilege granted to Washington on his retirement from office, and afterward to his widow, and bestowed, likewise, on all subsequent ex-presidents and their widows, of receiving his letters free of postage for the remainder of his life. This abrupt departure, and the strict non-intercourse kept up for thirteen years between Adams and Jefferson, notwithstanding some advances, then and subsequently, on Jefferson's part, till finally the parties were reconciled by the intervention of Dr. Rush, and their common sympathy as to the second war against Great Britain, indicates, on the part of Adams, a sense of personal wrong, of the exact nature of which we possess at present no means of judging, except from the charge brought against Jefferson in Adams's confidential correspondence (1804), of "a mean thirst of popularity, an inordinate ambition, and a want of sincerity."

The ex-president retired to Braintree in a state of mind little to be envied. Delighting as he did in distinction, and anxious for leadership and applause, had he still remained the head and champion of the Federalists, his proud spirit might have borne up with equanimity, if not with exultation, against the hatred of the opposition, the taunts and shouts of triumph with which they greeted his retirement, and the personal responsibility