which have laid in the Supreme Court till, like an ossification in the heart of the animal body, they paralyze pulsation, and obstruct the wholesome circulation of justice, to the very extremities of the body politic. The bill proposes for this evil no other remedy than three additional judges. Can ten men do more judicial labor than seven can perform? Moral, like mechanic or mathematical truth, is discovered by induction-a kind of process at which but one mind can labor. We do not learn that either Archimedes, or Euclid, or Sir William Jones, was joined with any co-thinker adminicular to either of them, in his sublime speculations or discoveries. In money there may be copartnership; there can be none in mind. Here each one, unless a plagiarist, must trade on his own capital. Make your judges, sir, if you please, seventy-two, and, like Ptolemy, you will call on each one for a complete version. These gentlemen will tell us that, although this bill gives no relief to the Supreme Court, yet there is on the stick a little bill, No. 15, giving a perfect remedy. Yes, sir, sheets of legislation for the western States; ten lines only for the whole nation. It adds a month to the term of the Supreme Court; a month did I say? No, not so much; "not a little month;" three weeks, eighteen working days. One long maritime cause from the east, or one broad land cause from the west, will consume two days; and thus, the next year, nine more causes will be tried than will have been this year; and so the number, standing over on the docket, will truly be one hundred and seventy-one, and not one hundred and eighty. This bill proposes to increase the Supreme Court, originally six but now seven, by adding three new judges, and making the whole number ten. Can this, sir, be constitutionally done? All supreme judicial power is now lodged in the Supreme Court. What judicial power have you, then, sir, to confer on your three new judges? Circuit court power you certainly have, for all inferior courts are within your control; but all the supreme judicial power is already vested, and no part of it can be taken away. The Supreme Court is a whole, in all its parts, its properties, its extension, its relations. Have you the power to alter it? How, then, can you add to it? Or is it that wonderful entity which addition to it does not increase, or which, multiplied any number of times by itself, would continue to be the same? We shall all acknowledge, sir, that Congress cannot require, by law, the President to select a judge of the Supreme Court from any particular district or part of the United States; but Congress can create a court inferior to the Supreme Court, and among the legal qualifications of the judge, insert an inhabitancy or residence within his territorial jurisdiction. This may be the circuit court. If, sir, you then annex the office of such a circuit judge to that of a judge of the Supreme Court, you require, by law, the President to select a judge of the Supreme Court, from a limited | and designated district of the United States; that is to say, from the territorial jurisdiction of such circuit judge. The constitutional power of the Supreme Court is vested in the majority of that court; whatever shall change this relative proportion to the whole number of the number creating that majority, must change the vested power of that court, and must, for that reason, be unconstitutional; but four, the majority of six, is two-thirds of that court; whereas six, the majority of ten, is less than two-thirds of that court. Making the number of judges ten, is, therefore, altering the power of the court, vested in two-thirds thereof, and giving it to a lesser proportionate number. It may, sir, be set down as a political axiom, that, when you shall have added so many judges to the original number o. the Supreme Court, as will make a majority or constitutional quorum of that court, the judicial article of the constitution will have been expunged. Add your three new judges, it makes ten. This is four more than the original number; six is a constitutional quorum of ten: but four is a majority of that quorum, and may reverse all the decisions of the | original court. All decisions of the Supreme Court, on the constitution, on treaties, and on laws, not enacted by Congress, are beyond the control of the National Legislature: but if we can send into the Supreme Court an overruling majority, whenever the united ambition of Congress and the Executive may choose to do it, we place the constitution, and all treaties, and all constitutions and laws of all the States, in the power of two branches of the government, and thus erect ourselves into a complete tyranny; and that, too, as the advocates of the bill must contend, upon perfectly constitutional principles. Does the constitution, sir, thus place the judiciary at the good will and pleasure of the other two branches of the government? No, sir; the patriots who built, and the people who consecrated that glorions fabric, did not intend to devote their temple to the polluted oblations of legislative ambition, or the unhallowed rites of executive subserviency. The wisdom of legislation, sir, should look to the durability of her works. How long, sir, will the judiciary, as amended by the provisions of the bill, continue to subserve and satisfy the wants of the country? Some of its advocates say twenty, some fifty, and some one hundred years. Yes, sir, those gentlemen, who have, with all the force of facts, and all the resistless conclusions of reason, pressed on this House the unparalleled growth of western wealth and western population, do say that new States will not, in less than one hundred years, have been added to this Union in such a number as to require even one additional judicial circuit. Have they duly considered the various expansive principles of production and population in this country? A prescient policy should look to the future under the lights of the past. twice that period, a few scattered families have In augmented to more than ten millions of people, | tory: Adopt the system recommended by the covering eight hundred and forty-seven thou-resolution. Restore the constitution. Trace out, sand one hundred and eighteen square miles of and fill up, the great judiciary map of 1789: territory, arranged into twenty-four United revise, and correct, and establish the constituStates, and requiring ten judicial circuits. tional lines of the law of 1801. We are told, Through this whole course, the people and the sir, by the gentleman from Illinois, that the excountry seem to have multiplied and extended perience of a single year overthrew that system. in nearly a geometrical ratio. Ten millions of Was, then, the system of 1801 overthrown by people not quite five years ago; five millions of experience? As well might the honorable gencouples for heads of families; and, at this mo- tleman tell us that brick, and granite, and marment, not less than two millions five hundred ble, are improper materials for houses, and palthousand of the whole number placed in that aces, and temples; because experience has taught relation. Ordinary calculation may, under or- us, that, at some times, and in some places, earthdinary prosperity, expect to find in each family quakes have overthrown and demolished such eight children. This, will, in less than twenty buildings. "It was," says the honorable gentleyears, give to our population twenty additional man from Massachusetts, chairman of the Judimillions of people. Will not new States arise? ciary Committee, "repealed in one year in tote." Already, sir, you have three new territories. Was it because that, or the law on which it was Florida is spreading her population down to founded, was "enacted in the hurried session of the very margin of her waters, and enriching the summer of 1789?" Because it was built on her cultivation from the "cane-bearing isles of false analogies, or contained awkward provithe west." Arkansas is looking up the channel sions? That session, sir, was begun on the 4th of her long rivers, towards the mountains of of March, and ended on the 24th of September. Mexico, and will soon become rich, populous In this session of somewhat more than six and highly cultivated. The tide of migration months, those illustrious men enacted twentyis setting up the grand canal towards Michigan, seven laws, and passed three resolutions. Was and that peninsula will, in a short period, be this hurried legislation? Why, sir, many a Conlocated and peopled, from lake to lake. These gress, since that period, putting no extraordinary three, sir, in less than five years, with due vigor or hasty effort to the work, have, in less courtesy, and fair cause for admission, will time, sent into the world a legislative progeny knock at your door, and propose to sit down in of from two to three hundred laws, great and the family circle of political union. This is not little. What have we now, sir, valuable, or of all, sir. Population is travelling up the latitude, probable durability, and which was not proacross your north-western territory, towards the duced by that Congress, at that session? The great Caspian of our continent: and when they fiscal, the foreign, the war, the naval, and the shall have heard of your ships on the waters of judicial department, were then, and by those the Oregon, and of your colonies along the rich men, founded, erected, and finished. These valley of that river-as from the able report of great national edifices have stood, and I trust the gentleman from Massachusetts, whose mind will continue to stand: for, when the vandalism is capacious of such things, we may predict, they of faction shall demolish them, we shall cease will very soon hear-these people will then, sir, to be a nation. Later times, it is true, have with the rapidity of a deep sea-lead, thrown added, now and then, a piece of tiling, or a patch from the chains of a seventy-four, plunge of paint; and the nation has put itself to costs down the longitude to meet and to mingle with upon the interior garniture of them, the drapery, their countrymen on the waters of the Pacific. and other various ornament and accommodaTwenty years, sir! Are we told the system tion; but, otherwise, these valuable edifices are of the bill will accommodate and satisfy the as old, as unaltered, and quite as venerable as judicial wants of this country for twenty years? the constitution itself. "Awkward provisions In twenty years you will have ten new States, and false analogies," do we call any part of the and thirty millions of people! Why, sir, in Judiciary Act of that session? It was, sir, insuch a country-such a sun-bright region of hill dited by the Ellsworths and Hamiltons of those and vale, mountain and moor, river, plain, lake, times-men, whose political little finger was and all of boundless fertility-where population larger than the loins of politicians in these deis busy on land and on ocean; where, from the generate days. Why, sir, do not men who plough, the loom, and the soil, are continually know, tell us boldly for what cause the judidrawn the materials of food, clothing, habita- ciary law of 1801 was repealed? Men of candor, tion; where the human arteries swell and pul- and I trust, sir, such men are in great numbers sate with teeming existence; where the human here, will all agree, that party overthrew that bosom heaves and palpitates with the fostering system. Why disguise it? Those unhappy days current of incipient life-what calculation will are past, and we are indeed now all "brothers you make? What calculation can you make, of the same principle." What was not demol approximating in any reasonable degree towards ished in those inconsiderate times? The Nareality? tional Bank, the Army, the Navy, Fortifications What then, sir, the advocates of the system of the bill may ask what shall be done? The opposers of it are prepared for the interroga almost all that told the understanding, or the eye, that we are one-tumbled into ruins, in the shock of that tremendous political earth quake. Coming years brought better feelings and sounder reasonings; and men have profited | of their experience, and re-edified all that was most valuable: the Bank, the Army, the Navy, the system of fortifications; and we are again a nation. Our fortresses on the ocean and on the land, look out from many a hundred iron eyes, ready with indignation to blaze annoyance and destruction against hostile approach. Why, sir, do you not follow this enlightened experience in your judiciary? The very Turk or Tartar, though he demolish the palace and temple of classical antiquity, yet will he draw from the ruins materials for his stable and his seraglio. He who does not profit by that of others, stands in the next rank of fatuity to him who is a fool in spite of his own experience. Let us not be told, sir, that the system of the resolution will augment the judiciary expenses. What will be expended in one way, will be saved in another. A saving to the citizen is a saving to the nation. These courts will perform and finish the judiciary labor in every district, circuit, and department. It will bring justice home, "and that right early," to those who are now compelled to travel for it; to wait for it; and to lavish their subsistence on the means of acquiring it. It may diminish a productive employment for us who come here to legislate for our constituents, and to litigate for our clients; but I trust we are sufficiently patriotic not to feel any attachment to a system, because it may augment our emoluments, when we know it must diminish the productive capital of our country. Sir, the people now expend less on the judiciary than on foreign relations. You give more, by some scores of thousands of dollars, for courtesy to other nations, than you pay for justice to your own citizens. It would be dishonorable to the Republic to be wanting to its dignity abroad; but can it be honest to be wanting in justice to its own citizens at home? The system of the bill, sir, cannot, it is agreed that it cannot endure; for circuits will become too numerous to add a new judge to the Supreme Judicial Court for each circuit. We are told in reply, that we should not legislate for posterity: "let posterity take care of itself." In what country, in what house, are we, sir, told this? Did the Pilgrims, the Bradfords, the Williamses, the Penns, the Smiths, migrate to this country for themselves, and not for posterity? Look out upon our American world: not a government was instituted; not a forest felled; not a city founded; not a house built; not a tree planted; and not for posterity. Where, and what should we have been, but for those who cared for posterity? This House, sir, the great model of art and taste; the pride and ornament of our country, and of the republican world; the magnificent forum of legislation; the hallowed temple of justice-this House, sir, was it built for us, and for the present generation only? No, sir, it was founded by that man whose name spreads the light of glory over our nation, and whose whole life was but one act for his country-for the world, and for posterity. "Let posterity take care of itself!" To a gentleman who could feel and utter such a sentiment, I would address the words of the bereaved Macduff: "he hath no children." The system of the resolution carries in itself the principles of durability. When new States shall be added to this Union, and form new districts, their judges will distribute justice, until enough for a new circuit shall have been formed, and then this circuit shall receive a new judge. This may be repeated as often as a new circuit may be formed; until circuit after circuit shall be extended to the utmost limits of our national domain. The Supreme Court will sit a supervising tribunal-regulating and correcting every inferior jurisdiction. When the multiplied calls for justice shall require, then it may be separated, like the highest English courts, into a fiscal, a criminal, and a civil tribunal. Two judges in each department, as they must of necessity be unanimous, will, almost of necessity, secure correct decisions. Thus, sir, you may legislate, not for twenty years only, but, by Divine aid, for twenty centuries. Your judicial edifice will be extended, with your extending country; and will subserve the wants, and satisfy the requirements of these increasing States, and the multiplying millions of this great nation; until the American Eagle shall, with one wing, winnow the breezes of the Atlantic, and with the other, hover over the quiet waters of the Pacific; until the colossal power of the republic, standing on the lofty mountains of this continent, shall, with one hand, extend the olive branch to the peaceful nations of the earth, and with the other, wave the sword of justice over the satisfied and tranquil citizens of these widely extended regions. I have thus, sir, according to the limited measure of my ability, made an effort to sustain the resolution, moved by the honorable gentleman from Virginia; and I should be in some sort satisfied with that effort, could I have brought to his aid any portion of that efficiency, which, on a great and former occasion, was brought to the aid of an illustrious citizen of that State, by a son of Rhode Island. REMOVAL OF WASHINGTON'S REMAINS. On the 13th of February, 1832, a Resolution | remains of no other mortal man are regarded; was introduced into the House of Representatives, to remove the remains of Washington from Virginia, and to place them in a vault under the centre of the Capitol. Mr. Burges addressed the House on the Resolution in the following speech: MR. SPEAKER: Permit me to join my voice to that of the many who have already mingled in this discussion. There is a kind of immortality associated with what may be deemed the perishable part of this mighty theme; and he who speaks of the venerated remains of Washington, must catch something of inspiration; and feel himself elevated to the loftiest purposes of our nature. Twice has this question come before this House, twice without a dissenting voice. Once, soon after the death of the illustrious Father of his Country covered the nation with mourning; and once, when, a few years ago, enquiry was made here, concerning the most appropriate method of carrying into effect the arrangement originally made between the bereaved family and the national government. If that arrangement of piety and patriotism cannot now be consummated with equal unanimity; nothing surely need fall in the way of performing it, under the exercise of our purest and best feelings. cannot we, awed and subdued with gratitude, the hallowed repository, and roll back the stone with more than filial piety; cannot we approach from the door of the sepulchre, without the guilt of sacrilege? Cannot his country remove the remains of this, its great Founder; and carry them in solemn procession, accompanied by all the rites of religion, and all the sanctity of its ministers; and finally deposit them in the national cemetery provided for that purpose under the foundation of this building; which thenceforth shall be, not only the temple of freedom, legislation, and justice, but also the august mausoleum of Washington? Who, sir, who, of all the civilized world, will, while these reverential movements are performing, who will point his finger at these solemnities, and call them a mere pageant? It is the feeling, sir, the purpose of the persons, and not the place or the subject, which renders their deeds pious or profane. Can we never again without sacrilege look into the dark house of those so dear to us, until they, bursting the cerements of the tomb, are clothed with immortality? How often does the piety of children, how often the anxious affection of parents, induce them to remove the remains of endeared relatives, to places of more appropriate sepulture? How often do nations remove to their own countries, from distant foreign lands, the bones of their illustrious dead? Was it sacrilege in the Hebrews, when migrating from Egypt, to take from the consecrated cata been deposited, the bones of the illustrious founder of one of their families, and the preserver of them all; and bearing them from the populous valley of the Nile, the learned and luxurious realm of the Pharaohs, the scene of all his glory; that they might carry them to a land of rocks and mountains; and render his burial place one of the eternal monuments of their country? So it has continued; and at this day it is, by the dwellers on the hill or on the plain, pointed out to the traveller as the tomb of Joseph the Patriarch. In this controversy of patriotism among great States, concerning their respective interests in this question, it may be thought of one, geo-comb or pyramid, where for centuries they had graphically so inconsiderable as Rhode Island, that silence might more become her Representatives in this House, than any, the most perfect form of speech. Sir, in any arduous passage of arms, in any intricate question of council, Washington himself in his time did not so decide. Nor will one man in this Hall very severely censure my wish to be heard on this occasion; if he call to mind, that he, who in the darkest hour of revolutionary conflict, stood, in the estimation of the nation, and of that illustrious man, next to himself, was a native of that State. There was, there was a time, sir, when this man was the property of his whole country. If I look back towards the beginning of life, memory is in a moment filled with bright and joyous recollections of that time, when, even in the distant and humble neighborhood of mytery of those sacred remains; and of transportbirth, the lessons of youth, and of childhood, when the very songs of the cradle, were the deeds, the glory, the praises of Washington. Think you, sir, these teachings have ceased in the land; that these feelings are dead in our country? What then do we hear from the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. McDuffie)? Cannot we, who regard the buried remains of the great Father of our Country, as the earthly Sir, what man is there who does not shudder with horror when he is told, that, not many years ago, a felonious gardener of the late proprietor of Mount Vernon, conceived the sacrilegious project of plundering the family ceme ing to Europe the bones of Washington, and there offering them for sale as relics to the disciples or the fanatics of freedom in the old world. Procuring a false, or purloining the true key, he entered the tomb; but, in the darkness of night, and under the excitement of horror natural to the deed, he bore away those of another, by mistake; and left the hallowed bones of him, whose country would now with filial piety place those sacred remains perfectly secured in a national mausoleum, under the eye, and in the safe-keeping of all future generations. We are told that the last will and testament of Washington, points out the place and directs the manner of his interment; and if we remove his bones from their present repository, we shall violate that will, and set at defiance principles dear to all civilized nations. Did indeed, then, this great man by his will prohibit this people from doing honor to his remains, by placing them in a mausoleum more suitable to his illustrious life, and to the gratitude of Americans? He, like all Christian men, directed by his last will, that his body should have Christian burial; and prescribed the manner, and selected the place for that purpose. How shall we expound that will? It has been expounded for us; and that too by one, who was the partner of his perils and triumphs, his labors and councils. One, who shared with him all life could give -and stood by him in the hour of dissolution, Think you, that she would have violated his will: and that too, in the beginning of her bereavement; in the first dark hours of her earthly desolation? "Taught by his great example,' she gave up those remains at the call of her country. For to her, as in life to him, the nation was their family; the whole people were their children. What man can believe, that this distinguished woman, alike beloved and honored by a whole people, would have given her consent to the removal, requested by the whole Congress in 1799, if she had believed what the gentleman from South Carolina now tells us, that such removal would have violated his last will, and been a sacrilege committed against the sanctuary of the tomb? with his remains, after his death. When that immortal soul, now as we trust in beatitude, inhabited and animated his mortal part, where was the place, what was the service to which the voice of his country called him, and he was not there? In the toils of war, in the councils of peace, he was, soul and body, devoted to that people, whom he labored through life to build up into one great nation. Should that body think you, sir, at this time be less at the service of his country, than when alive with the imperishable soul it was Washington, and walked the world, for human welfare? If his whole life doth tell us, that he placed himself at the call of his country, then truly where should all that remains of him, be finally found, but where the same voice would place them? We would not, in the language of the gentleman from South Carolina, raise over him "a pyramid, a monument, like the eternal mountains." No, en, the folly of ancient ambition has perished from the earth, while these its monuments still stand unmoved upon its surface. This House, we trust, will endure as long as this nation endures. Let this be the Mausoleum of Washington. We would place his remains in the cemetery built for that purpose, under the centre of that dome which covers the Rotundo. Directly over this on that floor, in accordance with the Resolution two years ago submitted to this House, we would erect a pedestrian statue of that man, sufficiently colossal, and placed on a pedestal so high and massy as might be required to fill and satisfy the eye, in the centre of that broad and lofty room, which, probably, has no equal in the architecture of the world. learn where he may find his tomb. This House, this Mausoleum of one, who, prospered by Divine assistance, performed more for his country and for the human race, than any other mortal, shall be a place of pilgrimage for all nations. Hither will come the brave, the wise, the good, from every part of our country; not to worship, but to stand by the sepulchre and to relume the light of patriotism at the monument of Washington. The ever-during marble will give to coming Sir, how often has the attention of the nation generations the form and the features of Washbeen called to this great consummation, so de-ington; and the traveller of future ages shall voutly wished by all the people! How often has the arrangement of 1799 come to the public ear, from that estimable man, the grandson of that illustrious matron! How often have we heard from him, not in the language of rebuke, which was merited; no, nor of complaint which he might justly utter; but in the language of deep and heartfelt regret, that the bones of Washington were mouldering into dust, at a distance from that mausoleum, which the gratitude of his country had already prepared for them! It cannot then, sir, it cannot be said, that the consent of the family will be wanted for us to do, what seems to have been so earnestly desired by them. We must with deep and anxious regret have perceived, that Virginia prefers her separate and exclusive claim to these venerated remains. It will never be forgotten, that Washington was a son of that distinguished State. Is not this honor enough to gratify the ambition of any people of any region of our earth? Why I cannot, sir, join in the pious incantation of some gentlemen, who would, in imagination, call up the mighty dead, and put them to inqui-so avaricious of his glory, which like that of the sition, concerning these obsequies. Who, if he might, would bring back from the blessedness of heaven, to the cares of earth, one purified spirit; or for a moment interrupt the felicities of those realms of reality, by any thing which agitates human feelings, in this region of dust and shadows? Permit me to learn from his life, what his country may, with propriety, do sun falls with no diminished brightness on one region, because it shines on a thousand others? She needs it not. She will still have sons enough, warmed with noble ambition, to perfect and preserve the fabric of her glory. Washington was born, and lived for his country. Let the mighty base of his fame extend to his country, his united country, and to every part |