Again, in 1851, there was still another vote in the Senate, when the following names appeared in the negative, namely, Atchinson, Benton, Borland, Butler, Cass, Chase, Clemens, Davis of Mississippi, Dickinson, Dodge of Wisconsin, Dodge of Iowa, Douglas, Felch, Foot, Hunter, Jones, King, Norris, Rhett, Rusk, Turney, Walker, Whitcomb, and Yulee. It is believed no Democratic representative, in either House of Congress, from the State of New-York, has ever voted in favor of these claims, until the late session, when every representative from that State, with five exceptions, voted in the affirmative on the present bill, notwithstanding the veto of the President. The five fearless and incorruptible men who stood alone on the late occasion in opposition to the bill, were John I. Taylor, William Murry, Charles Hughes, Peter Rowe, and Daniel T. Jones, good and faithful servants, who, we doubt not, will be remembered and rewarded by their constituents and by the people of the State of New-York. The President proceeds to prove that every assistance in the power of the government to enforce the payment of all just claims of our citizens against France, had been rendered prior to the treaty of 1800; that both diplomacy and war-actual war-were resorted to. He also proves, what was clearly demonstrated by Mr. Wright in 1835, that the main allegation of the claimants, that our government had released France from the payment of these claims, is without any foundation. The President also shows that France has since acknowledged and paid all of these claims which she ever intended to acknowledge and pay, and had, in the treaty of 1803, expressly reserved to herself the right to reconsider any rejected claims of citizens of the United States. He closes his message with the following remarks: "This review of the successive treaties between France and the United States has brought my mind to the undoubting conviction, that while the United States have, in the most ample and completest manner, discharged their duty towards such of her citizens as may have been, at any time, aggrieved by acts of the French government, so also, France has honorably discharged herself of all obligations in the premises towards the United States. To concede what this bill assumes, would be to impute undeserved reproach both to France and the United States. I am of course aware that the bill proposes only to provide indemnification for such valid claims of citizens of the United States against France as shall not be stipulated for and embraced in any of the treaties ennumerated. But in excluding all such claims, it excludes all in fact, for which, during the negotiations, France could be persuaded to agree that she was in any way liable to the United States or our citizens. What remains? And for what is five millions appropriated? In view of what has been said, there would seem to be no ground on which to raise a liability of the United States, unless it is to be the assumption that the United States are to be considered the insurers and the guarantor of all claims, of whatever nature, which any individual citizen may have against a foreign nation." There is no proof that these claims ever had any meritorious foundation, and no proof that the French government should ever have paid one dollar of them. If this bill had passed into a law, it would have tended to destroy the confidence of the people in the purity of the national government more effectually than any other act of that government since the birth of the nation. The objection to that feature of the bill which proposed to audit the whole amount of these claims, but to pay only a part, is well described in the closing paragraph of the speech of Silas Wright. He said: "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, in practice, be any thing more than an installment 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 the bill, that an equal liability remained to pay that balance, whatever it might be." Mr. Wells, one of the Senators from New-Hampshire, estimated that the amount of claims which the passage of this bill, as a precedent, would revive and originate against the government, would not fall short of one hundred millions of dollars. Indeed, under such a precedent, old claims would be like old wine, all the better for age. The untiring perseverance with which these claims have been pressed upon Congress, as well as the uncharitable spirit by which they have been advocated, may be illustrated by a single instance, On the 26th of December, 1854, the Honorable Truman Smith, late a Senator in Congress, from the State of Connecticut, stated in a communication in the Journal of Commerce, in the city of New-York, that he had had charge of bills for the allowance of these claims, both in the House and in the Senate, and had the good fortune to carry one in the former body in 1846, which was unfortunately, as he then thought, vetoed by the late Presi dent, Mr. Polk. He further stated that he had devoted much of his time, for the last eight or ten years, to the investigation of the subject and the passage of the bills for the relief of these parties, and that he had not found the speech of Mr. Wright a very serious obstacle in his path. He adds at the close of his communication: "The great importance of the subject to many parties in this city and elsewhere in the Empire State, who have, in my judgment, been deeply wronged by a repudiation on the part of the general government little less infamous than that committed by some of the States of the Union, will, I trust, justify me in asking for this communication a place in your columns." That Mr. Smith was the conscientious advocate of these private claims while he was a member of Congress, we shall not deny; that the same spirit of patriotic devotion to the public good, since his return to private life, still prompts him to continue such advocate, we will not question. Such overflowings of disinterested benevolence, however, are rare, and should command, when they do occur, appropriate acknowledgments. But we charge that such censures are intolerant and uncharitable, implying as they do, that his associates in Congress, who differed from him in opinion, were instrumental in sustaining the government in repudiating these claims, and were, therefore, guilty of an act of infamy. Mr. Wright, who represented the Empire State," and many others of the illustrious men whose names we have mentioned, and who did not agree in opinion. with the Senator from Connecticut on this question, are now no more. No stigma bordering on infamy, rests upon the government in consequence of their votes, or the men now living, who voted with them upon this question, or upon any other question concerning the national honor. แ There are doubtless "many parties in this city and elsewhere in the Empire State" who may duly appreciate the services of the honorable Senator from Connecticut, in their behalf, both in and out of the Senate; but we believe the great mass of the people of the "Empire State" were well represented by Mr. Wright, their own chosen Senator, upon the subject of these claims. That Mr. Wright was greatly embarrassed by the pressing importunities of the claimants, and that he encountered a painful struggle between his natural kindness of heart and disposition on the one hand, and his duty to the whole people of the State which he represented on the other, is apparent from his opening remarks. He said: "He had not wanted inducements to examine the merits of the bill upon the table with the utmost care. He had been sensible, from the beginning, that a large number of the persons to be benefited by the appropriation were his immediate constituents; that a full share of the money appropriated by the bill was to be distributed to citizens of his own State; that the amount of that appropriation (five millions of dollars) was not unimportant in itself, and might go, in many cases, if distributed, to relieve necessities, now illy provided for, and in all to add to comforts which a free and industrious people have a right to enjoy. He said if he had been unmindful of these obligations of a local character, and fully due from himself to his immediate constituents, he had not been permitted to overlook them from forgetfulness. He held in his hand a letter addressed to himself, and signed by a number of most respectable gentlemen of the city of New-York, acting in behalf of, and as a committee from, the claimants in that State. These gentlemen had urged him to an examination of this subject with all the earnestness due to its importance and to their interest in his course, and with all the respect which intelligent citizens will not fail to yield to the obligations of public duty, and to a proper regard to great public interests. "They had invoked his support of the bill, provided that support could be yielded consistently with the merits of the claims they represented, and with his sense of duty to his country; and they had done this with a kindness which appealed strongly to his partialities towards those who had the right thus to call upon him, and to demand his services, as one of their representatives here." But Mr. Wright, like President Pierce, looked beyond the small circle of friends pressing upon him at the capital, to the great body of tax-payers, to the silent millions in the distance, who had not been heard, and who were ignorant of the efforts and the influences brought to bear upon their representatives to induce them to impose these heavy burthens upon their shoulders. These millions have blessed the memory of Silas Wright, and they will bless the memory of Franklin Pierce. These veto messages have given the President a strong hold upon the hearts of the people. They will prove the noblest monuments of his fame, and as enduring as the everlasting rocks of his own Granite State. GENESEE. THE WINGED HORSE. BY ROSENBERG. 1. WAKE from your homes, in tomb and shroud- Eye to eye, and face to face- To sight impalpable-too thin for our embrace? II. Fire and water have we bound Living speech and utterance found For the very lightning's speed- To our luxury or need, And with a certain prophecy Learned to count the courses held III. Surely it were an easy task, After this, to bind and yoke Whose wind-winged speed |