collected that a Judge of the Supreme Court, who is harrassed by attendance on his duty from the extremest points of the U. States, has but $3500: that the Chief Justice of the United States himself receives but four; that very few, perhaps not three, of the govern ors of the individual states receive as much-I know that the gov ernor of Virginia does not-under all these considerations the salaries proposed for these officers are certainly too high.

But it may be said that this organization of the Department is ne cessary to its efficiency, let who will be at the head of it. I cannot bring myself to believe, sir, that this can be so. It is now, I be. lieve, about one month since the Embargo was laid preparatory to a state of war-near six months we have been in session-and it is almost twelve months since we received the President's notification that matters of great public concernment required our presence here. And has it just now been discovered that the organization of the civil branch of the War Department is utterly inefficient? What, sir! we are to go to war certainly on this side of the 4th of July, because the embargo expires on the 3d-and are we just now to set up the civil branch of the military service, in order to give form and system to the formless mass authorised to be raised by bills passed at an early period of the session? I cannot bring myself to credit this. Sir, I am a plain planter. What should I think of my neighbor---I am not now arguing the policy of war or embarges for argument's sake I give up ail that----but now, after a session of six months, and the embargo has been beggaring our people for thirty days, we are about--to do what? To set up the civil branch of the military service---to put a few more supports into a tottering sort of establishment. I cannot leave it, sir. What would a plain planter say to his neighbor who told him that he was going this year to make a crop of tobacco, or of any other product which hitherto he had not cultivated. Well, says his neighbor, I think you are wrong; tobacco is falling in price. But, says the other, I will force a sale; it shall have a price. The two parties differ as to this, as we differ on the subject of war or embargo. But if I saw my neighbor begin to cut down his trees and prepare his ground in the month of April or May for the purpose of entering upon his crop, I should know that whether it was expedient or inexpedient for him to go into that cultivation, he was working wrong---and you must be sensible that this bill is proof as strong as if drawn from holy writ, that whether our policy be wise or unwise, patriotic or interested, we have worked wrong. A Canadian campaign, like a crop, must be made in a summer. I had once a sagacious neighbour who used to say of a dilatory man, that he would be a very good planter if the summer was long enough for him; but the frost always came before he was ready for it. What is to be the consequence of this course of proceeding? You are on the first day of May to give efficiency or organization to an army, which is to take the field, as I have heard, next month. The thing, if it were not out of order, I

would say is absolutely ridiculous. It will not bear touching; it will not bear examination; it will not stand the proof. It winces--it shrinks from every thing like examination. Can it be believed--for I look at the measure as it is presented to us---that a measure affecting so deeply and vitally the best interests of all classes in the country, but more especially the agricultural---that the embargo should have been laid thirty days ago as preparatory to war, and we should now have to organize a department preparatory to carrying on that war? No, sir, there is, to be sure, for this bill, as there was the other measure, a message from the Executive. That is the alpha and omega---there is nothing else---there is a message from the Executive recommending it.

On the first day of April, of all the days in the year, we laid an embargo; and on the 1st day of May thence ensuing, we began.-. to do what? To put troops in motion? To provide supplies? Although we have appropriated such vast sums for the current expenditures of the year, a part of which only will be defrayed by the luan opened to-day, have we laid a single tax to meet the necessary expenditures? And now we are called upon to build up a war office! I do trust, before this bill passes, that some distinct and satisfactory reasons will be offered to the House and to the people, other than we have yet heard, for its adoption. It is in vain to tell us of an accumulation of business in the War Office; of the inefficiency of the head of that Department, which has---to use the expression of the gentleman from Tennessee---been more than buzzed about for many months past. Is it possible that the necessity of this bill could not have been seen before the present time? It is not to be believed. Really, sir, if a man begins to clear his land in the spring of the year, to make his tobacco or corn hills in the fall, we may easily think what would be the result of that kind of management. I cannot bring myself to believe that the government of this country is so entirely ignorant of its best interests, as, in case a bill of this sort had been necessary, to have suffered that necessity to have lain asleep until this day.

Mr. TALLMADGE said, that having delivered his sentiments at some length when this bill was before the committee of the whole House, he should not discuss at large its details---he intended to move a recommitment of the bill to the military committee, which he now distinctly stated, that the Speaker and the House might see the -relevance of his remarks to that object. He begged the House to be assured that he was induced to this measure, not from any motive of opposition to an efficient department of war, whatever might be his opinion as to the propriety or necessity of the measure: but because he felt convinced that the proposed organization was radically defective. To induce the House to consent to the proposed commit ment, Mr. T. said he would briefly examine the prominent reasons urged for the passage of the bill now on the table, and hoped so to

dispose them as to convince the House that the proposed enlargement of the War Department is unnecessary.

The advocates of this bill have said that the duties relating to the Indian Department had become so burthensome, that additional as sistance was indispensably necessary.---Mr. T. enquired for what purposes has the government authorised an Indian department, with a superintendant at the head of it? Have we not a bill now on our

tables proposing to give an additional salary to that officer? what use can such a separate department be, if the same duties and services are to be performed by one of the assistant Secretaries at War?

The duties relating to the pension establishment of the United States have also been urged in favor of this bill. As to the payment of pensions, said Mr. T. it is well known that it is done without the smallest interference of the Secretary at war. The admission of pensioners upon the list, and the increase of pensions were particularly pointed out by law, which required the accuracy of a clerk to arrange, and when duly registered were reported to the House, and by them always referred to the committe of claims, whose report upon them was final and conclusive.

Another class of claims upon the time of the Secretary at War, was the issuing of military land warrants. Now, sir, said Mr. T. the members of this House have had so much to do with obtaining land warrants, that all must recollect that the head of this department does nothing in this business. It is exclusively committed to the same clerk who takes charge of the pension roll, and both branch. es of this business are now done very correctly by a clerk, as they heretofore were managed by maj. Rogers, who is now no more. This leaves no imputation upon the Secretary at war; for so long as the business is faithfully done, the government need not complain; and that it has been and still is well conducted, I entertain no doubt.

Similar remarks may apply to the ordnance department, the arrangement of which has heretofore undoubtedly occupied much of the time of the Secretary at war. But gentlemen will recollect that we have a bill on our tables providing expressly for the duties incident to this office, so that the secretary at war will be relieved from the laborious duties incident to its details.

Mr. Tallmadge further remarked that we had very recently established two important offices denominated the quarter-master-general's and commissary-general's department, amply furnished with deputies and assistants, which would greatly relieve the head of the war department from particular attention to the principal purchases to be made for the army. In fact, said Mr. T. the government have been so liberal in making provision for all the arrangements called for, that we seem to have a most unwieldy establishment of departments under this military head. In addition to these, we have a paymaster-general, adjutant-general, inspector-general, etc.

with their several assistants and deputies, all which are essentially necessary to the discipline, order and movements of the army; but which being made would diminish in a very considerable degree the labor, and materially lessen the necessity of appointing two other officers as assistants to the Secretary at War.

Mr. T. said that he was solicitous to know of the honorable chairman who reported this bill, where he found the recommendation on which the peculiar features of this bill were to be engrafted? It was manifest that it grew out of the message of the President; and sure he was that no such office was recommended as is provided for by this bill. Can it then be that the Secretary at War, has asked for this additional advisary aid? Nothing of this sort has been urged by the committee who originated this bill, and it can hardly be conceived that he would, by such a request, impeach his own abilities -As it does not therefore appear that the president or secretary at war have either of them requested this sort of collateral aid, Mr. T. said he was not willing to wound the feelings of either of them, by imposing upon them characters, in a highly responsible station, which should, in the smallest degree, embarrass their measures. He moreover wished to be informed what duties were to be designated and assigned to these assistant secretaries which could not be performed by men who might be stiled principal clerks? If more of this sort of aid had become necessary, he would cheerfully afford it, but could not feel willing to break in upon a department long ago established, and which had the sanction of the first military characters in this as well as in other countries in its favor.

Mr. Tallmadge remarked upon the second section of the bill that although he was willing to remunerate men amply for services rendered to the government, yet he could find no justification for his vote to tax the treasury with six thousand dollars additional salaries, or sinecures, for services which could be performed by able competent clerks, without deranging the present ministerial system of the war department.

So also Mr. T. objected to the principle of the third section, providing for the right of franking to two additional officers, which in his judgment did not become necessary inasmuch as all the public dispatches of the war department were now provided for, free of postage, and an increased indulgence would proportionably lessen the income of the post office.

Having thus attempted briefly to explain to the House his views of the ground on which the bill stood and the reasons by which it has been supported; and being unwilling in any manner to fetter the operations of the war department by thus multiplying its nominal heads, or to encumber the treasury with the payment of useless salaries, Mr. T. hoped the House would consent to recommit the bill, that it might be rendered more comfortable to military principles, and acceptable to the House.

Mr. M'KIM said-Mr. Speaker, when this subject was first taken up, I had great doubts of the correctness of the principles of the bill: But the discussion has thrown much light on the subject, and I am now perfectly satisfied with it.

Mr. Speaker, the business of the war department, embracing a vast variety of objects and of considerations and attentions extending to every part of the country, is probably too much for the capacity of one mind to perform with accuracy and with benefit to the nation; and the bill under consideration is intended to aid the head of that department, by the appointment of two additional assistants, to be called assistant secretaries.-This mode of aiding the secretary of war to perform the arduous duties of his station, is, in my opinion, the best calculated to promote the public interest that could have been devised. It gives to the department additional talents and a great capacity to perform the laborious parts of the duty attached to the office, while it preserves in a single individual, the head of the department, that responsibility so essential to the public interest, The assistant secretaries are subordinate to the head of the department,and are not intended, as some gentlemen have supposed, to exercise co-ordinate powers with him, and this arrangement secures responsibility in the head of the department, which would be lost of lessened if divided among so many.

Mr. Speaker-It has been observed, that the secretary might, by a judicious arrangement, transact much of the business by clerks; and thereby leave himself more at leasure to transact business that can only be done by himself. He might, it is said, commit all the business connected with the issuing of land warrants to one clerk; to another, all that relates to pensions; and to a third, all that relates to Indian affairs; and so with some other branches of the business; and then he would have nothing to do in these branches, but to sign his name when the papers are made out. This is very true---all this may be done by capable clerks; and I have no hesitation in saying, that not only this, but almost the entire business of the department may and ought to be so done, ought to be transacted by clerks, and authenticated, when necessary, by the head of the department. There will be no economy in making the head of this extensive department a man of labor, in the drudgery of the business; he should be a man of leisure, his mind at ease, and his attentions given to arrangement, to the distribution of business, to the employment of those that are under him; and a general superintendence of the entire concerns of the department, to see that every thing is done cor rectly, to the best advantage, and in due time; and the aid proposed by the bill, of assistant secretaries will enable the secretary to adopt this arrangement, if it should meet his views.

Mr. Speaker-I have no knowledge of military concerns: but I have had some experience in the arrangements of public office; and I am satisfied, that to conduct business advantageously, in an office