1st Session.

CLAIM OF THE STATE OF MARYLAND.

[To accompany bill H. R. No. 464.]

JULY 11, 1854.

Mr. KERR, from the Committee on the Judiciary, made the following

REPORT.

The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the memorial of the special agents of Maryland, asking for the reimbursement to that State for her advance to the United States in 1792 and 1793, have had the same under consideration, and submit the following report:

The claim of the State of Maryland rests upon the following facts: By a resolution of the general assembly of Virginia, passed on the 10th of December, 1789, it was proposed to the general assembly of Maryland that the assembly of Virginia would pass an act for advancing a sum of money, not less than one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, to the use of the general government, and to be applied in such manner as Congress might direct, towards erecting public buildings at the city of Washington; provided, the general assembly of Maryland, on their part, would make an advance of a sum not less in amount than threefifths of that advanced by Virginia. This proposition of the general assembly of Virginia was acceded to by the general assembly of Maryland, which latter body, by a joint resolution adopted on the 17th day of November, 1790, agreed to advance to the President of the United States, for the purpose above indicated, the sum of seventy-two thousand dollars, to be payable, to the order of the President, in three equal yearly payments, and the treasurer of the western shore of Maryland was directed to advance the funds upon the order of the President; the first payment or advance to be made on the 1st of January, 1792, and the residue on the 1st days of January 1793 and 1794 respectively. The President drew on the treasurer of Maryland for the amounts, in conformity to the provisions of the law granting the loan or advance, and his drafts were paid, and the full amount of seventy-two thousand dollars of the money of Maryland went to the use of the government and people of the United States. And now, after the lapse of sixty years, Maryland asks to be reimbursed the sum of money so advanced by her, with interest thereon. And the simple question is, is she in law and equity entitled to what she demands? The rightful determination of this question depends upon a proper construction of the language or terms of the law under which the general government obtained the money from Maryland. If, by the terms of that law, Maryland made a gift to the general government of the amount in question, then, of

course, she has no right to demand its return; but if she made a loan or advance merely, then she is clearly entitled to be reimbursed, whatever may be the length of time which has elapsed since the advance was made, and the government is bound, by the united obligations of justice and honor, to repay the generous friend who, in the day of its necessity, stepped forward to its aid and relief.

The committee are clearly of opinion that the transaction was a loan or an advance of money, and not a gift, and that it was so understood at the time by both parties. The correctness of this view is made manifest by an inspection of the journal of the house of delegates of Maryland, from which it appears that, in making the advance, Maryland was following the advice and example of the general assembly of Virginia, which in 1790 had proposed a loan or advance of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to the general government for precisely the same purpose that Maryland afterwards made the advance on her part. That law of Virginia was cautiously worded with a view to exclude the idea of a gift; and, lest some doubt might arise in regard to its true construction, before the bill finally passed, the title was changed, and instead of being entitled "an act granting to the President of the United States $120,000 for erecting public buildings on the Potomac river," it was entitled "an act concerning an advance of money to the government," &c.

Now, the word "advance" is technical, and has an import familiar to the legal profession. It conveys the idea always of a right to reimbursement; and it may well be supposed that the use of it in the instance now under consideration arose from the fact that, in 1787, the Continental Congress proposed that measures should be taken for erecting public buildings for the use of the government at Georgetown, on the Potomac river, and that Virginia and Maryland should be allowed a credit in the requisition of 1787, and on arrearages due on past requisitions, for such sums of money as they might respectively furnish towards the erection of said buildings. It is true, at the time the advance was made, the system of raising revenue for the support of government by requisitions on the States had been superseded by the mode now usually resorted to under the present constitution of the United States. But it will be at once perceived that, at a period so very recent after the adoption of the present constitution, the habits and ideas growing out of the former system would have their force upon the public mind; and, accordingly, in making a loan to the general government, it was but natural that the legislature of Maryland should make use of terms to which they had become familiar under the government which had been so recently changed.

An examination of the journal of the house of delegates of Maryland, of the session of 1790, will show the most cautious regard for the right of the State to be reimbursed the money she then advanced to the general government. In no instance is the word "gift" or the word "grant" used in connexion with the transaction we are now considering; but the word "advanced" only is employed, because (as it seems to the committee) it is the only word which properly conveys the idea of the particular kind of loan which Maryland designed to make.

It was not an ordinary loan which Maryland was negotiating with

the general government; if it had been, a term of payment would have been designated, and the rate of interest which would accrue; but it was a generous offering from a patriotic State of the confederacy to the then young and distressed government of the Union, whose finances were deranged, and whose resources were undeveloped, with the implied understanding that the government of the United States would reimburse Maryland whenever the former should recover from its financial difficulties, and have the ability to do so. In such a transaction, it seems to be clear that the State of Maryland would wait long and patiently before she would demand payment of the general government; for, since the advance itself was an act of generous confidence and patriotic liberality, it was not for her to obliterate the grateful recollection of the deed by an untimely or an ungracious demand. It was for the government—the recipient of the favor-to make the first movement towards repayment. But the government of the United States seems to have neglected its obligation in this regard, and the State of Maryland, after a lapse of near half a century, when her own financial affairs had become embarrassed, and when, in the mean time, the United States had become powerful, prosperous, and wealthy, reclaimed the advance she made, by a series of resolutions adopted by her legislature in 1842. Yet no decisive action has been taken in Congress in reference to this claim, and your committee are of opinion that the State of Maryland is entitled to interest upon the amount she claims— not from the time the advance was made, but only from the time she formally demanded repayment. This seems to be perfectly just; for why should governments, any more than individuals, be absolved from the payment of interest upon debts which they owe, and of which they have proper notice? Never was there a case in which this government had stronger reason to be not only just, but generous, than the present.

The claim belongs to one of the States of this confederacy-a State which has ever manifested its patriotism and devotion to the general welfare of the Union; but in no instance more strikingly than in that under consideration, when her own pecuniary means were applied to the use of the general government, though her own people were made to feel the pressure of taxation, as the consequence of her generosity. The committee therefore report the accompanying bill, and recom mend its passage.