The most important acts passed at this second session of the fourteenth Congress, were as follows

An act was passed to provide for paying off the national debt, which at this time exceeded one hundred and twenty millions of dollars, by annual instalments of ten millions. Mr. Lowndes, one of the most able statesmen of South Carolina, and chairman of the committee of ways and means in the house, was the author of this measure, under the operations of which the national debt was finally extinguished. A law was enacted authorizing the secretary of the navy, under the direction of the president, to cause a survey of those public lands which produced live oak and red cedar timber, to be reserved and appropriated for the use of the navy. The navigation laws were revised, so as to give further advantages to vessels of the United States, and no goods or merchandise were allowed to be imported from foreign ports except in American bottoms, or in such foreign vessels as belonged to the country of which the goods were the subject or manufacture. Acts were also passed for the regulation of territories of the United States, by which each of them was allowed to send one delegate to Congress, who should have a right to take part in debate in the house. of representatives, but not of voting; for establishing a separate territory by the name of Alabama; to preserve more effectually the neutral relations of the United States; to fix the peace establishment of the marine corps at eight hundred men, including officers; providing for the location of the lands reserved for the Creek Indians; for the punishment of crimes and offences committed within the Indian boundaries; and for the relief of persons imprisoned for debts due to the United States. The state of Indi

ana having formed a constitution, in conformity to act of Congress, was by joint resolution admitted into the Union on the 11th of December, 1816. The people of the western part of Mississippi territory were authorized to form a constitution, preparatory to admission into the Union as a state.

A bill appropriating the bonus which the United States bank was to pay the government for their charter, to purposes of internal improvement, was passed by both houses, at this session, after an able and full discussion of the constitutionality and expediency of a system of internal improvements by the general government; but was returned to Congress by the president, with his objections, which involved constitutional scruples, and consequently the measure failed to become a law.

The administration of President Madison terminated on the 3d of March, 1817, and he surrendered the affairs of the government into the hands of his friend and associate, Mr. Monroe, with the satisfaction of having seen the nation pass honorably through the trying scenes of a portion of the time while he had been at the head of the republic; and that he could now retire from the cares of office at a time of general peace and prosperity, with the prospect for his country of a bright and glorious career in her destiny as a great and independent nation.