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DEC. 21, 1835.]

Smithsonian Institution-Northern Boundary of Ohio.

On Claims.-Mr. Naudain, chairman; Messrs. Tipton, Shepley, Swift, Brown.

On the Judiciary.-Mr. Clayton, chairman; Messrs. Buchanan, Leigh, Preston, Crittenden.

On the Post Office and Post Roads.-Mr. Grundy, chairman; Messrs. Robinson, Ewing, Knight, Davis. On Roads and Canals.-Mr. Hendricks, chairman; Messrs. McKean, Robinson, Kent, Robbins.

On Pensions.-Mr. Tomlinson, chairman; Messrs. Tallmadge, Linn, Prentiss, McKean.

On the District of Columbia.-Mr. Tyler, chairman; Messrs. Kent, Naudain, Southard, King of Alabama. On Revolutionary Claims.-Mr. Moore, chairman; Messrs. White, Hubbard, Leigh, Shepley.

On the Contingent Expenses of the Senate.-Mr. McKean, chairman; Messrs. Tomlinson, Brown.

On Engrossed Bills.-Mr. Shepley, chairman; Messrs. Hill, Morris.

Mr. KING, of Alabama, with leave, introduced a bill for the better organization of the district court of Alabama, which was read twice, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

The Senate concurred in a resolution of the House of Representatives concerning the election of chaplains;

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I transmit to Congress a report from the Secretary of State, accompanying copies of certain papers relating to a bequest to the United States, by Mr. James Smithson, of London, for the purpose of founding, at Washington, an establishment, under the name of the "Smithsonian Institution," for the diffusion of knowledge among men. The Executive having no authority to take any steps for accepting the trust and obtaining the funds, the papers are communicated with a view to such measures as Congress may deem necessary.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, December 17, 1835.

The message and documents were ordered to lie on the table.

SUFFERERS BY FIRE AT NEW YORK. Mr. WEBSTER offered the following resolution, and moved its consideration at this time; which was agreed to:

Resolved, That the Committee on Finance be instructed to inquire what measures should be adopted by Congress in consequence of the destruction of merchandise and other property by the late fire in New York.

Mr. WEBSTER then offered a few observations on the circumstances and extent of the fire. There had been no example in this country of a fire of such magnitude. There was no place where the ravages of this destructive element had continued for such a period and

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to such an extent, or had been productive of such calamitous results, as it appeared to have raged, for so many hours, in the most crowded part of that great commercial capital. A strong expectation prevailed out of doors that Congress would do something for the relief of the sufferers. In cases of much less extensive mischief, relief had, in some form, been given by Congress. He could not take it on himself to say what relief was expected in this instance; but, 'as he had already said, there were already signs of strangely excited expectation that something would be done by Congress in the way of extending relief. In some former cases, he believed, there had been an extension of the time for the payment of duty bonds, and other modes might be combined with that. He was not at this moment prepared to recommend, or even to propose, any specific measure. The city of New York was represented in the other branch by gentlemen who were in the habit of constant intercourse with their constituents, and they would be best enabled to devise some mode of relief. For one, he was disposed to do all which the constitutional power of Congress would permit him to do. It might be considered as the best course, at present, to wait for some action on the part of the other House, before any report was made from the committee. But, in the mean time, they could have the subject under their consideration. He hoped the resolution would be adopted to-day, and that the public expectation would be thus far gratified.

The resolution was adopted.

NORTHERN BOUNDARY OF OHIO.

Mr. EWING, pursuant to notice, rose to ask leave to introduce a bill to define and settle the northern boundary line of the State of Ohio.

Leave being granted, Mr. EwING introduced the bill; which was read, and ordered to a second reading.

On introducing this bill, Mr. EWING addressed the Chair in the following speech:

Mr. President: I feel it due to the importance of the measure which I propose, and to public expectation and public opinion in my State, that I present, at this early stage of the proceeding, a brief summary, at least, of the question to which this bill will give rise. I feel it throughout the Union, has been assailed, and in some the more important to do so, as public opinion abroad, measure pre-occupied, with papers issuing from various quarters inimical to the proposed measure; papers in which a one-sided view of the case has been presented; documents have, in the over-zeal of individuals to estaband in some instances erroneous statements of public lish their favorite position, been sent abroad as a part of the political history, and of the law and truth of the case. I wish, in behalf of Ohio, that the facts as they exist may go forth to the public in such small compass, that they may be seen, examined, and understood. And I wish, by reference to documents here, and all the documents that I think bear upon the question, to lighten the labor of gentlemen who wish to examine it and form their judgment. This being my object, I shall attempt little argument, and indulge in no digression.

This bill, so far as it relates to Ohio, is the same in all its provisions with that which I have twice offered in the Senate, which has twice passed this body, and which has been twice lost among the unfinished business of the House. A few words are necessary, however, to explain the full purport of its provisions. The act of Congress of the 30th April, 1802, "authorizing the inhabitants of the eastern division of the Northwestern Territory to form a constitution and State Government," directs that the contemplated State shall be bounded " on the north by an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan," "running east

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until it shall intersect Lake Erie, or the territorial line; thence, with the same, through Lake Erie, to the Pennsylvania line." Under this law the convention met, and formed the constitution of Ohio; but fearing that the mouth and estuary of an important river, which had its course within the State, would be excluded by the prescribed boundary, the convention accepted it, with a proviso which is found in the sixth section of the sev enth article of the constitution, and is in the following words:

"Provided always, and it is hereby fully understood and declared by this convention, that, if the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan should extend so far south that a line drawn due east from it should not intersect Lake Erie, or if it should intersect the said lake east of the mouth of the Miami of the Lake, then, and in that case, with the assent of the Congress of the United States, the northern boundary of the State shall be established by, and extend to, a line running from the southerly extremity of Lake Michigan to the most northerly cape of the Miami bay," "thence, northeast, to the territorial line, and by the said territorial line to the Pennsylvania line.”

Now, sir, the position of Lake Michigan is proved to be as was apprehended by the framers of the constitution of Ohio. The southerly extreme of Lake Michigan is so far south that a line drawn from it due east cuts off the mouth of the Miami of the Lake, and intersects Lake Erie many miles east of that river; and this bill copies substantially the above-recited proviso of the constitution of Ohio, and will, if it become a law, give the express assent of Congress to the boundary designated therein. The objection to the boundary named in the act of Congress is best understood by reference to a map of the country, which Senators will find upon their tables. It will be seen that the Miami of the Lake, a large and navigable river, (the largest, I believe, which flows northward into that chain of lakes,) has almost its whole course in Ohio, and its whole and entire navigable course in Ohio and Indiana, except the last eight miles, with its mouth and bay, or estuary, which is cut off by this east and west line, and thrown into another jurisdiction-that of the Territory of Michigan. I can acquit, at once, the framers of the ordinance of 1787, and the Congress which passed the law of April 30, 1802, of the apparent neglect of the just interests of the great civil division of our country which comprises the community which those acts called into being. They had fixed, according to their belief of the geographical relations of the country, boundaries to that State which were wholly unexceptionable. The line, as they had fixed it, did, as they believed, instead of cutting off from Ohio the mouth of the Miami of the Lake, extend northward beyond the river Raisin, to the head of the lake, or rather above it, near the mouth of the Detroit river. I refer to an ancient map of the country, the same which was of the highest authority at the time of the passage of the ordinance and the act of 1802, to show what was their purpose, and what were their opinions as to this boundary. It is a singular case of an error affecting a division of land or a tract of country. It is not a mistake in the position of an object which forms part of a boundary, but the position of a very remote object, lying in an unexplored region, from which a line was to be produced in the given direction, until it should touch the Territory in question, and form the boundary.

But the difficulty will be remedied by adopting the bill which I now offer. It will give to Ohio, not all that was supposed and intended by the Congress which framed the act of 1802, but it will give her all that is important to her internal improvements and commercial interests, and all that was asked for by the framers of her

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constitution. And there would seem to be the most obvious propriety and policy in according it, having a due regard to the great leading features of our country in its civil divisions, if, indeed, Congress have the power to do so without the infringement of a compact, or the violation of national faith.

This measure has long been a subject of discussion. Those who oppose it contend that Congress, by the terms of the deed of cession from Virginia, by the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, and by their own subsequent acts, have been deprived of the power of extending the boundary of either of the southern States of the Northwestern Territory, Ohio inclusive, north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan. And the first and most important inquiry is, whether Congress does now possess that power. To me, indeed, it seems a question of easy solution. At the close of the revolutionary war, Virginia and Connecticut claimed each a portion of the Northwestern Territory. Connecticut ceded her jurisdiction without any directions as to its future civil divisions, but Virginia required that the lands so ceded should be divided into States,"containing a suitable extent of territory, not less than one hundred nor more than one hundred and fifty miles square, or as near thereto as circumstances will permit," &c.; which provision was made in accordance with a resolution of Congress of the 10th of October, 1780.

The country was at that time unexplored, and great difficulties might have arisen from the fixing of any unbending rules for the formation of new States, in respect to location and boundary. Congress soon became sensible of this, and, by their resolution of July 7, 1786, asked Virginia to revise her deed of cession. The preamble to that resolution shows what were the views and wishes of that Congress in the formation of new members of the federal Union, and what, I believe, has been (at least what ought to have been) the purpose of each succeeding Congress which has been called to act on this subject. It is as follows:

"Whereas it appears, from the knowledge already obtained of the tract of country lying northwest of the river Ohio, that the laying it out and forming it into new States, of the extent mentioned in the resolution of Congress of October 10, 1780, and in one of the conditions contained in the cession of Virginia, will be productive of many and great inconveniences; that, by such a division of the country, some of the new States will be deprived of the advantage of navigation; some will be improperly intersected by lakes, rivers, and mountains; and some will contain too great a proportion of barren and unimprovable land, and, of consequence, will not, for many years, if ever, have a sufficient number of inhabitants to form a respectable Government, and entitle them to a seat and voice in the federal council: And whereas, in fixing the limits and dimensions of the new States, due attention ought to be paid to natural boundaries, and a variety of circumstances which will be pointed out by a more perfect knowledge of the country, so as to provide for the future growth and prosperity of each State, as well as for the accommodation and security of the first adventurers: In order, therefore, that the ends of government be attained, and that the States which are formed may become a speedy and sure accession of strength to the confederacy,

"Resolved, That it be, and is hereby, recommended to the Legislature of Virginia to take into consideration their act of cession, and revise the same, so far as to empower the United States in Congress assembled to make such a division of the territory of the United States lying northerly and westerly of the river Ohio, into distinct republican States, not more than five nor

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less than three, as the situation of that country and future circumstances may require; which States shall hereafter become members of the federal Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as the original States, in conformity with the resolution of Congress of the 10th of October, 1780."

By this resolution Congress asked for authority to change nothing relative to the contemplated States in the Northwestern Territory, except the extent and boundaries; and they asked for discretion for the purpose of adjusting their boundaries to suit the natural features of the country. And this discretion (which was accorded by Virginia) is, if I can read and understand the laws and ordinances aright, continued over the whole northern portion of that country down to the present day.

The extent of the powers thus retained by Congress depends upon the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Territory northwest of the river Ohio. I join in all that has ever been said in praise of this invaluable charter. It has been called irrevocable--so it is, as long as the faith of the nation is regarded. It has been called a sacred instrument-I hold it so. Next to the constitution itself (of which, indeed, this ordinance is by adoption a part) I hold it the most sacred among the muniments of our national liberty. But it does not, therefore, follow that every manner of pretension must be sanctioned which any one thinks fit to advance in its

name.

The question of the power of Congress over this disputed territory grows out of the fifth article of the ordinance. I need not trouble the Senate by reading that article; a simple analysis of its provisions, so far as they touch the present question, will suffice.

1st. It ordains that Congress shall form not less than three, nor more than five, States within that Territory. 2d. It defines the boundaries of three of those States, according to the present boundaries of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, on all sides except the north; and it extends them all northward to the boundary line of the United States.

3d. And it provides that "the boundaries of these three States shall be subject to be so far altered, that, if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two States in that part of the Territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan."

It appears to me clear, by the mere reading of the latter part of this section, of which I give the words, that all the obligation imposed upon Congress was to form three States in said Territory, the northern boundary of any of which should not be pressed farther south than the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan; that the east and west boundaries of each of the three States should be fixed within the limits prescribed; and that the northern part of the Territory should be formed into States, or attached to the southern States, or part of it be formed into one or two States, and part of it attached to the State lying immediately south of it. One or two States may be formed by Congress in that part of the Territory which lies north of the east and west line above named; but it is not said that they shall be formed of that territory, or of all that territory. It were hard to reason on the subject; the ordinance itself is as clear to the point which I would sustain as any language I can use in support of it; and it is only by passing over, or interpolating, or modifying its provisions, either in statement or in argument, that a doubt has been raised as to its interpretation.

I will refer, by way of specimen, (and it is not the only one in which public documents have been thus treated in this contest,) to an article entitled "The case VOL. XII.-2

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of Michigan," which appeared in the Intelligencer of the 5th instant. The writer is unknown to me, but the editors say it is "from a highly intelligent and respectable source." The sentence in that "exposition," in which a clause in the ordinance of 1787 is misstated, is as follows:

"By the ordinance of 1787, whenever any of the States or Territories in the Northwestern Territory 'shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State Govern

ment.'"

I call the attention of the Senate to the word Territories, in that part of the paragraph which is introductory to the quotation from the ordinance, and which fixes the sense of that quotation. That word is an interpolation in language, and it changes the whole sense of the paragraph. It is not to be found in the text quoted, nor in the context, nor any word or words which convey an equivalent meaning to it, in the connexion in which it is here introduced. And, unfortunately, this single word, thus thrown in, is the one on which the whole argument in behalf of Michigan and her rights to this territory must hinge: take that away, read the ordinance truly, as it is written, adding nothing and suppressing nothing, it does not leave them ground whereon to rest the soles of their feet. It is the fifth article of that ordinance (1st vol. Laws of the United States, page 480) that has been thus misused. That article declares that there shall be formed, in the Northwestern Territory, three States; it defines their boundary on all sides except the north, as the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois are now bounded; and it extends them all northward to the northern boundary of the United States, which is there called the territorial line. It then provides that "the boundaries of these three States shall be subject to be so far altered, that, if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two States in that part of the Territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan." Then follows the misquoted clause, which is in these words: "And whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a constitution and State Government."

I am bound, in courtesy, to believe that the misrepresentation of this clause of the ordinance, by the writer who thus volunteers to instruct the community on this subject, was a mistake. But if any one can find in the clause of the ordinance referred to by that writer, and which I have just read, a vested right in this Territory (which is not formed by the ordinance or by act of Congress into a State) to come into the Union when its inhabitants shall be sixty thousand, or to hold fast, permanently, against the will of Congress, to the boundaries fixed for it as a Territory, for the express purpose of temporary government, he must have perceptions and reasoning faculties of a different order from those which are possessed by the rest of mankind. Indeed, when the ordinance is set out truly, as it is, no one will, I think, be able to draw any such inference from it.

Congress had the right, by virtue of their general powers, without any express compact authorizing it, to erect territorial Governments, such as they might see fit, as to number, extent, and boundary, and to change and modify them at pleasure. So at least it has been held, and such has been the practice of the Government.

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And if they have not this power, the Territory of Michigan was created without authority; for the ordinance of 1787 expressly authorizes a division of the Northwestern Territory into no more than "two districts;" and this express authority was exhausted by the act of the 7th of May, 1800, which divided the Northwestern Territory into two separate Governments. I take it, therefore, for granted, that the general power will not be disputed by the advocates of the claims of Michigan; and if it be not, why do they fix upon, as the boundary to which they have a permanent right, that assigned to the Territory, "for the purpose of a temporary Government," by the act of 11th January, 1805, instead of either of the other acts fixing other limits? That act is neither the first nor the last which gave a temporary Government to the inhabitants of the country included in that Territory. It first formed a part of the Government of the Northwestern Territory. It was next divided between that Territory and Indiana. It was, in the next place, attached wholly to Indiana, and made to form a part of it; next, it was formed into a separate Territory, "for the purpose of a temporary Government;" and, lastly, the whole residue of the Northwestern Territory was attached to it, and formed with it one Territory for a like purpose, and remains, and is part and parcel of it, at this day. How, then, can it be with reason contended that the limits of the local Government, to which the inhabitants of this tract of country owed allegiance, should, in its fourth modification, though never before, be holden fixed and immutable? There are no words in the law to countenance it, save what are also contained in the other laws fixing the boundaries of the several territorial Governments, which, by different names, were from time to time extended, in whole or in part, over this peninsula. On the whole, that law gives to the inhabitants of that part of the Territory of Michigan no vested right to come into the Union as a State with those particular boundaries assigned them; it therefore throws no obstacle in the way of extending, or adjusting and defining, the boundaries of the States of Ohio and Indiana north of the east and west line above referred to, even if we admit that line to have been once made the boundary of the Michigan Terri

ory.

I believe it has not been denied, by those who advocate the claims of Michigan, that Congress bad a right to extend all or either of the three southern States north to the territorial line, according to their limits as set out in the first part of the 5th article of the ordinance; but they contend that Congress must include in each of those States all or none of the territory which lies within its limits north of that line; that they cannot include a part, and exclude another part; that an option is given them in fixing the boundaries of those States on the north, but no discretion beyond the mere choice of one of the two lines. In aid of the several arguments which I have advanced against this position, I will now adduce a series of acts of Congress showing a legislative construction of their own powers.

The east and west line named in the ordinance of 1787 has but a single call, "the most southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan," it has no terminus to the east or the west; it of course passes across the whole territory; and if the position be correct that Congress could not extend any State beyond that line without including all the territory which lay beyond it and due north of such State, then Congress, in the formation of the State of Ohio, and the designation of its boundary, has violated the ordinance. In the act of April 30, 1802, under which Ohio was authorized to from a State Government, the line running due east from the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan is taken in part as the northern boundary of the contemplated State. Thus far it

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agrees with the line named in the ordinance; but it introduces another call," Lake Erie, or the territorial line; and thence, with the same, through Lake Erie, to the Pennsylvania line;" making a totally different northern boundary. The two lines run together until they touch Lake Erie, then diverge widely. The line named in the ordinance runs through the southern bend of Lake Erie, and, passing out of it, cuts off a large extent of territory, with fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants, in the northeast corner of the State of Ohio, to which Michigan has the same right, by virtue of the ordinance, that she has to the country north of that line and south of the northern cape of the Miami bay. But Congress did not consider themselves bound by the ordinance to pursue that line, or they acted under a mistake as to the true position of Lake Michigan; the bearing of which error I will by and by consider.

In the formation of the State of Indiana, Congress disregarded this assumed restriction in the ordinance, or they had failed to discover it. That State is extended ten miles north of the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan; and Illinois, which was admitted a few years after, is extended north about thirty-five miles further than Indiana, and within a few miles of the line of latitude which, according to the old maps, (to which I shall by by more particularly refer,) cut through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan. The mistake which had been made in the position of the object of that call was substantially corrected in the case of Illinois.

I need not now advert to the unhappy consequences which would flow from holding the east and west line, named in the ordinance, as a fixed and immovable boundary: the question is too clear, by the very language of the ordinance itself, and the legislative constructions of it have been too frequent and unequivocal, to require this auxiliary aid in settling the principle; still it ought not to be forgotten that the establishment of the doctrine contended for by Michigan involves, as its consequence, the dismemberment of three States of this Union, and the bringing of a large number of their citzens under a Government which they did not help to form, and to which they have never yielded, and to which I believe they never will yield, their willing allegiance.

Having, as I trust, established the position, (if any arguments were necessary to establish it,) that Congress has power to pass this act, without violating the constitution or the compact, or any principle which ought to govern legislators, I will now proceed to offer some reasons why the proposed adjustment of boundary ought to be made.

First, then, it was the intent of the framers of the ordinance of 1787 that the northern line of each of the three southern States should extend north of the points over which that east and west line is, by actual observation and survey, found to pass. This intent is proved by the clearest evidence. At the time of the passage of that ordinance, we had no information of the country north and west of Lake Erie, save what we derived from observations made or collected under the colonial Government. A map of that country, published in 1755, and still familiarly known as Mitchell's map, was the first in authority in England and America, from the time of its publication until long after the date of the ordinance. It is said to have been the map referred to by the American and British commissioners at the treaty of peace in 1783. And in the particulars in which it bears upon the present question, it was copied, or very closely followed, in all the maps which appeared in our country from that time until after the close of the late

war.

That map, and indeed every contemporaneous map that I have seen, fixed the latitude of the southern extreme of Lake Michigan about 42° 20′ north, or about forty-five miles north of its actual position, and so

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situated with regard to Lake Erie, that a line running due east through it would touch the lake near its head, or the Detroit river a little north of its entrance into the lake. I have laid upon your table, and on that of each of the Senators, a copy, on a reduced scale, of this map, as it is preserved in the State Department; by which may be seen, at a glance, the position of those lakes and of that line, as it was then believed and understood to exist. Congress had earnestly sought the power of fixing the limits of the proposed States according to natural boundaries, so that none of them should be improperly intersected by rivers or lakes, and so that there should be secured to each such natural advantages of navigation as most properly pertained to it. They obtained that power, and intended to exert it for the benefit of each of the new States; and, in fixing that east and west, they obviously intended to prohibit any future Congress from bringing down the northern line of that State, which is now Ohio, south of a line which would touch Lake Erie near its head, or the Detroit river above the lake. Ought that intent to be defeated by a mistake, by misinformation as to the position of a natural object in a hostile country, remote from any part of the State whose boundary was to be fixed? We are of opinion that the intent of the framers of that ordinance ought to be carried into effect, so far as it is necessary for the well-being of the State that it should be so.

It can be shown that the same intent prevailed with the Congress who passed the act of 1802, under which Ohio framed her constitution, and came into the Union as a sovereign and independent State. The line designated as her northern boundary is the same as that before referred to, laid down on Mitchell's map. That map then hung, as I have been informed, in the committee-room of the committee of Congress who reported that law. That there was a mistake in the position of this line by the Congress which enacted the law of April 30th, 1802, is proved further by the fact that the boundary they affix to Ohio is an impossible boundary. The law provides that the northern line shall run due east through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, until it intersects Lake Erie or the territorial line; thence, with the same, through Lake Erie, to the Pennsylvania line. This boundary, therefore, is based on the assumption that that east and west line will touch the territorial line (which is the northern boundary line of the United States) in Lake Erie, or north of it; otherwise it could not, without changing its direction, run with it, through Lake Erie, to the Pennsylvania line.

But that line does not touch the northern boundary line of the United States at any point in Lake Erie. The act of the 14th July, 1832, directs the President "to cause to be ascertained (among other things) by accurate observation, the latitude and longitude of the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan." Also, "that he cause to be ascertained, with all practicable accuracy, the latitude and longitude of the most southerly part in the northern boundary line of the United States in Lake Erie." The performance of this duty was, as a matter of course, assigned by the President to the War Department. And among the executive documents of 1833-34, vol. 6, doc. 497, is found the report, in part, of the engineer employed to perform that service. He fixes the Jatitude of the southern extreme of Lake Michigan at 41 deg. 37 min. 7.9 sec. north. His observations as to the southern point of the northern boundary of the United States in Lake Erie do not lay claim to accuracy, but he supposes it to be in latitude 41 deg. 38 min. 38 sec., being north of the east and west line one mile one thousand four hundred and forty yards. But there was another and better mode of ascertaining the last-named fact than that adopted by the Department. It will be remembered that commissioners were appointed by the

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United States and Great Britain to mark the boundary between the two countries, under the treaty of Ghent. This duty was performed. This line was marked with great care through the western part of Lake Erie, and the map showing its position is among the archives of state. I hold in my hand a letter from Thomas P. Jones, keeper of the archives, directed to Mr. VINTON, of the Ohio delegation in the House of Representatives, dated January 7, 1835, in which he states that he has careful. ly examined the map of Lake Erie, as laid down and marked out by those commissioners, and that he finds the latitude of the most southern point to be 41 deg. 39 min. 43 sec., as nearly as he can ascertain by the scale, but that the measurement may possibly vary a second or so from the truth. So that the east and west line would not touch the northern boundary line by about three miles. I understand, however, (for I have not yet seen the report,) that the Department has at last brought the two lines together. Lake Michigan, I believe, still holds its first position--its southern extremity. would move no farther north; but the boundary line between the United States and Great Britain has been found more flexible, and has come about four miles south of the point at which it was fixed by the commissioners under the treaty of Ghent. This has, it is true, been an ex parte proceeding by the United States; but Great Britain cannot object to it, as it gives her (if the new position of the line be adhered to) jurisdiction over many miles of the surface of the lake, which was assigned by the joint commissioners to the United States. For the present, however, I am disposed to consider the line run by the commissioners of the United States and Great Britain, in pursuance of a treaty stipulation, as the true boundary between the two countries. Taking, then, the position of the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, as found by Captain Talcott, and the southern point of the northern boundary line of the United States in Lake Erie, as settled by the commissioners, and as measured on their map by the keeper of the public archives, it is clear that these lines do not close, and that one of them must be varied by legislative enactment or judicial construction, or the State of Ohio has no boundary. This state of things could not have been in accordance with the intent and purpose of the framers of the law of April 30, 1802.

The line, then, so far as it touches the boundary of Ohio, was intended, by the Congress of the United States, to be where it appears on Mitchell's map, and the other maps of the day. If this were the case of two individuals contracting for the transfer of land, who had been governed in their contract by a plat spread out before them, and if such contract had been made, and such map exhibited as showing the boundary between them; I ask every land lawyer here, if a reference in the deed to some remote object, as that from which one of the boundary lines should emanate, when the position of that object was proved to have been mistaken by the parties, would control the bounds of the grant? In equity would it? Would it between man and man, the facts being fully made out? Would it be permitted to defeat the manifest intent and purpose of both parties? We know well it would not. We know that where the lines and bounds of a tract of land are shown by the vendor to the purchaser, either upon the grouud or on a plat, and the description in the deed does not cover it, no matter whether by accident or design, a court of equity will hold the conveyance to be according to the boundary shown, and so correct the deed. In the acts of Governments, there is no distinction between law and equity. The appeal to law, as it regards a nation, is an appeal to the national sense of justice; and an obligation much less strong than that which would move a court of equity, in the case of an individual, ought to be sufficient, especial

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