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                              ABRIDGMENT

                                OF THE

                         DEBATES OF CONGRESS,

                          FROM 1789 TO 1856.

        FROM GALES AND SEATON'S ANNALS OF CONGRESS; FROM THEIR
              REGISTER OF DEBATES; AND FROM THE OFFICIAL
                  REPORTED DEBATES, BY JOHN C. RIVES.


                                  BY

                 THE AUTHOR OF THE THIRTY YEARS' VIEW.

                               VOL. IV.

                               NEW YORK:
              D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 346 & 348 BROADWAY.
                                 1860.

      Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by
                       D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District
                             of New York.




TENTH CONGRESS.--SECOND SESSION.

BEGUN AT THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 7, 1808.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE.


MONDAY, November 7, 1808.

Conformably to the act, passed the last session, entitled "An act to
alter the time for the next meeting of Congress," the second session of
the tenth Congress commenced this day; and the Senate assembled at the
city of Washington.

                               PRESENT:

  GEORGE CLINTON, Vice President of the United States and
  President of the Senate.

  NICHOLAS GILMAN and NAHUM PARKER, from New Hampshire.

  TIMOTHY PICKERING, from Massachusetts.

  JAMES HILLHOUSE and CHAUNCEY GOODRICH, from Connecticut.

  BENJAMIN HOWLAND and ELISHA MATHEWSON, from Rhode Island.

  STEPHEN R. BRADLEY and JONATHAN ROBINSON, from Vermont.

  SAMUEL L. MITCHILL and JOHN SMITH, from New York.

  JOHN CONDIT and AARON KITCHEL, from New Jersey.

  SAMUEL MACLAY, from Pennsylvania.

  SAMUEL WHITE, from Delaware.

  WILLIAM B. GILES, from Virginia.

  JAMES TURNER, from North Carolina.

  THOMAS SUMTER and JOHN GAILLARD, from South Carolina.

  WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD, from Georgia.

  BUCKNER THRUSTON and JOHN POPE, from Kentucky.

  DANIEL SMITH, from Tennessee.

  EDWARD TIFFIN, from Ohio.

JAMES LLOYD, jun., appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State
of Massachusetts, to supply the place of John Quincy Adams, resigned,
took his seat in the Senate, and produced his credentials, which were
read, and the oath prescribed by law was administered to him.

_Ordered_, That the Secretary acquaint the House of Representatives
that a quorum of the Senate is assembled and ready to proceed to
business; and that Messrs. BRADLEY and POPE be a committee on the part
of the Senate, together with such committee as may be appointed by the
House of Representatives on their part, to wait on the President of
the United States and notify him that a quorum of the two Houses is
assembled.

A message from the House of Representatives informed the Senate that
a quorum of the House is assembled and ready to proceed to business;
and that the House had appointed a committee on their part, jointly
with the committee appointed on the part of the Senate, to wait on the
President of the United States and notify him that a quorum of the two
Houses is assembled.

_Resolved_, That JAMES MATHERS, Sergeant-at-Arms and Doorkeeper to
the Senate, be, and he is hereby, authorized to employ one assistant
and two horses, for the purpose of performing such services as are
usually required by the Doorkeeper to the Senate; and that the sum
of twenty-eight dollars be allowed him weekly for that purpose, to
commence with, and remain during the session, and for twenty days after.

On motion, by Mr. BRADLEY,

_Resolved_, That two Chaplains, of different denominations, be
appointed to Congress during the present session, one by each House,
who shall interchange weekly.

Mr. BRADLEY reported, from the joint committee, that they had waited on
the President of the United States, agreeably to order, and that the
President of the United States informed the committee that he would
make a communication to the two Houses at 12 o'clock to-morrow.


TUESDAY, November 8.

SAMUEL SMITH and PHILIP REED, from the State of Maryland, attended.

The following Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES:

  _To the Senate and House of
          Representatives of the United States_:

    It would have been a source, fellow-citizens, of much
    gratification, if our last communications from Europe had
    enabled me to inform you that the belligerent nations, whose
    disregard of neutral rights has been so destructive to our
    commerce, had become awakened to the duty and true policy of
    revoking their unrighteous edicts. That no means might be
    omitted to produce this salutary effect, I lost no time in
    availing myself of the act authorizing a suspension, in whole,
    or in part, of the several embargo laws. Our Ministers at
    London and Paris were instructed to explain to the respective
    Governments there, our disposition to exercise the authority in
    such manner as would withdraw the pretext on which aggressions
    were originally founded, and open the way for a renewal of that
    commercial intercourse which it was alleged, on all sides,
    had been reluctantly obstructed. As each of those Governments
    had pledged its readiness to concur in renouncing a measure
    which reached its adversary through the incontestable rights
    of neutrals only, and as the measure had been assumed by
    each as a retaliation for an asserted acquiescence in the
    aggressions of the other, it was reasonably expected that
    the occasion would have been seized by both for evincing the
    sincerity of their professions, and for restoring to the
    commerce of the United States its legitimate freedom. The
    instructions of our Ministers, with respect to the different
    belligerents, were necessarily modified with a reference to
    their different circumstances, and to the condition annexed by
    law to the Executive power of suspension requiring a degree