tions.

AN ACT

(No. 1:0) Making appropriations for the year, one thousand eigth hundred and thirty nine. Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Alabama in General Assembly convened, That the following sums of money be, and the same are hereby appropriated out of any money in Appropria- the Treasury not otherwise appropriated; and to be paid to the following persons in payment of their claims for the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine, to wit: to the Gevernor of the State, the sum of three thous and five hundred dollars; the Secretary, the Comptroller of Public Accounts, and the State Treasurer each, the sum of twelve hundred dollars; the Judges of the Supreme Court, the sum of two thousand two hundred and fifty dol lars each; for the pay of the sallaries of two Chancellors each the sum of two thousand dollars; the Judges of the Circuit Court each, the sum of two thousand dollars; the Attorney General, the sum of four hundred and twenty five dollars; the Solicitor of the first Judicial Circuit, the sum of three hundred and fifty dollars; the Solicitors of the other Judicial Circuits, each, the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars; the Quarter Master General, the sum of two hundred dollars; the Adjutant and Inspector General, the sum of six dollars per day, for each and every day he shall be engaged in the actual discharge and fulfilment of his official duties or in travelling on official business; for the pay of the Secretary of the Senate, and the Principal Clerk of the House of Representatives, the sum of seven dollars per day each, du ring the session or for their respective terms of service; for the pay of the Assistant Secretary of the Senate, and the Assistant and Engrossing Clerks of the House of Representatives, each, the sum of five dollars per day, during the session or for their respective terms of service; for the pay of the door. keeper of the Senate, and House of Representatives, and Messenger of the House of Representatives each, the sum of five dollars per day. during the session, or for their respective terms of service; to the Secretary of State for indexing the laws, copying the Journals of both Houses of the present session of the General Assemby, preparing the whole for the press, and su erintending the printing of the same, the sum of three hundred dollars; for the salary of the State Printer, the sum of three thousand eight hundred dollars; to the Secretary of the Senate, and the Principal Clerk of the House of Representatives, the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars each for bringing up and completing the Journals of the Senate and House of Representatives, and filing away and arranging the papers of the session.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the sum of three thousand dol lars be, and the same is hereby appropriated, to defray the contingent expen ses of the State Government.

Sec. 3. And be it farther enacted, That the sum of one hundred and fif teen thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby set apart and appropriated out of the profits of the Banking Capital of the Bank of the State of Alabama and its several branches, known as the sinking fund, to defray the necessary expenses of the State Governmen'; and the said sum of one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars shall be paid in the same manner, and subject to the same rules and regulations now required by the act, approved January 9, 1836.

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That hereafter the door-keeper and Messenger of the House of Representatives and the Door-keeper of the Senate, shall each be allowed and paid for their services the sum of five do lars per day, instead of the sum now allowed by law; to be computed from the first day of the meeting of the present session of the General Assembly; also the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars to J. C. Van Dyke, Comptroller of Public Accounts, &c. for Clerk hire. Approved, Feb. 1, 1839.

To alter and amend the charter of the Bank of the State of Alabama, and its several

Branches.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Alabama in General Assembly convened, That the Govern Board of con. or for the time being, and the Presidents of the State and branch banks, trol to meet shall constitute a board of control, to meet every three months and oftener every 3 m'ths if the Governor shall deem it expedient at the banking House of the Mother Bank, that the Mother Bank and each of its branches, shall be subject to the orders and directions of the board of control.

siness paper.

Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, That the Bank of the State of Alabama, and each of its branches, may hereafter discount business paper, not having more than one hundred and twenty days to run, whether it be offered by persons May dis. bu who have taken the extension or not; Provided nevertheless, that if the person or persons who may offer any business paper for discount, shall have t ken the extension, it shall be the duty of the several boards of directors the said banks to appropriate the proceeds of the note or notes so discounted to the payment of his extended debt.

Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the president Officers of Bk

a year.

and cashier of the State Bank and each of the branch banks to settle with to settle with the Attorney or Attorneys of their respective banks at least three times in Att'y. 3 times each year, and in case of neglect, or refusal on the part of any Attorney or Attorneys to pay over to the proper bank any money or monies, by him or them collected for the space of ten days after a settlement shall have been made with him or them by the president and cashier as aforesaid, he or they shall be discharged from the employment of the bank; and it shall be the ,duty of the president of the bank or branch banks, as the case may be, to sue for and collect the same by summary remedy as in other cases under the charter of said banks.

Settle with

Sec. 4. Be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the president and cashier of the State Bank and branches, to settle with any person or per. sous, who may heretofore have been the Attorney or Attorneys for the same, former Att'ys and in case of neglect or refusal on the part of any such Attorney or Atto neys to pay any balance due by him or them to the proper bank, he or they shall be proceeded against as is provided for in the third section of this act. Sec. 5. Be it further enacted, That the several Attorneys of the Bank of the State of Alabama and its branches, shall hereafter receive an annual salary of one thousand dollars payable quarterly, and no more.

Sec. 6. Be it further enacted, That if any president or director shall in. future suffer his name either as payer or discounter or indorser, upon any note or bill to remain under protest for the space of ten days, the seat of such president or directors office, shall forthwith become vacated and the board shall as in after cases, proceed to fill such vacancies.

Sec. 7. Be it further enacted, That the president and directors of the State Bank and the branches thereof, shall hereafter be exempt from working on the roads and serving on juries.

Sec. 8. Be it further enacted, That it shall not be lawful for any corpo. ration to impose any tax upon the Bank of the State of Alabama or any of the branches thereof.

Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That none of the provisions of an act passed at the present session of the General Assembly, entitled an act to abolish Attorneys fees in certain cases, shall apply to the collection of debts due the Bank of the State of Alabama or any of its branches in any man. ner or form whatsoever. Approved, Feb. 2. 1839.

Att'y. salary

$1000,

Bank exempt from taxtion.

JOINT RESOLUTION

By the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Alabama in General Assembly convened, That the Secretary of State shall cause suitable shelves to be constructed in the Library Room, and that the books and documents therein be classed, and put up to secure them from damage.

Approved, Dec. 18th, 1838.

JOINT MEMORIAL of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Alabama, to the Congress of the United States, respectfully represent:

That the citizens on the Cherokee lands, lying within the limits of this State, are extremely desirous that the said lands should be surveyed. Under the provision of the late pre-emption act, actual settlers under certain provisions are entitled to enter lands, and become the owners of the soil; the country in many neighbourhoods is very densely populated, it is therefore propable that under the restrictions of the act of Congress, all will not be entitled to enter their lands they occupy; as in many instances, it may be supposed, there are many families on the same quarter section, and some may be prohibited from other causes. Under this state of things, it would be greatly to the advantage of all parties, to have the lands surveyed in order that those who are entitled may enter and commence the improvement of their lands, and th who are not, may resort to other means to procure their homes. Your memorialists deem it unessary to dwell upon the advantages which must result to the settler, to the State, and to the United States, by enabling the settlers to become the owners of the lands they occupy-all these advantages are well known to your honorable body. Your memorialists, therefore, request that the Congress of the United States will cause the Cherokee lands, within this State, to be surveyed as early as practicable.

Resolved, That our Senators and Representatives in Congress be requested to use their influence to promote the objects of this memorial.

Resolved, That his Excellency, the Governor, be requested to forward a copy of the foregoing memorial and resolutions to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress.

Approved, December 28th, 1838.

JOINT MEMORIAL of the General Assembly of the State of Alabama in relation to the Public lands. To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, the memorial of the General Assembly of the State of Alabama, respectfully represents: That by. the wise policy of the Government of the United States in relation to the public lands, homes have been secured to that industrious, enterprising and meritorious class of citizens, who are the first to fell a towering forest and first to repel an invading enemy. And whereas, Congress in the passage of the late pre-emption law failed to provide for that portion of the settlers on public lands, lying within this State, when improvements were covered by Sixteenth Sections, and sites for seats of Justice for the different counties: And whereas, in the passage of the pre-emption law of 1834, another portion of the settlers on the public lands lying in the Creek country were also unprovided for: And whereas, under the construction placed upon the first mentioned act, many citizens are excluded from its beneficial provisions by confining settlers to the land upon which their dwellings stood. It oftentimes happening that settlers made improvements for purposes of cultivation upon the rich and fertile lands, adjacent to rivers and creeks, while their dwellings were in the pine hills. Now in view of the foregoing suggestions, this General Assembly, would respectfully ask that you may pass such laws in relation to this subject as will extend the right of pre-emption to the forgoing settlers, by permitting them to enter one hundred and sixty acres of any land, lying within the country lately acquired by treaty from the Cherokee Indians, not otherwise reserved from sale.

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Alabama in General Assembly convened, That our Senators and Representatives in Congress be requested to use their efforts to procure the passage of a law embracing the objects of the foregoing memorial.

Resolved, That the Governor be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing memorial and resolu tions to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress. Approved, Jan. 10, 1839.

JOINT RESOLUTION

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Alabama in General Assembly convened, That the Governor be, and he is hereby required to appoint three suitable persons, (one of whom shall be a practical surveyor,) whose duty it shall be, as early as convenient, to ascertain and mark the boundary line between the State of Georgia and this State, according to the terms of the compact between the United States and the State of Georgia, entered into the twenty-fourth of April, eighteen hundred and two.

And be it further Resolved, That if the Commissioners aforesaid shall determine that the line heretofore run and marked out by the authority of Georgia, be not the proper line, according to the true in tent and meaning of the article of cession and agreement entered into between the United States and the State of Georgia in 1802, they shall report that faet to the Governor of this State without delay. Approved, January 24, 1839.

JOINT MEMORIAL To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress Assembled:

The memorial of the General Assembly of the State of Alabama respectfully showeth, that by a treaty made and entered into on the 24th day of March 1832, at Washington city, with the Creek tribe of Indians, all the lands belonging to said tribe were ceded to the United States on the condition that each Indian warrior or head of a family, should have a reservation, of a half section of land, which he should be allowed to sell by procuring the assent of the President of the United States to such sale, and the said tribe was allowed to remain in the country so ceded for five years, from the date of the treay, during which period it was intended that full time should be given to said Indians to dispose of their reservations; at the end of five years it was provided that those who had sold their reservations should be re noved by the Government west of the Mississippi, while those who had not disposed of their reservation were to hold the same in fee simple, and to remain upon them subject to the laws of the State of Alabama; one of the first acts of Government after the ratification of this treaty, was to cause the lands not located upon by Indian reservations to be surveyed and sold at public auction. This policy of the Governent produced the anomalous result of throwing a large body of white settlers who had purchased land in the Creek country in contact and juxtaposition with the Indians for the first time in the history of this Government, the white and red race occupied the same country. This unprecedented state of things produced what might have been anticipated-material injuries and violations of property, and what was a necessary conse quence, reciprocal feelings of personal dislike and animosity, which in many instances resulted in actual aggressious, either upon the property or the person of the offending parties. The Government was frequently alarmed of the progress of these events and was fully reminded of the consequences which would inevitably result, unless an adequate military force was immediately sent to the country to overawe the turbulent spirit of the Indians which was daily manifesting itself in acts of hostility to the white settlers.

Primary meetings of the people in many parts of the Creek country were held in which it was reported to the President not only that partial hostilities then existed, but that a portion of the Creek tribe including the lower Towns were actually preparing themselves for the com mencement of a general war. It was urged that from the fact that many of the Indians had already disposed of their reservations and was roaving through the country without a home and without the means of support in en almost starving condition. That this spirit of partial hostility would rapidly extend itself to the whole tribe; that it was the duty of the Government either to remove this wandering and disaffected portion who had disposed of their lands or subsist them at the public expense ard to provide an adequate military force to keep them in subjection until the treaty stipulations on the part of the Government, were carried fully into effect. This appeared to be due not only to the Indiaus but more particularly to the white settlers who occupied the country by the consent of the Government, and who were living on the lands purchased either from the Indians agreeable to treaty, or from the Government and to whom the Government was under the strongest obligatious to protect in the peaceable enjoyment of these lands without any imputation on the official conduct of the President or Secretary of War.

The General Assembly feel it a duny which they owe to a respectable portion of the people of Alabama, to say not only that no efficient measures were taken by the Government to protect the lives and property of settles in the Creek country previous to the actual commencement of general hostilities; but that even the ordinary military force which had been for years previously in the inost peaceable times, stationed at Fort Mitchell, was removed from tho country, in advance of the very period, when circumstances have since proved they were most needed. Whether this occurred from the necessities of the Florida War, or whether it resulted from the assurances which the Government received of the pacific feelings of the Creeks from the subordinate officers employed in the Creek country, or from whatever cause which Inay detach blame from the President, the fact must be admitted to present strong claims the justice of the country in favor of allowing an indemnity for those losses which the Government might so easily have prevented.

on

It is certainly not assuming too much for the General Assembly to say that if the Government upon the first manifestation of a hostile spirit amongst the Indians, had have sent an organized force of two hundred men in the Creek country, all the aggressions which afterwards fook place, might have been averted. Not only was this not done, but up to the first of May 1836, when the scene of general war actually commenced among the lower Creeks which terminated in such destructions of the lives and property of a portion of the people of this State;

no measure whatever of a defensive character had been taken by the Government-a scene of savage murder and rapine occurred in the St, the more dreadful because the Indians outnumbered the whites, more than twenty to e; and the less liable to be averted by any other power than that of the Federal Government, because the tribe from when it proceeded were under the exclusive control and protection of that Government, pending the carrying into effect with their stipulations of the treaty of 1832.

The General Assembly of this State at its last annual session, presented a memorial to the Congress of the United States urging the propriety and justice of granting indemnity to the sufferers by Indian depredations in 1836 to the full amount of the loss actually sustained. This memorial has not yet been definetely acted on by either of the Legislative branches of the Government; but in a report from the committee of claims of the House of Representatives during its last session, we find a recommendation in the shape of a resolution, that the claims for depredations ought not to be allowed. In arriving at this conclusion that committee have adopted a course of argument, inference from facts, from which this Assembly begs leave respectfully to express its dissent.

This

The practice of the Government heretofore to refuse indemnity for spoilations committed by an Indian tribe at war with the United States has been urged as a reason for rejecting their claims to give this argument effect, it should be shown that under simi ar circumstances the Government have adopted a similar decision the peculiarity of this case is, that it is a claim not for depredations committed by an interior tribe at war with the United States, but by a tribe kept and detained with the limits of a State after the larger portion of the tribes have disposof their lands, and detained too in that state of pupillage and dependence on the Government created by treaty upon the very lands which the Government had sold to the white settlers. When before have the Government kept an Indian tribe on a tract of country after disposing of the lands belonging to that country to white settlers, while detained in such a country in fulfilment of treaty stipulations? What other power than the Federal Government is respon. sible for enforcing on them the observance of peace? Besides the Government is unable to present the aggressions of exterior tribes and are therefore not responsible for them. But who can say that ordinary prudence and free action on that part of Government the same which has so lately been used in the removal of the Ch rokees. would not have prevented the late depredations of Creeks; because the Government has refused to grant indemnity for losses it could not prevent, is it therefore to refuse it for those which it could by ordinary means have prevented if so it amounts to a denial of that protection to its citizens against foreign violence which is the basis of the allegiance which it claims from such citizens. But why is it that the Government is not bound for depredations committed during a state of war upon no other principles than its inability to protect citizens from the consequences of war. night be a very just argument to its citizens against a claim for indemnity committed by Great Britain or France, or some powerful nation which the Government could not drive into a reparation of the consequences of a war. But it is certainly misapplied when urged as a reason for not protecting its citizens against the depredations of a miserable remnant of an interior tribe of Indians who were subdued less than eight weeks after subduing the Creeks. Why did not the Government in justice to its own citizens make that tribe through their heavy annuities responsible for the losses and depredations of the war? There was not want of power to do this; and acting upon the principles that it is the duty of the Government to afford all protection to their citizens compatible with the public safety and ability, the Government ought to have imposed the indemnity on the offending tribe, not having done so it has not cited its legitimate means of affording all the protection in its power to rights of its own tizens, and ought on every principal of justice to pay the indemnity out of the public Treasury. But again, it cannot be denied that under the intercourse law of 1892, and under the practice of the Government depredations committe.l by a portion of a tribe not at war with the United States, have inviolably been paid by the Government and then charged against the annuity of that tribe. Nor though it has been sssumed by the committee of claims, that the depredation committed by the Creek Indians in 1836, were committed during a state of war, Your memorialists venture the assertion, that during that year there was no war with the Creek Indians as a tribe.. A large majority of that tribe were not only at peace with the United States, but actually assisted in bringing the hostilities of a minor portion to a close. The principal 'Chief of the nation with a majority of the Chief's and warriors, took up arms and assisted in subduing the hostile portion of their tribe. How then can it be called a state of war with the Creek Indians, if depradations by a portion of the tribe and the smaller portion constitute a state of war. Then is all prospect of indemnity under the act of 1802, at an end. Ir the Govornment were not to indemnify the sufferers by the late Greek Indian depredations, and were to change