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Under section 9 of the act the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, and Attorney-General were authorized to receive offers of compromise and settlement from companies and persons claiming public lands in the territory in question and report their opinion to congress at the next session. The evidence was received by commissioners acting for the board and a report sent to congress, but thereafter there was no action taken until the act of March 31, 1814,45 provided that those who had filed the evidence should have till January 1, 1815, to file legal releases to the United States of all their claims: The Department received the releases which are now of record.

The commissioners who were appointed under this act conceived themselves to be appurtenant to the Department as the following letter indicates:

Sir:

WASHINGTON March 11th 1815.

The 8th Section of the act of Congress of March 3a 1803 (6 Vol. Laws U. S. p. 282) requiring the evidence of all claims under the act or pretended act of Georgia to be recorded in the Secretary of State's office, a doubt may arise, whether the deeds & documents which have been file with us, without having been previously deposited in your office could b considered as a compliance with the provisions of the act. We woul! therefore suggest the propriety of the performance of some act on you part, which would give the evidences of claims filed with us the same effect that they would have if filed previously in your office. A declaration from you that the session chamber of the board of Commissioners shall be deemed a part of your office or an authority given to a clerk in your office to take possession temporarily of the paper deposited with us, would in our opinion sufficiently answer the provisions of the law. We beg leave to call your attention to this subject, with apologies for this intrusion & are with respect

Yr obt hbe servts

Tho Swann)
Com
John Law S

46

The Honorable James Monroe.40

The certificate given by the state of Georgia surrendered to the Secretary of State was in the following form:

45 III Stat. 117.

46 Department of State MSS., Lands South of Tennessee (unbound papers).

(Admitted to record 24 Nov. 1803 ....

.) STATE OF GEORGIA.

No. 383

In pursuance of an Act of the Legislature of the State aforesaid, passed at Augusta on the seventh day of January, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five, vesting in the Subscribers a certain tract of Territory of the said State, lying on the Great Bent of the River Tennessee, as fully described in said Act: We hereby certify, That

or his

Assigns, is entitled to the one four hundred and twentieth part of said Territory; Provided, the sum of one four hundred and twentieth part of the full purchase money for said Territory is paid unto ...

or his Agent on or before the first day of August next ensuing, when a Deed of Conveyance will be issued in lieu of this certificate, to the said Act. And in case the said .. ... or his assigns, should fail in paying the sum above specified, then this Certificate is declared by the Subscribers to be null and void. Dated at Augusta, this twenty-fifth day of February one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five.

Endorsed:

August 27th February 1795

Received the full consideration for the within, Say the one four hundred and twentieth part of the purchase money as within specified.

47

The releases made to the United States were regular indentures as follows:

This indenture made this eleventh day of March in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and fifteen between and ...

of the Town of Abingdon in the County of Washington and State of Virginia by .. their attorney of the first part and the United States of America of the second part. Whereas, by an act of the Congress, &c. Therefore, the parties of the first part conveyed all rights and claims. to the parcel of land described to the United States."

The Department's management of affairs which are now under the Treasury Department has not been extensive, that Department having been organized as soon as the Department of State.

Section 4 of the act of March 2, 1819,49 however, provided that each vessel arriving in the United States must report to the collector

47 Department of State MSS., Lands, vol. II.

48 Department of State MSS., Lands South of Tennessee, vol. 9.

49 III Stat. 489.

of the district in which it arrived a list of all the passengers on the ship, and the collector was required to send quarterly returns of these manifests to the Secretary of State, by whom the statements of passengers thus landed were sent to Congress. This requirement was repeated by section 13 of the act of March 3, 1855,50 and repealed by the act of May 7, 1874,51 which provided that the manifests or lists of passengers should be sent to the Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary of State had carried on direct correspondence with the collectors with reference to the lists and each year had sent them to Congress; his duties went no further.

July 4, 1864,52 an act was approved to encourage immigration into the United States, and the first section provided that the President should appoint a commissioner of emigration, who should be subject to the direction of the Secretary of State, with a salary of $2,500 per annum and be allowed three clerks. Under him was to be the superintendent of immigration at New York. On the day of the signature of the act James Brown of New York was appointed the commissioner. For four years the Bureau of Immigration continued under the State Department, but by act of March 30, 1868 (section 4),53 it was abolished and not revived till the act of March 3, 1891,5* placed it under the Treasury Department, from which it passed to the Department of Commerce and Labor when that department was created.

The Department had the duty of publishing the Biennial Register or Blue Book. It was first authorized by a joint resolution of the Senate and House, approved April 27, 1816,55 requiring that once in two years a register, containing correct lists of all officers and agents, civil, military and naval in the service of the United States, made up to the last day of September of each year in which a new Congress is to assemble, be compiled and printed under the direction of the Secretary of State. The heads of other departments were

50 X Stat. 719.

51 XVIII Stat. 42.

52 XIII Stat. 385.

53 XV Stat. 58.

54 XXVI Stat. 1084.

55 III Stat. 342.

ordered to lodge their lists with him in due season, and the Secretary of the Navy to include the names, force, and condition, of all ships and vessels belonging to the United States. Five hundred copies of the Register were to be printed, and on the first Monday in January in each year when a new Congress assembled, the copies were to be distributed among the higher officers of the government, and twentyfive copies lodged in the library of the United States.

The publication continued on this system until it was modified by the joint resolution, approved July 14, 1832,56 which required the inclusion of a list of all printers of the laws of the United States, with the compensation allowed each one, and of all printers in any way employed by Congress, by any department or officer of the government, with the compensation, and all allowances made by the Postmaster-General within the same period 30 September, 1831, to 30 September, 1833 to each contractor on contracts for carrying the mails; a list of the president, cashiers, and directors of the Bank of the United States and its branches. In collecting the information the Department sent a circular to those whose duty it was to furnish it. It merely assembled the data and published it, but the labor involved became considerable as the force of the government grew larger. By act of February 20, 1861, the duty was transferred to the Department of the Interior.57

GAILLARD HUNT.

[The balance of this section dealing with Occasional Duties of the Department will appear in a future issue of the JOURNAL.]

56 IV Stat. 608,

57 XII Stat. 141.

ARCTIC EXPLORATION AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

The announcement on September 1, 1909, by Dr. Frederick A. Cook, that he had discovered the north pole on April 21, 1908, and the almost contemporary declaration on September 6th, of Robert A. Peary, of the United States Navy, in command of the Roosevelt, that he had discovered the north pole on April 6, 1909, are, if substantiated, not only international events and scientific achievements of the greatest interest and value, but the culmination of centuries of effort, directed not merely to reach the pole, but to shorten commercial routes by the discovery of a northwestern and northeastern passage, to advance our knowledge of arctic geography and to make known in a disinterested and scientific spirit, the flora, fauna, and the physical configuration of the arctic regions.

Less interesting, perhaps, but not without value, is the discussion of the title to the vast regions discovered and explored, and the principles of law supposed to be involved in the claims which either may be or have been made to the ownership of the regions thus discovered. In view of the inherent interest of the subject, the heroism of the achievement, and the principles of international law involved in the acquisition of territory, it seems not inappropriate to consider in summary form certain phases of arctic exploration.

Arctic explorations may conveniently be divided into three classes: first, the voyages for the discovery of a northern passage to the west or to the east; second, purely scientific expeditions for the advancement of geographical knowledge; third, polar expeditions properly so-called, for the actual discovery and location of the pole.

For the purpose of this article the early expeditions which opened up Iceland and Greenland may be disregarded, just as the predecessors of Columbus are ordinarily passed over in considering the discovery of America, because, however important one or the other may have been, the expedition of Columbus to discover a passage to India opened up a new and unsuspected world and supplied at once the impetus and incentive to the adventurous of all countries to

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