148
TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
No. 1509 1839' Oct. 28, 1\L EVANS, AUSTIN, [TEXAS], TO 1\L B. LAMAR, [AUSTIN, TEXASJ 40
Second Auditor's Office, Austin, 28th Octbr. 1839
To His Excellency
Mirabeau B. Lamar.
Sir,
By an act 41 of Congress, approved the 21st of January 1839, the first and second Auditors and the Comptrollers as Judges, and the Secretary of the Treasury as Solicitor, were constitute<l a Board or Tribunal for the examination and auditing of all claims of whatever amount against the Government, which the laws of the Republic Did not specifically provide for; and that no claim of any character at all be presented to Congress or to the President, until they shall have been first [presented] to said Board- The object of Congress in creating such a Tribunal was no doubt correct; I believe that every member of the Board approved the motive, believing that it was the intention, that all such claims founded in justice and equity, should be examined and adjudicated now, while the parties and witnesses are living, and while the circum- stances relating to the claims are fresh in the memory of many of us_. and that they might be investigated without being reported to Con- gress, which would cost the Government more, than the whole amount of the claims. But the act defining the powers of the Court is very defective, first, by placing no restrictions as to the amount or character of the claims, that might be presented, and secondly, by not giving to the Court sufficient latitude of Judicial action, hy not clothing it with the powers to send for or compel witnesses, of [ J wh [ ] 4 .2 statement, might be obtained. Consequently the proceedings before the Court, were entirely ex parte, being confined to the proof i:nbmitted by the claimants, who had the opportunity of selecting their own appraisers of property furnished or destroyed in the war. In the cases adjudicated and allowed hy the Court in some instances the amounts claimed and proved were highly exorbitant, and, I have no doubt, would have been reduced, had the Court been invested with the full powers of a Court of Equity. . At the time that your Excellency by an Executive Order 43 wisely and properly suspended the proclamation of the Court, there were 38 [ ?] cases on the docket, and some of the claims mysterious and exceedingly embarrassing from the vague and unsatisfactory explanations made by the parti~s;: and the testimony of witnesses, who could not be confined to the strict rules of evidence. And had the Board proceeded to ex- amine and pass all such claims upon t.he principles and regulations which the Tribunal had adopted in the organization of the Court, under ••.A. L. S. See also no. 1529. usee no. 1029. • 2 Words missing where document is torn. ..See note 93 to no. 1529.
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