77
WRITINGS OF SAM HousTON, 1827
not otherwise appropriated," and inserting in lieu thereof the following: "To allow Willie Blount, or his heirs, two and a half percent on all money by him raised on his own responsibility for the use of the United States, subject to a detention of whatever sum the said Blount may be in arrears to the United States." In the vote on this ame.ndment, Houston's, name is among the Yeas.] 1 The National InteU:igencer, January 29, 1827. :wmie Blount (April 18, 1768-September 10, 1835), jurist, Governor of Tennessee. See the Dictionary of A mcrican Biography, II, 39.
ON PUBLISHERS OF THE LA WS 1
[February 2, 1827] M-r. Houston of Tennessee, then observed that it had not been his intention to have anything to say on the subject of the pres- ent resolution; nor should he now have addressed the House, did he not conceive that some of the arguments and observations of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Wright,] were calculated to affect the State he had the honor to represent. Under such circum- stances, he considered it his duty to submit a few words in reply to that gentleman. The gentleman from Ohio had attempted to justify the conduct of the Secretary of State, in taking away the printing of the laws from the ·western Argus, on the ground that the Legislature of Kentucky had previously taken from the same paper the public printing for the State. This, the gentleman thought was quite sufficient to indicate the course of the State Department in removing the printing for the General Govern- •ment. But, if this were a valid principle, as applied to Kentucky, the same principle ought to hold in the case of Tennessee. But what ,,,as the fact? It was directly the reverse of what h~d hap- pened in Kentucky. The Nashville Republican, a paper edited by Mr. Murray, had been employed to print the laws of the United States, in 1825. Within the first week after the Congress met, the Representatives addressed the Secretary of State a letter in which, after representing the character of the Editor, they re- spectfully requested that the privilege of printing the laws might be continued with that paper. They received an answer, in which the Secretary told them that he had already transferred the print- ing of the laws to another paper, the Nashville Whig. The Leg- islature of Tennessee had taken the State printing from the Nash- ville Whig, and had given it to the Nashville Republican. From
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