“it affords me much satisfaction to be able to communicate the commencement of a favorable change in our foreign relations....”

Excerpt

“it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury, to digest and report plans for the improvement and management of the revenue, and for the support of public credit—To prepare and report estimates of the public revenue, and the public expenditures—To superintend the collection of the revenue—To decide on the forms of keeping and stating accounts, and making returns, and to grant, under the limitations herein established, or to be hereafter provided, all warrants for monies to be issued from the Treasury, in pursuance of appropriations by law—To conduct the sale of the lands belonging to the United States, in such manner as shall be by law directed—To make report, and give information to either branch of the Legislature, in person or writing, (as he may be required) respecting all matters referred to him by the Senate or House of Representatives, or which shall appertain to his office, and generally to do or perform all such services, relative to the finances, as he shall be empowered or directed to do and perform.” (p3/c2)

Royal Artillery Lieutenant Thomas G. T. Williams compiled this list of ordnance and ammunition that the British Army seized from the Americans in their march toward Washington, at the Battle of Bladensburg, and in the capture of the American capital of Washington, D.C. It also notes that Americans destroyed a great deal of ammunition and ordnance as they abandoned Washington to the British. A few days later, the British would have less success against American forces at Baltimore and Fort McHenry. Four months later, 23-year-old Williams died of yellow fever outside of New Orleans.

“[T]he Eleventh Amendment, which restrains the jurisdiction granted by the Constitution over suits against States, is, of necessity, limited to those suits in which a State is a party on the record.”

Ohio levied taxes on each branch of the U.S. Bank in the state. The Court had already ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that such taxes were unconstitutional, but Ohio persisted in enforcing the tax. Ralph Osborn, the State Auditor, seized funds from the Bank. The circuit court ordered Osborn and his colleagues to repay the amount seized. The question is Osborn was, did the federal circuit court’s assertion of jurisdiction violate the Eleventh Amendment? In a 6-to-1 decision, the Court upheld the circuit and ruled that the Ohio law was “repugnant to the Constitution.” Osborn and his colleagues were thus “incontestably liable for the full amount of the money taken out of the bank.”

This issue includes a first printing of the landmark Supreme Court decision in the case of Osborn et al. v. The Bank of the United States. The Court announced its decision on Friday, March 19, 1824, and this printing appeared on Monday, March 22.

Interesting broadside in Latin issued for Harvard University’s 1786 commencement lists Latinized names of 45 graduating students. Among the graduates are Joseph Warren (1768-1790), the son of prominent Boston physician and Harvard graduate Joseph Warren, who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775; Boston attorney Timothy Bigelow (1767-1821); U.S. Senator Christopher G. Champlin (1768-1840); Boston attorney John Lowell Jr. (1769-1840), whose grandson served as president of Harvard in the early twentieth century; U.S. Senator Thomas W. Thompson (1766-1821); and Massachusetts Chief Justice Isaac Parker (1768-1830).

“Our late warfare was expressly founded on such principles as these: ‘All men are created equal: They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’.... Those who profess to understand and regard the principles of liberty should cheerfully unite to abolish slavery....”

In 1784, Connecticut passed a law that all slaves born after March 1, 1784, were to be freed before or when they reached the age of 25. In 1790, a group of clergymen, lawyers, and academics formed the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom and for the Relief of Persons Unlawfully Holden in Bondage to support the law. Yale University president and Congregationalist minister Ezra Stiles, formerly a slave owner, served as the society’s first president. Here, Rev. Doctor James Dana reviews the history and extent of slavery in the world. Calling it unjust, unchristian, and against the principles of the American Revolution, he urges abolition. Dana’s sermon, and those preached at the Society by Jonathan Edwards Jr., Theodore Dwight, and others, were among the most popular anti-slavery literature from the period. However, the Connecticut Society lapsed and disappeared after the turn of the century.