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Speaker of the House of Representatives: I have the honor herewith to transmit to the House of Representatives manuscript No. 2 of the opinions of the Attorneys-General, prepared in pursuance of its resolution. WASHINGTON, March 3, 1851.
I thought this decision the soundest of the two; for I had often had occasion to observe, that there were very startling points of resemblance between monkeys and our own species. The contest now commenced between the two attorneys-general in earnest; and, as the point at issue was a question of mere rank, it excited a lively I may say an engrossing interest in all the hearers.
Considering that the sum of which the million of livres in question made a part was a gratuitous grant from the French Government to the United States, and the declaration of that Government that that part of the grant was put into the hands of M. de Beaumarchais as its agent, not as the agent of the United States, and was duly accounted for by him to the French Government; considering also the concurring opinions of two Attorneys-General of the United States that the said debit was not legally sustainable in behalf of the United States, I recommend the case to the favorable attention of the Legislature, whose authority alone can finally decide on it.
To the House of Representatives: By a resolution passed by the House of Representatives on the 24th day of July, 1850, the President was requested to cause to be prepared and communicated to the House certain opinions of the Attorneys-General therein specified.
"O, your Majesty," I answered with animation, "they listen to attorneys-general, district attorneys and salaried officers of the law generally, whose prosperity depends in no degree upon their success; who prosecute none but those whom they believe to be guilty; who are careful to present no false nor misleading testimony and argument; who are solicitous that even the humblest accused person shall be accorded every legal right and every advantage to which he is entitled; who, in brief, are animated by the most humane sentiments and actuated by the purest and most unselfish motives."
They can believe, also, that in Boston, New York, Utica, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Alton, and in scores of other cities and villages of the free states, 'gentlemen of property and standing, led on by civil officers, by members of state legislatures, and of Congress, by judges and attorneys-general, by editors of newspapers, and by professed ministers of the gospel, have organized mobs, broken up lawful meetings of peaceable citizens, committed assault and battery upon their persons, knocked them down with stones, led them about with ropes, dragged them from their beds at midnight, gagged and forced them into vehicles, and driven them into unfrequented places, and there tormented and disfigured them that they have rifled their houses, made bonfires of their furniture in the streets, burned to the ground, or torn in pieces the halls or churches in which they were assembled attacked them with deadly weapons, stabbed some, shot others, and killed one.
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