Pay of Brevet Rank. I may add that, by this treaty, the chiefs, head men, and warriors of the Kansas nation, bound themselves that for injuries done by individuals, no private revenge or retaliation shall take place, but that redress should be sought by complaint, through proper channels, from this Government. The United States solemnly agreed by the same treaty, that the Kansas nation should ever remain under its protection. The Indians now complain loudly of individual injury and outrage, and the Government has, under the act of 1834, ample power, and is bound by the highest treaty obligation promptly to redress their wrongs. I am, sir, very respectfully, yours, &c., Hon. JACOB THOMPSON, J. S. BLACK. Secretary of the Interior. PAY OF BREVET RANK. 1. Under the act of April 16, 1818, an officer of the army cannot get the pay of his brevet rank, without showing both that he was on duty and that he had a corresponding command. 2. Although Congress, by the act of March 3, 1839, declared that the act of April 16, 1818, should thereafter "be so construed as to include the case of the Adjutant General of the United States," it was held that an officer who, after the passage of the act of 1839, was adjutant general of the United States, with the rank of brigadier general by brevet, and afterwards a major general by brevet, and who had no command according to such ranks, was not entitled to receive the pay and emoluments of his respective brevet ranks. 3. The words of an act of Congress, and .not the unexpressed intentions of its framers, govern its construction. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, September 29, 1857. SIR: I have read attentively the papers relating to the claim made by the representatives of the late Adjutant General Jones, for back pay. The date of General Jones's appointment as adjutant general of the army, is not given; but it appears to have Pay of Brevet Rank. been previous to 1832. In that year he was made a brigadier general by brevet; and, in 1848, the brevet rank of major general was conferred on him. He continued to hold the office and perform the duties of adjutant general from the time when he first received it, down to the period of his death, in 1852. What pay was he entitled to? His pay as adjutant general was fixed by the act of 2d of March, 1821. (3 Stat. at Large, 615.) That act made it the same as that of a colonel of cavalry; and it has never been changed since. Was he entitled to any other or greater compensation on account of his brevet rank as brigadier and major general? We shall see. The act of April 16, 1818, (3 Stat. at Large, 427,) declared that "officers of the army who have brevet commissions shall be entitled to and receive the pay and emoluments of their brevet rank, when on duty and having a command according to their brevet rank, and at no other time." By this law, an officer cannot get the pay of his brevet rank, without showing both that he was on duty, and that he had a corresponding command. General Jones was on duty, but it is admitted that he had no command at all. The claim, therefore, cannot be sustained upon the act of 1818. But on the 3d of March, 1839, when General Jones had been for seven years a brigadier general by brevet, Congress declared that the act of 1818 should, thereafter, “be so construed as to include the case of the Adjutant General of the United States." (5 Stat. at Large, 352.) Now, when a general law is construed to include a particular case, it takes in that case, applies to it, and operates upon it just as it does upon the other cases which it comprehends. The special case is brought within all its provisions, prohibitory as well as mandatory. Include the adjutant general in the act of 1818, and what does it do for him? It expressly forbids him to receive the pay of his brevet rank, if he had no command. To give him such pay, notwithstanding his want of a command, would Pay of Brevet Rank. be, not to include him within the act of 1818, but to make his case an exception out of it. From the time when the act of 1839 was passed, General Jones received the pay and emoluments of a brigadier general. That is to say, the accounting officers, in his case, disregarded all the provisions of the act of 1818, and gave him the pay of his brevet rank, though he had no command; and they called that including him in the law which they set at naught. If he was entitled to the pay of brigadier general, he was equally entitled to that of major general, after the latter rank was given him. Accordingly, his representatives now claim the difference between the pay of the lower rank, which he got, and the higher rank which he did not get. This, it is true, would be carrying out the former decision to its fair logical consequences. But it will not do to draw such consequences from a mere blunder. It is said, that the act of 1839, if it meant merely to include the Adjutant General in the act of 1818, was an idle, vain, unnecessary thing, because he was already included; and this is pressed as a reason why the word should not be understood in its proper sense. But such liberties cannot be taken with any statute. I deny that an act of Congress, which merely repeats what was enacted previously, is, therefore, to receive a construction coutradicted by its own words. We are not to be "wise above what is written." The act of 1839 says that the adjutant general shall be included within a certain law, and, if he was included before, that is no reason for saying he shall not be included. To reiterate a command is not to revoke it; to re-enact a statute is not to repeal it. When you have two plain laws to the same effect, they both mean what they both say, though it be true that one of them is useless. It is not at all improbable that Congress, when this act was passed, intended to provide that the adjutant general should be included among the officers paid according to Laborers in the Executive Departments. their brevet rank, though he had no command. But, if it was meant, it was not said: voluit, non dixit. A mere conjecture of the unexpressed thought, which may have been in the minds of the members, is a kind of material entirely too unsubstantial to make laws of I am, very respectfully, yours, &c., Hon. JOHN B. FLOYD, Secretary of War. J. S. BLACK. COMPENSATION OF LABORERS IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. The act of Congress, passed 4th August, 1854, and the act of 18th August, 1856, in respect the annual salaries of laborers, relate only to persons regularly employed for manual labor in the Executive Departments. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, September 30, 1857. SIR: By your letter of the 26th inst., and the accompanying papers, I am informed that sundry persons, recently, but not now, employed in the Patent Office, and generally designated as laborers, have demanded arrearages of compensation under various acts of Congress, and particularly under the joint resolution of August 18, 1856. You desire my opinion on the legal right of these men to have what they claim. An act of Congress, passed August 4, 1854, (10 Stat. at Large, 572,) provided that "all laborers in the employment of the Executive Departments of the Government in the city of Washington shall receive an annual salary of four hundred and eighty dollars each." And the joint resolution of August 18, 1856, (11 Stat. at Large, 145,) declares that "all laborers in the employment of Government in the Executive Departments, and on the public grounds in the city of Washington, shall receive an annual salary of six hundred dollars from and after July 1, 1856." If these laws, prescribing the payment of annual sala Laborers in the Executive Departments. ries, be the true and only measure of compensation for all laborers-if every one who is called a laborer in any of the departments is to be paid neither more nor less than six hundred dollars per annum-let us look at the law and the subject matter of it together, and see how they fit one another. The laborers in the different departments are those who do the labor. This comprehends all sorts of personsblack and white; men, women and children. If this horizontal system is to be literally carried out, a negro boy will get as much as a mature white man, and a woman, who earns two hundred dollars, will have a salary as large as a man whose work is worth a thousand. I do not think any such equalization of sex, color and age was intended. Some laborers are employed steadily, and others only occasionally. A regulation which pays one by the year, who works constantly for years together, is reasonable; but an annual salary for a person, who spends a forenoon in shaking the dust out of a carpet, is too absurd to be thought of. A Among the persons who are designated as laborers, some have duties to perform which require mechanical skill, and even a certain grade of science, while others need nothing but muscle and bone. This law, according to the construction now attempted, would put them all on a level. Between laborers of the same class there is a great difference in the rule by which they make their charges. wood-sawyer expects to be paid by the cord, and a coalheaver by the ton; a scavenger works by the day, and a chimney-sweep by the job. These are fixed customs of the several trades, and the "argumentum ab inconvenienti" is very strong against any construction which would put them all upon annual salaries. The injustice of such a law is too glaring for tolerance. It would give to some an amount to which they have no pretence of right, and take from others their just due. It levels downward as well as upward, and brings all to the one inflexible standard of six hundred dollars. In this |