Army And Navy Pension Laws And Bounty Land Laws Of Us Including Sundry Resolutions Of Congress From 1776 To

Author : Robert Mayo
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331333555
Total Pages : 824 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (335 download)

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Download or read book Army and Navy Pension Laws written by Robert Mayo and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 824 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Army and Navy Pension Laws: And Bounty Land Laws, United States, Including Sundry Resolutions of Congress, 1776 to 1852; Executed at the Department of the Interior; Appendix, Containing the Opinions of Attorneys General of the United States, With the Decisions, Rules, and Regulation Shortly after that date, on the 15th May, 1778, half pay was promised for seven years after the conclusion of the war, to ail commissioned officers who should continue in the army to the end of the war; and on the 25th September of the same year, the benefits of the resolutions of the 26th August, 1776, were made to reach back to all cases of disability from the commencement of hostilities on the 19th April, 1775. Thus, at this early period of the first military operations in the work of independence, was the magnanimous, politic, just, and grateful system of pensions commenced by anticipation; and, lest any oversight might have occurred, took a retroaction upon the few months that had elapsed; and from that time to the present day, our national legislature has gone on, step by step, to complete the details of this system, to meet all the demands of justice, gratitude, and humanity, towards our revolutionary worthies who have rendered military and naval services, and come within the conditions of those laws. And finally, on the 2d March, 1833, the administration of this system was raised to the dignity of an independent bureau, under the management of a "Commissioner of Pensions," instituted by the act of that date, making appropriations for the "civil and diplomatic expenses of the Government for the year 1833," which says (sec. l, page 36 of the pamphlet of laws) "a Commissioner of Pensions shall be appointed by the President and the Senate, who shall receive a salary of two thousand five hundred dollars, which is hereby appropriated. 'He shall execute, under the direction of the Secretary of War, such duties in relation to 'the various pension laws as may be prescribed by the President of the United States; 'and he shall also have the privilege of franking, ' &c. [The. office of Commissioner of Pensions has been continued ever since by biennial enactments until the last continuance, which provides that it shall continue until further legislation on the subject - thereby relieving the necessity of further continuance. See act, p. 215.] "At this stage of mature legislative enactments upon this subject, the Secretary of War has thought proper to charge an humble individual in the Pension Office, with the task of compiling this system of laws, together with the opinions of Attorneys General, and the Rules and Regulations adopted by Secretaries of War, relative to the execution of those laws; and to digest an analytical index of the whole for publication. In executing this charge, some latitude has been taken by the compiler, in introducing, in the order of its date, the pension law of the 15th May, 1828, which is executed at the Treasury Department. [The execution of official duties under this act was shortly afterwards transferred to the Pension Office.] It was founded on the resolution of the 21st October, 1780, which is an important pillar of this system of Iaws; and the recent act of the 7th June, 1832, is an enlargement or a supplement to the said act of 1828; whereby the three necessarily throw a reciprocal light on each other. He has also introduced in the Appendix Mr. Wirt's opinion, "whether it was the intention of Congress to incorporate negroes and people of color with the army," as applicable to their claims for pensions, though that opinion was called for in relation to their claims for "land bounty." [This opinion will now be found in the order of its date.] He has also recapitulated, in the Appendix, (marked B, C, and D, ) an abstract of the Rules and Regulations established by law, for the purpose of exhibiting the legal regulations in a condensed form, in juxtaposition with the opinions and regulations o