ee 
KIFTY-FOURTH CONGRESS, 1895-1897. 1757 
Mr. Puatr. And has reimbursed the fund? 
Mr. Berry. Absolutely. So that it is simply a question between 
the United States and the State of Arkansas. That is the foundation 
of the claim of the United States against the State. I repeat, so Sen- 
ators may fully understand it, that they did purchase $631,000 of these 
bonds in the first part of the year 1838, I think, when they were 
issued. . 
* * * * * * x 
The amount found by the Secretary of the Treasury and Secre- 
tary of the Interior to be due to the Government by the State of 
Arkansas, without counting interest on these bonds after maturity, 
was $1,611,803.61; and they also found that the State was entitled to 
credits for the sum of $1,451,231.61, leaving a balance due the Govern- 
ment from that State of $160,572. Another objection is made to some 
of the credits claimed and allowed to the State. In 1850 a law was 
passed by which the swamp and overflowed lands in all the States of 
this Union were donated to the respective States in which they were 
located for the purpose of the reclamation of such lands. Under that 
law thousands and millions of acres of land have been granted to a 
number of States. My State was largely swampy in character in its 
eastern portion, and a large part of those lands were so designated 
on the maps of the official survey. 
I want to state here and now that, under the rulings made by the 
General Land Office, a State could either select under the official sur-— 
vey and take such lands as were designated as swamp by that survey, 
or they could take proof as to the swampy character of the lands, and 
make claim before the General Land Office. My State elected to take 
under the official survey, and thereby lost thousands of acres that 
other States obtained by reason of the fact that they had taken another 
method of making proof. 
Subsequent to that act, in 1855 and 1857, Congress passed laws by 
which it was provided that whenever the Government had sold lands 
which turned out afterwards to be swamp lands, after the passage of 
the act of 1850, and sold them for money, the money should be 
refunded to the respective States in which the lands were located. It 
furthermore provided that if the lands were located by scrip location 
or by military bounty land warrants, the State had a right to select 
other public lands without regard to their character, provided they 
were public lands, in lieu of the lands that had been located under the 
scrip location or the military bounty land warrant location. 
A large part of the claim offset against this amount of money due 
the United States Government by my State comes from swamp lands 
to which we are entitled in lieu of lands subject to bounty-land war- 
rant and scrip location, and in lieu of the indemnity to which we were 
entitled by reason of the fact that the Government sold those swamp 
ot 
