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Document 4296

MILLARD FILLMORE
Relating to an 1847 law regulating the size of passenger berths aboard merchant vessels during a period of great immigration to the U.S.
Partly Printed Presidential Warrant signed: "Millard Fillmore" as 13th U.S. President, 1p, 8x6½. Washington, 1853 January 25. In full: "I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of State [Edward Everett] to affix the seal of the United States to the remission of the penalties incurred by the master and owners or owners of the 'Independence' for a violation of the 3.Sec of the Act of Congress of Feby 22, 1847 relative to passenger ships, dated this day, and signed by me: and for so doing this shall be his warrant." "An Act to regulate the Carriage of Passengers in Merchant Vessels" was signed by President James K. Polk on February 22, 1847. The act provided specific regulations to safeguard passengers on merchant vessels. Between 1840 and 1860, the United States received its largest wave of immigrants to date. In Europe, famine, poor crops, rising populations and political unrest caused an estimated five million people to leave their homelands each year. Between 1845 and 1850, the Irish people faced famine. The potato crop, upon which the Irish depended for subsistence, suffered blight for five years and about 750,000 Irish starved to death. Many of those who survived left Ireland for the United States. In 1847 alone, 118,120 Irish people emigrated to the United States. To make extra money, merchant ship owners carried passengers as well as goods, putting as many passengers on their ships as possible. Due to overcrowding, passengers died due to lack of food, air and spreading of disease. Section 3 of the act relates to the space allotted for passengers on merchant ships, whether owned by Americans or foreigners. In full: "If any such vessel as aforesaid shall have more than two tiers of berths, or in case, in such vessel the interval between the floor and the deck or platform beneath shall not be at least six inches, and the berths well constructed, or in case the dimensions of such benefits shall not be at least six feet in length and at least eighteen inches in width, for each passenger as aforesaid, then the master of said vessel, and the owners thereof, severally, shall forfeit and pay the sum of five dollars for each and every passenger on board of said vessel on such voyage, to be recovered by the United States as aforesaid, in any Circuit or District Court of the United States where such vessels may arrive, or from which she sails." By this document, President Fillmore orders Secretary of State Edward Everett to affix the U.S. Seal to a document canceling the penalty incurred by the master and owners of the passenger ship Independence, who violated this section of the law. Folds, horizontal fold touches signature. Fine condition.

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