In contrast with the imbecility of many previous Congresses, the vigor of the Fourteenth Congress in thus settling the new scale of government was remarkable; but other measures of importance were not wanting. An Act approved April 29 appropriated one million dollars annually for three years to build ships of war; an Act approved April 19 authorized the people of Indiana to form a State government. A bill, which passed the House but was postponed by the Senate and became law at the next session, provided for the admission of Mississippi. In still another direction the House showed its self-confidence in a manner that caused unusual popular excitement. It undertook to increase the pay of its own members and of senators. The scale of salary for public officials was low. The President, relatively highly paid, received twenty-five thousand dollars. The Secretaries of State and Treasury received five thousand; those of War and Navy, four thousand; the Attorney-General, three thousand; Chief-Justice Marshall was paid four thousand, and the six associate justices received thirty-five hundred dollars each. While the Executive and Judiciary were paid regular salaries, Congress stood on a different footing. Legislators had never been paid what was considered an equivalent for their time and services. They were supposed to be unpaid; but such a rule excluded poor men from the public service, and therefore the colonial legislatures adopted a practice, which Congress continued, of allowing what were supposed to be the reasonable expenses of members. The First Congress fixed upon six dollars a day, and six dollars for every twenty miles of estimated journey, as a suitable scale of expense both for senators and representatives;[131] and the same rate had been continued for twenty-five years. No one supposed it sufficient to support a household, but poor men could live upon it. Desha of Kentucky averred that it was a fair allowance for the average representative. According to him, board was twelve or thirteen dollars a week, and the total cost of a session of one hundred and fifty days amounted to five hundred and seventy or eighty dollars; so that the western and southwestern members, with whose habits he was familiar, carried home, with their mileage, about four hundred and fifty dollars in savings.[132] In the pride of conscious superiority the Fourteenth Congress undertook to change the system; and Richard M. Johnson, probably the most popular member of the House, assumed the risk of popular displeasure. In moving for a committee, March 4, Johnson repudiated the idea of increasing the pay; and his committee, including Webster, Pitkin, Jackson, the President’s brother-in-law, Grosvenor, and McLean of Ohio, reported through him that fifteen hundred dollars a year was the correct equivalent of six dollars a day.