Mr. JOHNson. Of course the honorable member from Illinois does not suppose that I consider his opposition to the reception of this report as personally discourteous to me. I am sure he is actuated by what he considers to be his duty to the Senate. I rise only for the purpose of replying to a remark or 2 that fell from the honorable member., He says that I stated to the Senate that I did not begin to prepare the report until I saw the report of the majority. That in one sense is correct, and in another it is not. I had not seen the report of the majority at all when I commenced preparing it. I saw itin the hands of the chairman, and I heard it presented here, but it was not published in a form in which I could use it until I commenced writing the minority report. Why I did not commence writing that report before was, to repeat it, because I did not think that my friendfrom Maine would be able to make a report, nor did I suppose that it was deemed necessary, after so longra lapse of time as between the 28th of April and the 8th of June, that a report should accompany the measures themselves. Now, the honorable member says and says with some truth, that the object of these reports is to operate on the measure before the r Senate to which they relate. That is true. It is supposed that the majority of a committee who may think it proper to accompany any measure that they recommend with a report, do it for the purpose of enlightening the senate or aiding the Senate in arriving at a proper conclusion. But if it is improper to receive a minority report because the subject has passed beyond the consideration of the Senate, I should like to know from my friendfrom Illinois why he agreed to receive the report of the majority. It was presented on the 8th of June. It was not read. The honorable Senfrom Maine gave his reasons for not reading it. We were about to vote upon the measures to which it related, and we did vote without any member of the Senate knowing anything that was contained in the report of the majority, except the honorable member by whom it was prepared and such members of the Senate as constituted a part of the committee of 15. The rest of the Senate knew nothing about it; so that that report was received, not when the measure had passed be yond the control of the Senate, but just as it was about to pass, and just as it did pass in point of fact. And yet, several days afterward, as I see by the journals, some 50,000 copies of that report were ordered to be printed. What for? Not to aid the Senate in arriving at a proper conclusion, because the matter had gone beyond the control of the Senate. It was, as far as it might be considered as tending to the instruction of the people, for the benefit and instruction of the people. The measures recommended in that report. were amendments of the Constitution. The subject, therefore, was to go before the people to be acted upon by the people of the several States; and the purpose of my friendfrom Maine and a proper purpose and the purpose of those who agreed with him in directing him, if he could, to prepare the report, was to recommend the measures which the committee had adopted to the sanction of the people. The object of the minority report is to lay before the people who are to act on those measures the views of the minority. But my friend has not accounted for one fact which seems to me to be ibirly before the Senate. When the chairman offered his report he did not ask that'it be read, for a very satisfactory reason; it was received and ordered to be printed; and I at once announced that the committee had authorized the minority, if there should be a minority, to propose a counter report, and I gave notice to the Senate that at some future day, and at as early a day as I could, such a report would be prepared and presented, and there was not a word of objection from anybody. If there had been such an objection, I should not have prepared, the report at all; or, ifI prepared any report, it would not have been presented to the senate; that is very certain. Now, the honorable member says that it was not my purpose to prepare a report until I saw the report of the majority. 'Ihat is true. I was crfectly willing that the measures recommendedby the committee should speak for themselves; and not believing that my friendfrom Maine would be able to discharge the duty cast upon him, and not being advised by him that he was engaged in that duty at any time, I acted under the full im ression that tthheree would be no report; an certainly, if had been no report on the part of the majority, it was not my purpose to present a report on the part of the minority. should have been met, if I had offered a report under those circumstances from the minority, with the objection that there was no report from the majority, and of course one would not have been received from the minorit. But I beg the Senate to anderstand that I am not asking the reception of the report upon any personal ground. IfI were to ask it, and the Senate were willing to grant it because there was no impediment in the way which they thought was one the could not get over, I have every reason to be 'eve, from the court esy always shown to me by the Senate, that the report would be received. I ask it simply now as what I suppose to he the right of the minority, and what I suppose also to be, perhaps, the wish of a great many people in the U.S., to see published whstt e minority of that committee may think of the measures recommended by the majority.