Mr. SCHENC. The gentleman can speak some other time. I have always received severe irony from that quarter, for proof of which I refer to the files of the Globe, and the reports of the debates therein contained. It is my misfortune to be so situated on both sides. I indicated in opinion that the course of this debate had developed hostility to this Veteran Reserve corps upon the part of the Gentfrom NewYork on my right, [.Mr. do not think I am mistaken in that assertion; I do not think anybody in this House will differ with me. Nor do lthink there is any question about the fact that when defeated in one mode of assault he resorts to another. But i do not at my reply to his proposition upon any grouiidofthat kind, or upon any such ground merely. I said before. as I say again, that to introduce a provision of this kind into a law, calling upon the executive authority, upon the War dept, to exercise this power of mustering out in reference to one particular class of officers or of men, is an unusual course, is an unprecedented course of proceeding. In this as in all other cases, where men or officers are to be mustered out of or retained in service, whatever reuests might be attempted to be made by resolution or otherwise, it is hardly necessary to put. in a solemn legislative enactment any instruction to the Executive upon that subject. Now. this House is not bound, any more than is the Executive. by any resolution that may have been passed upon this subject. In fact, no resolution of the kind hasever been passed. Gentlemen are mistaken upon that point, and I will correct them, sofar as that is concerned. The history of that resolution. offered at a very early day in the present session of congress, is simply this: there had been a proposition made and urged by some persons not particularly friendly to this Veteran Reserve corps, or its continuance or connection with the Army in an capacity whatever, to submit. to the men of that corps the question whether or not they would vote to be mustered out and go home. The result was precisely what wouldWfollow if you were to submit such a question to the vote of any regiment, brigade, or division 5 of the Army, or the crew of sailors on board any vessel in our Navy. There is not a body of soldiers or sailors in our service who would not vote themselves out for a holiday if they had the opportunity, although they might be look1ing fora chance to recfnlist 3 daysafterward. Hence the all scattered; they went to their I homes. T ien the SecyWar, always friendly to this Veteran Reserve corps, liiinself the originator, or at least the executor of the idea which called that corps into existence. was puzzled to know what it was his duty to do in regard to the matter. A number of gentlemen, members of this House, accompanied i by one or more Senators, believing that iit. would be an act of great harshness if these. wounded or disabled officers Vho had been I selected and placed in this corps should be turned out at once, with the question still unsettled whether any of them were to he re, vision in reference to the subsistence of themselvesortheirfumilies, called upon the SecyWar, who, after a full conversation, inan ifested his willingness to retain those officers until it should be settled whether we were to have a Veteran Reserve corps, for whose officers some of these men might perhaps be selected, provided there could be some sort of official indication of the wish of Congress that these officers should be thus retained. In consequence of this, the ComMilAffrs of this House, after considering the whole matter, directed me to report a resolution, a copy of which I hold in my liand; and this is the resolution about which so much has been said. It was drawn up as a JtResolution, and is in these terms: “Be it resolved by the Senate and HoRep, do, That the POTUS he requested to suspend anyorder musterinl out the officers of the Veteran Reserve corps until COHIYCSS shall have time to consider the subject and take some leuislaiive action its to the future disposition to be madeof that corps." That resolution being sent to the Senate, was referred to the ComMilAffrs of that body, and it has there slept ever since. There is no resolution on that subject now on the statute book. Hence the Military Dept is left at liberty to take such action as in the exercise of its discretion and military authority maybe thought necessary or proper with regar to the mustering out of the o cers and men of this corps. But, sir. what I object to and this is the whole of my objection is the impropriety of inserting in a grave legislative act on instruction to the executive apartment to deal in a particular way with a particular branch of the pilblic service, when nothing of that kind has ever heretofore been done, or has been thought proper to be done, in reference to any other class of men or officers employed in the Military service. Now, sir. there are in the military service men who might, perhaps, be mustered out. There are officers whom we once sought to have mus tered out, when it was admitted that some of them had been for a vear or more entirely an employed, and were likely to remain so. But even in that action of ours, the Senate of the U.S. refused its concurrence. There has never been any action upon the part of the legislative power instructing, informing or directing the Military Dept upon such a subject as this. That, at least, is my present recollection, and I think no one is able to contradict it. I object, therefore, to any such invidious distinction any such odious discrimination, being may c against any class of officers or mon, whether wounded or not wounded, whether beloning to the reular Army or to one of the volunteer branches of the Army, Itained in the service or not, and with no proas to embody in a legislative act our instructions that there must be some haste in clearing them out of the we before it shall be considered whether any of them are to be retained in the service, or clearing out of the way as many of them as do not happen at this moment to be emplo ed., Then, again, t ie language of the amendment is “who were not necessaril employed." Now, who, after all, is to determine temeaning of that word “necessarily?” So long as we have a Military Dept, the discretion with reference to this matter must, after all, rest with that Dept; and I am willing it shall rest there. Now, sir, as the Gentfrom NewYork shas advocated his amendment, and as I have replied to him, I do not know that I will be considered illiberal if 1 ask the previous question.