Mr. HENDERSON. Mr. President, yes. terday I voted to take up this bill, but with a view when taken up of moving, unless some member of the committee himself should do so, to refer it to the ComJudiciary. I know, of course, nothing about the facts referred to by the Senfrom Michigan; nor I do apprehend that the passage of the bill now pending before the Senate would have any very good effect to do away with the difficulty that he suggests. The clause of the act of July 17, 1862, now proposed to be repealed, only authorized the President by public proclamation to grant amnesty to persons engaged in the rebellion, and the complaint that the Senator makes now is that private pardous, as I understand him, are bein hawked around through the city. The repe of the provision contemplated will do no good at all, but will increase, if possible, the difficulty that he refers to. It is not that the President has offered amnesty by public proclamation, but that he is pardoning jS.cases that he ought not to pardon, as I understand the objection of the Senfrom Michigan. Now, Mr. President, I am not prepared to say how I shall vote after an examination of this subject; but I wish to assure the Senfrom Michigan that it is not a question of such easy solution as he imagines. Some time during the last session of Congress I had occasion to look somewhat into this very question, and it is one of exceeding doubtin my mind whether the act of 1862 in this respect conferred any additional power upon the E.i. whether the President's power would not be equally great under the Constitution without the act of 1862 as it is with it. I am not prepared to say that such is the fact; but I am not prepared to say on the other hand that such is not the fact. One of the most important inquiries to be made in this case is, whether the by virtue of the Constitution, can make public roclamation of amnesty at all. If so, it would e wholly unnecessary for us to repeal this provision of the act of 1862. X. very important question arises, whether a separate cer tificate of pardon granted in an individual case restores the property not already taken away from the individual. That is an important question, and one that was very learnedly discussed in the SCOTUS by the Senator who sits before me, [Mr. JOHNson, ] who held, I believe, the position that a pardon granted at any time restored an individual to all the rights that he had before.