Mr. CONNESS. I remember precisely how it struck my mind at that time. I did not know until now that it had passed and become a law in so offensive a shape offensive, I mean, to my mind. I had noticed this class of bills passed by the HoRep, and do not intend to reflect upon that body when I say that it is more monstrous, as I believe, in character than the negro slavery that we have abolished, and that we claim the good opinion of mankind because we have abolished it. The Senator’s argument is that encouraging immigration by laws of this kind that is by provisions which authorize contracts to be made in foreign countries and compel their execution by the laborer in distant lands is for the benefit of the poor immigrant. That is the argument upon which negro slavery was vindicated. Those who vindicated it believed, or at least always said, that they knew the negro character best; they knew his wants an capacities best; they knew that he was not able to take care of himself; and they always professed and said they were engaged in a work of mercy in taking care of him, when the fact was I apprehend generally that the negro took care of them; certainly they lived by his labor. And now the mission of this great Republic is to go upon among the nations of the earth is to hunt up and hunt out white men, to enable men who want their labor, and can make money and profit and wealth out of it to make contracts with them in their imoverished condition, in their misfortunes, and then use the right arm of the law to compel their execution under the stars and stripes! Mr. President, I believe in the assimilation of the peoples of the earth, and I feel no clanishness toward any. I should favor any system of immigration which was based on the circulation in foreign countries of such facts and information as should induce a good class of emigrants to come to our new land, to cul tivate its broad acres, to aid in its manufactu ries, and incidentally at the same time to improve their own condition. I should very gladly favor an protections that the law could throw around t cir coming into our country, and after they arrive here protecting them from the vile of our own population, and giving them safe passage and conveyance to the new States and Territories of the West, taking care of their immediate wants if they were in want. Every thing of that kind is due to humanity, due from us to them, and I have no doubt that the addition of their labor in a large amount is beneficial to the productive wealth of the nation. But, sir, these plans, cunningly devised, by which capital is to seize labor, by which labor is to be turned up in its vise and held as if poverty were a crime, I am utterly opposed to, for they are repugnant to my sense, and all the conceptions I have of what is right among men. I do not launch these criticisms against the gentlemen who advocate another view of the case; but I should be unjust to myself if I said less than to describe the utter aversion I have for these plans and schemes. And, sir, it is not the office of a great nation to engage in them; it is not the office of its lawgivers to devote their talent to reducing them; and I nm very glad, and comp iment the ComCommerce and its honorable chairman, and thank them for the report they have made, and the condemnation they have launched upon the existing law.