Mr. HOWARD. I do not impute that doctrine to the Senfrom Wisconsin. Sir, the breaking cut of this war was like the sudden bursting forth ofaconflagration in a great city. It was impossible for the Government to protect the Union people in the southern States; the thing was utter y impracticable; and it is idle to talk about the guiltlessness of treason at the South because the Government of the U.S. could not protect the Union men there. But the duty 0 allegiance remained unimpaired. It is in its nature antecedent to that 'of protection, and never ceases until the Government becomes so unjust and oppressive as to be intolerable. Without spending furtherTTme upon this question, I resist the passage of this bill because I do not recognize on the part of the Government any obligation to make this general ifidemnity to persons who claim to be Unionists, but who continued their residence within the rebel lines during the war. We passed a law authorizing the Presidentto declare those States in insurrection. In accordance with that law, he proceeded from time totime to declare States an parts of States in insurrection. This was no puerile or idle ceremony. It meant a great deal. It was a most solemn and significant act. It meant that the character of all persons within the limits thus declared insurrectionary was that 'of public enemies of the U.S., whose property was liable to be taken by the Army in the just and necessary prosecution of the war, and that they. unless they made their escape from the Bedlam in which they found themselves, were liable to be treated as our foes and be subjected to the will of the conqueror. I have another weighty objection to the frame of this bill. The questions which it submits to the Quartermaster and the Commissary general are, in their very nature and essence, judicial questions. The Constitution of the U.S. gives to no person judicial authority except the courts. I but chance, I ask, have the U.S. to make out a defense against one of these claims before an official with no judical power, not authorized to call persons before him by subpoena, not authorized to punish for contempt, not authorized to submit any of the questions that may arise to an impartial jury, but who must, from the very nature of the case, proceedezparte, and upon testimony existinginthe shape of depositions? And as my friendfrom Oregon has said, 'how very little reliance is to be placed in contested questions of fact upon the testimony of depositions! Pass this bill, and my prediction is, although I am not a prophet nor the son of a probet, that the Treasury of the U.S. will be deleted to the tuneofa billion dollars before a such claims will be satisfied. Sir, how are you to draw a distinction between claims of this kind for uartermaster’s and commissary stores, and claims for dam ageson the part of the same class of persons at the South for the destruction of houses, barns, and fences and forests, and every description of damage that was done either to personal or to real property? I ask my honorable friendfrom W iseonsin, where is the distinction, in point of principle, between the seizure and use of commissary and quartermaster's stores, and the seizure and use of real estate for the accommodation and the comfort of the Army that consumes such stores? it is in vain to that there is any distinction. IfI was a Union man at the South, I should think as great a wrong was done me if my house were used by the Army, and destroyed in the use, or my other real estate damaged, as I should were my hard cash taken out of my 'drawer. In both cases I am the loser and the Government the gainer. In both cases the property is uyd for the prosecution of the war, and I am as much entitled to indemnification for damages done to my real estate as for damages done to my personal estate. Once establish the principle that this indem nification is obligatory upon the Government, and I ask my honorable friendfrom Illinois [Mr. TRUMBULL] whether he must not in the end vote to pay for all the ravages committed by Sherman’s army on its famous march from Atlanta to the sea, sweeping as it did with the bosom of destruction a tract of not less than 60 miles in width, from Georgia to the At lantic ocean, leaving in its track nothing but a wide spread desolation, repulsive even to the imagination and frightful to the genius of history. Sir, we must sooner or later compen sate every Union man who was affected by that raid if we pass this bill or any measure of like purport. such, at least, is myprediction. Again, I ask you, where is the sensible and practical distinction between an indemnification to a Union man for property thus taken and an indemnification to a rebel at heart who had not committed an open act of treason? There they are; one living‘tm Une side of the highway; the other on the other. The former has professed Unionism from the beginning, but as not taken up arms to defend the Government. He has done no act; he has noteontributed a dollar forthat in pose; but he has staid quietly in his own Iiome and professed in his intercourse with his neighbors to be friendly to the U.S., and has expressed, honestly, perhaps. in a thom sand forms, his deep regretaud sorrow at the insurrection. On the other side of the street is a man who has entertained opposite sentiments, who has been a friend of secession, who has spoken in favor of and advocated the right of secession and the fact of secession, but who has not raised his hand against his Government nor contributed a dollar nor a'pound of lead nor a bushel of corn rior any other thing to aid and assist in the prosecution of the insurrectionary war. “The former, ” says my friendfrom Illinois, “I will pay for all that may have been taken from him by the Army;” but he says in the same breath, “ the latter I will not pay. He has lost his 1000s, it is true, by the Union Army, as well as his neighbor over the way. I will reward the Union man with an indem nity; I will make the other, not. a Union man and yet not a traitor, he having committed no overt act, suffer the loss of 1000s for entertaining different opinions.” Sir, is this just; or rather is this a safe principle upon which to rest our legislation? H insxst that it is not. In my view it approaches too nearly to more pue righty, not to say the ridiculous, to be the foundation of legisation;.