Mr. NESMITH. I cannot reconcile the position, taken by the Senfrom Michigan with my ideas of justice in a case of this kin. however true it may be that one great nation war ring against another may have the abstract: right of seizing and using private property for public use, it is a right that is very seldom resorted to. The Senfrom Indiana very correctly states that in the war with Mexico we refrained from exer'eising any rights of that kind, and invariably paid for all property taken. No property was confiscated excepting public property. If we were in the habit of exercis ing that forbearance with a foreign nation, and if that leniency is universally exercised by civilized Governments toward one another, I think it hardly becomes as to adopt a rule at this time/that will be so oppressive on the Union men who adhered to the Government in the southern States during our recent rebellion. Why, sir, if the idea had been proclaimed at the commencement of this war that the property of every man in the South would be taken, no matter what his convictions were or how strong a friend he was of this Government, how many friends should we have had there? We should have driven every man from the support of the Union cause. I think the proposition is monstrous, to say that the property of a man who, living in that country and contending against all obstacles, adhered to the government, should be seized, and that he should receive no compensation for it. Sir, I do not believe in the theory advanced by the Senfrom Michigan, that the fortunes and condition of every citizen of a State follow the condition of a State or follow any theory that the State may adopt. If the majority of a State sec proper to go into secession against the wishes of a minority, I think the minority have rights that are entitled to protection. I do not believe that every man be comes a rebel because he happens to live in a rebel State. Why, sir, it was onlya few days since that the Senator himself made a.speech in favor of paying Mr. Pettigru, of SCarolina, for his library; Mr. Pettigru. who, under the very construction that the Senator places upon this question of national law, must have been a rebel himself. If the condition of Mr. Petligru. he living in a southern State; necessarily followed the condition of the State, then the Senfrom Michigan peretrated a gross and palpable wrong in voting.5,000 to a man who was a rebel, not personallya rebel, but who became a rebel by virtue of a majority of the people of his State being rebels, although at the same time the Senator admitted that this man was loyal himself. If Mr. Pettigru’s library or Mr. Peltigru’s property had been taken for the use of the U.S., I should think he would have just as much claim for pay for it at the hands of the Government as he had for pay for a library which the U.S. had never taken from him. I think the position of the Senator upon the pending question and the one which was under consideration the other day is grossly at variance.