Mr. HOWARD. The operation of the bill must necessarily include such classes only as Congress sees fit to apply it to, and undoubt edly it is for Congress to judge whether it is best to apply the benefit of the act to anyone particular class or whether it is best to exclude that class. The act itself will be uniform upon the persons and the subject matter embraced within its purview; and all else are excluded. I cannot regard that objection as well taken, I confess. Well, sir, as to the propriety and expediency of excluding the classes embraced in the amendment of the Senfrom Massachusetts, I am in favor of it. We are about to pass an act of Congress which is to operate as an act of forbearance, indulgence, and mercy to a large class of persons, persons who without any fault on their own part have become insolvent and unable to pay their debts. Congress is now coming forward and in the shape of an act is about to say to them, “If you make a surrender of all your property liable to be taken upon execution you shall be discharged from the obligation of your contracts.” This is an act of indulgence and mercy and kindness and humanity on the part of the Government. The question is whether that class of persons at the South, who have willfully been engaged in making war upon the Government of the U.S. for the purpose of overthrowing it, are now in justice or morality entitled to this great act of jubilee on our part? Sir, an immense proportion of this class at the South have been rendered bankrupt and reduced to poverty by their own criminal conduct. Immense estates at the South, valued at millions of dollars, have been squandered and destroyed by this rebellion, have beeningulfed in the immense whirlpool that has carried away, not only. the property, but the persons of so many of the citizens of the rebellious States. They went into this criminal conduct willfully, knowingly; they appropriated their property for the purpose of waging this war; they voluntarily deprived themselves of their property, rendered jo. bankrupt and unable to pay their debts, either domestic or those which they owe abroad by means of their own unjustifiable and treasonable conduct and principles. Now, sir, can that class of persons, after having done all in their power with fire and sword as well as their money to destroy this Government and overthrow it, come forward consist ently and claim at our hands this great act of mercy and indulgence? I am unwilling to grant them this. Let them meet the fate they have courted. They threatened themselves at the beginning of the war that they would fight until they were driven to the last ditch, until not a man, woman, or child should be left on the soil of the South to tell the tale of their ultimate destruction if they should be destroyed. We have driven them into the last ditch hy force of arms. I am unwilling now to turn around and say to these people, “I will discharge you from your honest debts because you are insolvent, ” while at the same time I know that this insolvency has been created by their own efforts to destroy my Government and my country. "Sir, let them meet the decrees of retributive justice without flinching, and not ask us for mercy in such a shape as this.