Mr. FESSENDEN. I did not know really, until I heard this resolution called up toda, that a resolution had been passed for the publication of these reports. I believe it is the 1st time in the history of any country I do not know that that is any objection to it where the Government has nu ertaken to publish immediately everything connected With a long war. My idea is that the time has hardl arrived yet to make such a publication, an that if we were to publish these papers at all, we ought to proceed in a.very different mode from that which is suggested. In the 1st place, there ought to be competent persons to make a selection from this mass of papers of wha is to be published. Everybody can see that under this general publication order, with nobody, in fact, to control it, it will go to an interminable length, and that we shall be publishing avast amount of material that is not of the slightest use in the world. An under taking of this sort ought to be deliberate, and ought to be carefully provided for, in in judgment, if you undertake it at all. y notion is, generally, that it would be as well to leave the whole of them to be looked over by historians who will write the history of these events, and put in what it is necessary and advisable that the world should know. But if you want everything published for every body to look at and search out what may be good and what may be useless, the better way is to proceed deliberately about it; have some competent persons appointed to make the selection; to edit the papers, in point of fact; to select that which ought to be published or is worthy of publication; to arrange it under its properheads, with reference to specific campaigns and s ceific movements, and put everything that belongs to one subject together; and that is a work of time and labor, and ought to precede any attempt to print the papers. ow, as far as we have gone it is perfectly manifest that the whole labor has been thrown away and is worse than useless, because full of mistakes; and mistakes will bejnst uslikely to follow under the resolution now proposed, though not to the same extent. Some money hasebeen exended, though butatrifie in comparison to what this must cost. I thinkit would e better to reconsider the whole matter, to repeal the resolution of 1864, which is imer feet in itself, covers too much ground, lea s to mistakes, and leads to no valuable results, and if then it is determined by congress to publish these papers, to procee as ot ier people proceed who want to make papers valuable, to have them edited by competent persons and arranged so that the work maybe something worth giving to the public. 11that way on will accomplish 2 objects: in the 1st place you will cull out from the great mass what is good for something, and you will have that in a readable shape, and you will save a vast deal of money. But evidently to pass this resolution now on the statement of expense that my honorable friendfrom Massachusetts gives, is, to inv mind, absurd. A margin of from 30 to fi y volumes is a very large one even for a guess. It shows manifestly that for anything my friend knows it may be 100.