Mr. PHELPS. I have not come to the subject of those condemnations. I am about reaching that. They have certainly been made under that law. In regard to the particular cases to which the gentleman refers, it was a question of grave doubt in the minds of the judges before whom the question was brought whether, by the terms of the clause in the constitution of Maryland, which is in the same language as is contained in the ordinance of 1787 and in the constitutional amendment now under review, it was lawful for the State of Maryland to sell a person of color convicted of crime into involuntary servitude. And I can tell him that among those foremost in arguing that question in behalf of the power of the courts to decide that law were the prisoners' counsel themselves. In one case, at least, a gentleman prominently connected with the Freedmen's ureau in Maryland, a well known friend of the negro race, appealed to the court upon the round of humanity to the negroes not to confine them within the walls of the penitentiary, which had been filled to overfiowing by reason of the sudden emancipation a large number of them persons reduced to vagrancy and theft but to sell them for a limited time into involuntary servitude. Accordingly, in some cases, where there were extenuating circumstances, the sentence of imprisonment at hard labor was, as it was supposed by the prisoner, his friends, and the court, mitigated to a sale of the convict's labor for a limited period. It was, therefore, on the ground of humanity to the negro himself that this action was taken by the courts, and at the instance and advice of the prisoner's counsel and friends. Of the truth of this assertion I defy contradiction. I am not here to oppose the adoption of any appropriate legislation which shall wipe away at once and forever every vestige of the institution of slavery. The people that I represent would not sustain me in assuming any such attitude on this floor, even if it were not repul sive to my own feelings and convictions. I desire simply to vindicate these people against unfounded, unjust, and uncalled for imputations.