Mr. FESSENDEN. Yes, that is the common way, to let me know what the newspapers say. Sir, I have as much regard for public opinion as anybody, that is, for a just public opinion, and like to receive the approbation of my fel low citizens; but I have not got to that pass et when every squib in a newspaper that any interested party chooses to launch at me, or even an attack of a stronger character, if there are any such, disturbs my equanimity to any very great extent. I am perfectly willing to “let them slide, ” and if they can have the best of it of course I must take the consequences. Now, sir, let me state a fact as an illustration to show precisely how men are jurdged. A gentleman who is special comrRev has been engaged, under the directions of Congress and of the SecyTreasury, in the discharge of the duties of his office; he has been hard at work for months upon the tariff, devoting all his time to it with very great assiduity very much to the injury of his own health. He is not a man without means in the world. He is a gentleman of very comfortable fortune, who has taken hold of this business because he loves it, because it is the kind of thing which suits his taste. All these questions are to him questions of interest. He is able o:subjects, and he is desirous to make a reputation in connection with them. He devoted himself with great assiduity to the duty before him. Well, sir, he got his report ready and brought it to Washington. Before anybody saw it hardly certain intimations were sent out from here I saw them myself in letters of correspondents and tele graphic dispatches that the commissioner's bill was here and it was a free trade tariff; we were going to have a free trade tariff, and the Senfrom Maine and the SecyTreasury and the commissioner were alluded to as getting up a free trade tariff. I had not known anything about it at that time; had not seen it, and had not expressed an opinion, and have not, I believe, on the subject, except as the report of the committee expresses my opinion. He was denounced as a free trader, and a man who had sold himself for British gold. Pretty soon his tariff scheme came out, or it was ascertained what it was that instead of being a free trade measure it was a very considerable advance upon the tariff of 1864, which was anything, but a free trade tariff; that although not quite up to the House tariff bill, it was an advance upon the last one; and the duties in it are so very high in some particulars that now the other side, the free trad ers, turn round and say he is bought by the protectionists. Well, if he has been bought on both sides perhaps he has a profitable business of it. E. Now, sir, let me say that men in public life must stand these things; but I want to say of the special comrRev, because I feel bound, to say it, that I believe there has been no man more devoted to the public service in the line which he has adopted, or one who has given his time more honestly and more thoroughly to the investigation of the subjects committed to his charge. He has come to conclusions which are satisfactory to himself, not perhaps in all particulars to the ComFinance, for we have varied from them in many particulars, but such as he honestly believed to be true and for the best interests of the community; and this is his reward ' Why? Because, in the 1st place, he was supposed to run against the personal interests of the protectionists, but now he runs against the interests of the importers. Well, sir, I came to the conclusion long ago that the only thing we can do decently in relation to all these matters is to just go along and legislate according to our own belief of what is true and just and right and for the best interests of the country. We shall make mistakes undoubtedly; I expect to make a great many, as I have. but at any rate whatever comes we shall retain our own self respect, and all these little, miserable attacks from interested parties for their own personal objects will be but the merest brutum fulmen in the world, and will disappear like mist in the face of the honest discharge of duty, and the people will do justice to faithful public Servants.