Mr. TItHMBUliL. The Senator thinks that the malignity is with me. When an appropriation goes into the pockets of the men who fought the country, it is malice to o pose it! When an appropriation is asked for t to Niagara ship canal, to remote the commerce of the country and the general welfare of the nation among all its people, the Senfrom Kentucky can Oppose it. I never opposed a proper appropriation for the improvement of the Mississippi river. This is not an appropriation for the improvement of that river. It may incidentally confine the waters to it nor rower channel; but that is not the object of this appropriation, and the Senator knows it. Its object is to protect the farms of men who slowour brothers and our children, who brought war upon the country and desolation upon the land. Not one acre of this ground belongs to his GOvernment; not one acre of this and scarcely, I think I may say, probably not a single plantation, belonfls to a man true to the flag of is country. Who owns this land that {an propose to appropriate this money for? he owned it when this rebellion was inaugurated? Who fired upon the vessels going own the Mississippi river except the owners of these plantations? And it is malignant not to tax the people of this country now to protect these garmers The object of this appropriation, and the Senfrom Kentucky knows it as well as I, is not to improve the Mississippi river; and there is not in the history of this Government and he cannot find it there by my vote or the vote of any Congress u prece dent for such an appropriation as this; and he, claiming to be guided by the Constitution, claiming to vote for nothing that the Constitution will not warrant, finds no difficulty in voting money out of the Treasury for the purpose of reclaiming, as he calls it, the lands belonging to private individuals. Sir, so far as the Constitution of the‘count is concerned and the authority to pass this biS is concerned, it is a matter wholl immaterial whether the owners of these inn 5 were loynl or disloynl. I den the authority as much in the one case as in the other. I would not vote a dollar from the national Treasury to protect the farms in Illinois from the ov'erllows of the Mississippi river. I have seen in that State 100s and 1000s and 100s of 1,000s of acres of as rich land as the sun shines upon inundated by the floods of the Mississippi river time and again, and Inever thought of coming into Congress and asking for an appropriation from the Federal Government to protect the settlers upon those bottom lands. Sir, with the same propriety I might ask it. I do not put it upon the ground that the men who own these lands were once disloyal or are disloyal now. Istated that as one circumstance but that does not affect the constitutional power. If they were as loyal as my own constituents I would not vote a dollar for such a purpose; and the distinction between an appropriation to improve the Mississippi river, a great highway of commerce, or to improve the pussa e from the lakes to theioccan, another great highway of commerce, and an appropriation for such a purpose as that now under consideration is very manifest. Now, sir, it is not because this appropriation is made to alfect people in the soul iern States that I object to it. I think I have as kindly feelings toward the maple of the southern States as the Senfrom Kentucky himself. I am for doing justice to that euple. I am for treating them liberally. I am lgrtreating them kindly. I am as desirous as he or any other member of the Senate at the earliest prac ticable moment, when it can be done with safety to the whole country, to welcome all the people into the Union, into the constitutional relations with the Union, and to receive their representatives here. I have manifested no such disosition as warrants the Senator in assuming that I am actuated by malignant feelings or that there is a concentration in myself of all the malignity of the country as avainst the people of the southern States. I have advocated upon this floor doing justice to all the loyal men of that country. I have been in favor of paying loyal men fur the supplies that our armies took. I have advocated such a bill here; and on no occasion, if the Senator will search my action in this body, will he find that I ever placed my opposition to a measure upon the ground that it was to benefit one section of the country or another. I place it upon the ground that it must benefit loyal men. I will do nothing to benefit and aid the disloyal. But, sir, I care not, if it be a proper measure, what particular section of the country is to be benefiled by it, and I will vote to improve the Mississippi river, if it needs it, as quickly in Louisiana its in Illinois.