Mr. FESSENDEN. The statement is perfectly plain. It was drawn originally, the honorable Senator says, on the guarantee clause, and confined to the slave States, and not extending even to all the slave States, but confined to the confederate States simply, under the guarantee clause on the ground of lapse. I call attention to that, and he says that now he has extended it to all the States under the provision of the constitutional amendment abo ishing slavery, which gives Congress this power. The guarantee clause is enough for the confederate States, which have lapsed, and you need the clause in relation to the abolition of slavery to prevent it in the free States. Thatis the clause under which the Senator says it is extended to the free States. If that explanation is satisfactory to the Senator it is perfectly satisfac tor to me. hen the last clause of the Senators resolution is, “And this statute, made in pursuance of the constitution, shall be the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any such State to the contrary notwithstanding?” Would not a constitutional statute be the supreme law of the land without the addition of those words? By enactinga statute and saying at the close of it, “this statute enacted in pursuance of the constitution shall be the supreme law of the land, ” do those words make it so? Would the So reme Court be barred from examining into that question and seeing whether the law thus asse was in pursuance of any power grante by the Constitution? I have examined this scheme simply because it is the remedy proposed by the honorable senator. Contending that the propoaition which has been brought in here by the committee of 15, and approved by more than 2/3rds of the HoRep, is merely trifling with our duties, an outrage, an abandonment of moral principle on the part of all who are concerned in it, the Senator proposes a rep edy. I have seen how far the remedy went in some particulars, and I now ask him what particular force he applies or thinks due to this last clause, which declares that this statute shall be the supreme law of the land? Does this clause provide the machinery by which it is to be carried into execution? Does it provide courts to protect rights 1 Does it rovi ea military force? Does it provide anyting? Words all, and words that maybe repealed and struck from the statute book tomorrow, having no force in themselves. So far as it does go it reenacts the constitution. So far as it declares at the close what the constitution declares in the same words substantially it is, of course, unnecessary. Then it leaves it to float upon the waters an take its chance of all the adverse currents which we strike it. I should not have examined this proposition thus minutely had it not been for the very violentI had almost said virulent attack made upon the resolution of the committee. As the Senator chose to make that attack, it becomes, of course, my duty to examine his remedy to see the force there is in it, how far it goes, what it will do, what rights it will secure, what evils it will prevent. iione, sir, none. It is of no i more consequence to at. that law upon the statutebook with regard1 to human rights, any. where or under any circumstances, than it is to at. but one totally irrelevant to the whole subject, because it has no sanction, it has no penalty, it has nothing in it which can accomplish the purpose. It is a mere legislative decoration, and a legislative declaration of a fact that exists, as the Senator says, and as I am Willlll”to concede for the sake of the argument, in the constitution itself.