Mr. SUMNER. I see no objection to the 2nd section of the bill under consideration; I agree with the Senfrom NewHampshire in regard to that. I am not so sure about the 1st section, and there seem to me to be 2 objections to it. Whether they are sufficiently strong to justify us in opposing it, it will be for the Senate to determine. I simply call attention to them. The 1st is that the section does positively set aside what, down to this day, on the ruling of the highest magistrate of this country, has been the law of the courts. To that the Senator very aptly replies, however, that it is important to give unitormity to the practice in the different U.S. courts. On that pointl agree with him. If his proposition simply went to that point, I should not venture even to make a suggestion with regard to it, excepting as to its nature; but it does o further. It does set aside what in honorable friend, the learned Senfrom it Maryland [Mr. Jonxsos] knows well was the deciSion o Chief Justice Marshall; and what has been also the practice in many of the States of the Union. I; is the practice in in own State. I believe also it is the practice ere in the DistCol. I therefore venture to go against that rule only with a certain hesitation. But then comes another consideration which perhaps is more important. So far as I comprehend the bearing of this 1st section, it is to meet an actual case of unprecedented historical importance; it is to pave the way for the trial of that randest criminal in the history of the world who is now in the custody of this Government. Now, sir, that question should be approached carefully, most discreetly, and I humbly submit unless the reasons shall be found to be of the strongest cbaracter, with absolute reference to the existin law of the land. I shrink from changing the law of the land in order to meet an individual case, even though that case may be of the transcendent importance of the one to which I now refer. I venture, then, to ask whether, still further, there is not in the proposition something of an expost facia character. I am not going to argue that it is not in the power of Congress to make changes in the modes of procedure and of trial even after the crime has been perpetrated, but I do humbly submit that in view of the positive limitations of the constitution it is a very doubtful course to enter upon.