Mr. GUTHRIE. I‘ here was no reluctance to tax cotton and sugar. I gave notice then that I should vote for this measure, and I in tend to stand by it. The system in all these States of keeping up the levees is totally deranged. Formerf; they were kept up by a tax of a dollar a head on all the blacks on these plantations, and then there was a State tax ot ten cents an acre, and then there was the aid that was given by the neighborhood in keeping n the levees. Now, there is no levee from dicksburg to Natchez on the Mississippi side. At the last election before secession, when a Legislature was chosen, this very cotton region was conservative and elected representatives who were loyal to the Gcvernment and in favor of the Union. They were afterward carried out, by what kind of process we cannot tell; but at the time that they elected a Legislature and elected the convention which finally carried them out this very cotton region sent a majority in favor of sustaining the Union. It is now impossible to tax the resources of the particular region as they were formerly taxed for keeping up these levees. Thqe resources are gone. I teel no hesitation about our, power to maintain these levees, and I think we have not made an appropriation this session so wise and so beneficial and so calculated to make a quick return to the Government as this appropriation of $1,500,0(X) for this purpose. The Senfrom Ohio says it will not do all that is needed. Well, sir, if we do a part this year and they bestir themselves, as the owners of these farms will do, to eke it out, and if we. make another appropriation next year, we shall only be in the line of our duty, and we shall only the sooner have acottou crop that will enable these people to pay their debts and to resume their trade and commerce with the provision States and with the manuliteturing States, and until they can raise cotton and have a surplus we shall never have that trade restored. The gentlemen who are so much in favor of commerce ought to sustain this measure. I shall not detain the Senate by arguing the question. These people have no servants now to work their farms; they have no steam power to do it, they have no provisions, they have no means of hiring hands. All this must be done on credit. They cannot employ the freedmen beneficially unless they are enabled to cultivate their farms, and this appropriation, bringing that country into quick cultivation, is a great deal more beneficial to the ficedincn than is feedin them through the bureau.