Mr. JOHNson. Mr. President, the more I think of the effect of the bill now before us the more I am persuaded that it will be at tended with mischevious results. It is now 20 years since that part of the District was ceded back to Virginia. Virginia accepted it, and the people oft e district ceded acquiesced in it. If I can get the attention of the honorable member from Ohio who has charge of this bill, perhaps I can persuade him that he lvyillll do more harm than good by passng this 1. Before 1846, before this law was passed, the jurisdiction of the courts of the District extended over this portion of the ten miles square. When the rel procession was made in 1846 there were pending in the Supreme Coprt of the U.S. a variety ot cases that had been carried by writ of error or appeal from the court in Alexandria to the Supreme Court. The act of 1846 made no provrsion for such cases. There was nothing in that act which took from the Supreme Court the jurisdiction which the antecedently had. But the practical difficull was that they could not send their mandates down after the cases were disposed ofto the U.S. courtin Alexandria from which the came. It was impossibie, therefore, to decide those cases beneficially, and there they must remain. Congress, looking to that state of things, on the 5th of July, 1848, passed another act authorizin the Supreme Court of thoU.S., when they should decide the cases then on up eal before that tribunal from the county of Klexandria, to transmit the man dates to the proper court of the State of Virginia; and it was not questioned in 1848 that on ess had authority to make that provision. The tease, and the only case so far as I am advised that is reported that was sent by the Supremeflonrt of the U.S. to the court of Virginia under the authority of the act of Congress of July 5, 1848, was argued in that court, among others, by the late Henry Winter Davis, of whose capacity it is unnecessary to speak in this rescues, and especially in the presence of the onorable member from Ohio. I think he held him as high as most pleople, and most people held him very high. 0 was eminent as a lawyer as well as a politician, and in my judgment more often wrong in the latter capacity than he was in the 1st. The Virginia court, in deciding the case that came before them under the authority of the act of July, 1848, used these words: “It is admittedon all hands that Congress had the constitutional power of retrocedingand Virginia of accepting the rotrocession of territory code by the latter to the former asabovementioned.” Mr. Davis’s interest, or rather the interest of his client, would have been to deny the validity of the retrocession act of 1846. The case before the court of Virginia involved that guestion, it was a preliminary nestion to their decision, and yet, as you see, they state that it was a concession on the part of all counselors, as well as judges, that the act of 1846was constitutional, or, to repeat their language: " It is admitted on all handsthat Conltress had the constitutional power of retroceding and Virginia. of accepting the retrocession of territory ceded by the latter to the former as abovementioned.