Mr. NIBLACK. I shall detain the committee but a few moments and then I will yield the floor to the chairman of the ComAppropriat [Mr. STEVENs), and let him move such disposition of this subject as he may Qee fit. I am now in possession of the information which I sought to obtain by the amendement which I moved. I had seen going the rounds of the public Press statements of a similar import to those which have been made here in regard to this matter; but I did not consider the information thus obtained of such a character as would justify me in speaking of the reasons which controlled Congress at the last session in relation to this matter. It seems, however, that for certain differences of political opinion exPressed in a private letter which became public by some accident, or perhaps by some design, certainly by some means for which the one who wrote the letter is not to blame, his salary is sought to be withheld. It is charged by the Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] that that letter was an attack upon the majority in Congress. I think the Gentfrom NewYork [Mr. RAYMoND] has pretty well disposed of that. But if that letter contained an attack upon Congress, as it is called, if it was a criticism upon Congress because it is nothing more than the ordinary newspaper criticism upon the acts of public men and of parties in the country if that crit icism was intended to apply to the majority in Congress, I hold that it constitutes no sufficient reason for withholding his salary as the accred ited minister to the Government of the country in which he is now resident. The POTUS is every day charged here with corruptly removing men from office for speaking disrespectfully of him. When a man is removed from office, as we are informed, simply for differing with the President and speaking disrespectfully of him, it is said that it is a corrupt use of the power vested in him by the Constitution in relation to removals and appointments. But it seems a different rule is to be applied by Congress. Speaking disrespectfully of Congress is to be regarded as sufficient to authorize the withholding of the salary of a public officer. Now, if F. correctly informed, there is a gentleman connected with one branch of the Congress of the U.S. holding an elective office in that body who is the editor of 2 papers, “both daily” papers. I believe he makes it his daily occupation to assail the executive dept of this Government in every possible manner. Yet I never heard anybody urge that that was a sufficient reason for the Senate of the U.S. ejecting him from the office he holds, or for withholding his salary. He is but exercising the right guarantied by the institutions of the country to its citizens the right of free speech and of a free ress. The Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. STEVENs] intimates that Mr. Harvey never was a .". person to have beenoto this office, and that the failure of the President to remove him was an omission of a duty. Now, if he never was a proper person to hold this office, then I submit that this way of cutting off his salary and starving him out ought to have been adopted by Congress immediately after his appointment. But his salary was paid regularly up to the last session of Congress; and now for reasons purely political, out o which some personal irritation has resulted, it is sought to starve him out of office. The Gentfrom Ohio, [Mr. SchENCR, I in referring to this matter, speaks of the “bread and butter brigade.” Now, I am not here to defend the rather small body of men to which he refers. Nor am I here to defend the executive dept of this Government, for, properly speaking, it is not properly within the line of this debate. I am not here to defend our minister to Portugal, for I have no personal acquaintance with him. I have only to say that when members of Congress talk about the “bread and butter brigade, ” about the spoils of office controlling the political opinions of men, about the “loaves and fishes, ” figura tively speaking, I am sometimes under the im ression that such remarks, considering what as occurred in this House, come from us with rather a bad grace. One of the prominent and leading ideas that seems to have pervaded the action of this Congress is to see to it that the offices are not taken away from the friends of the majority here. The bill regulating the tenure of office, the movement for the impeachment of the President, and many of the leading measures of this Congress, as I understand them, have been for the purpose of securing to the friends of the majority in Congress the possession of the Federal offices, or the “bread and butter” of the Government, to use the exPression of the Gentfrom Ohio, [Mr. SchENck] That seems to me to be the principal object in view of certain gentlemen, j.ing from the ideas some of them have exPressed. “: remarks, therefore, which poly to this “bread and butter brigade” the peculiar friends of the Administration might, I think, well apply with redoubled force to the majority here in Congress. I think that a disinter ested person, with the newspapers of the count try as his only means of information, would come to the conclusion that how to save the possession of the offices was the great question with Congress at this time, the settlement of which has held us in the condition in which we have been for the last year and a half, and to which everything else was subordinate.