Mr. POLAND. L Mr. President, it is certainly very singular to me that so good a law yer as the honorable Senfrom Michigan should have fallen into so strange a deluswn as it seems to me he has done in reference to the law upon this subject. He has read some extracts from the opinion of the Supreme Court, reported in 2 Black in the prize cases, as they are termed, to show that the inhabitants of the insurgent States, although they were loyal in fact, and did everythin that was in their power to show their loya ‘tiy, their good will and good disposition towar the Government of the U.S., still, in oint oflaw, were enemies; and that, althoug we took cheir property, and took it'by contract, bought it of them, gave them a written obligation for it, we are under no moral or legal obligation to pay for it, because, he says, they were legally enemies. It is always important, as I have found, when you are going to attach any weight to what ajudge or any court through a judge has said, to find out what he was talking about. What were those prize cases about which Jndge Grier was speaking when he gave. that Opinion? The rebellion had assumed formidable proportions. A large majority of the people of the southern States were in arms. 'I he grea majority of them were hostile or disloyal. I‘hey stood in the attitude of a hostile foreign nation, although there were various persons in those communities who were on; friends, who had I withdraw my never forfeited their allegiance, who had never done anything that was hostile to this Government. Now, what did the court say? They said that although we claimed, and legally claimed, that that was still a part of our own country, that all the inhabitants there, whether in arms or not, were subjects of this Government, and owed allegiance to it, that it was nothing but an insurrection and a rebellion; still, it havin assumed these formidable proportions, we ad the same right to resort to all those means which one nation may use against a foreign nation with which it is at war. It was argued that we were endeavoring to put down a portion of our own people who were in insurrection, and therefore we could not legally blockade their ports. Now, it is well understood, and has been for centuries, that one of the means which one nation which is at war with another may use, is to blockade their ports, to cut off their intercourse with other nations, to stop their supplies. The court said that we had just the same right to resort to that against these States that were in rebellion as we would have against a foreign nation with which we were at war; and having that right, having the legal right to proclaim and set up this blockade, of course it must nppl to everybod. It must apply just as muc to individuai, persons who were our friends, within that country, as to those who were in point of fact hostile to us; that if we under took to stop the trade, in order to make it practicable, or of any sort of use, we must prevent everybody from trading. We could not allow our friends to go there, and we could not allow our friends who were there to come out. We must stop it entirely. In that sense the court said it was immaterial whether the inhabitants there, the individual persons, were our friends or our enemies; and that is just as far as the courts have gone. That is the length and the breadth of it. My friend, the honorable Senfrom Michigan, said yesterday that all our legislation had gorie upon that same ground, had gone upon the ground that all persons within the limits of the rebel States were our ene mies; that all stood alike in a loyal sense. I was somewhat struck with a declaration of that sort comi from so eminent a lawyer as the honorible Senfrom Michigan, and I have sincetnkeri some pains to 100 into the legislation of conupon this subject; and, sir, it is entirely the other way. Every single word of legislation that Congress have adopted gitkflm subject of the rebellious States or ople of those States, from the beginning of the war down to its close, has been upon an entirely opposite theor. the distinction loyal and disloya people there has Been recognized in every single statute passed upon the subject, and by the decisions of the courts upon those statutes; and it is distinctly recognized in the last case that is reported on the subject, the case of Mrs. Alexander’s cot ton. he law that was passed in relation to abandoned property in the South that our Army was authorized to take up and sell, contained a provision that if within a certain time any owner of a portion of that property should come forward and prove his loyalty, he should have it restored to him. In the case of cap tured "property, that which was captured upon land, there was a provision also that the loyal owner might come in and have redress for any portion ot it that he owned. And here let me allude to the statute that authorized this cap ture upon land; because my friend, the honorable Senfrom Michigan, says there is no difference between a capture upon land and a capture n on the sea.