Mr. EDMUNDS. There is a good deal of merit in the proposition of the Senfrom Ohio, and I do not know but that I should be willing to agree to the proposition entirely, considered by itself; but in many respects I think, from o study that I have given to the subject, it will fail to meet all the objects that he }. in view. He has suggested one of the difficulties, and that is, in respect to the ".ment of money to the persons who o e thus appointed, and possibly, it may not be known to the Treasury how it is. That is the case, as I understand, as a matter of actual fact. They seem to have a system of regulations and procedure in the Treasury Dept by oeither it is everybody's business not to know whether any money is illegally aid out of the Treasury, or else it is nobody's i. in particular to know. Each officer in the routine takes the particular paper that he has as primafacie evidence of the propriety of the person receiving the money who is named in it; and therefore on a recent inquiry addressed to myself, in connection with these very investigations, to the Treasury Dept to know whether, since the 9th of February, 1863 I think that is the date, at which time Congress passed a law forbidding such payments as these to persons thus appointed any payments had made from the Treasury to such persons, I have received a reply from the SecyTreasury communicating the reports upon that subject of his auditors and comptrollers, each report upon the subject being taken by itself, stating that it is not that particular officer's business to know whether any such event has occurred or not, and therefore the Secretary concludes, taking the whole 3 reports together (I believe there are 3) that so far as the knowl edge of the Dept goes no such event has occurred;.; venture to say, although I do not speak by authority or on my personal knowledge, as a matter of probability that a great many persons of that description have received money from the Treasury since the passage of the act of 1863, in violation of law. Now all that must be provided for. All that was considered by the committee who reported this bill with the amendment. It appeared to them that, inasmuch as the subject of this bill was one which was working a great practical change in the administration of the Government, one the propriety of which would be greatly doubted by many men, one the constitutionality of which would be greatly contested by many persons in the country, it would be better on the whole to report the simple proposition 1st, determining whether Congress should take any action on the subject, and provide simply by this bill for regulating the tenure of these offices and the method of removal and the substitution of other persons to the administration of them; and if the Senate should think it fit to pass the bill and to provide for this general change in the administration of the Government, we would then prepare and report to the Senate immediately, and I promise the Senator that I will devote the skill I possess with his aid to such further legislation in the way of penalties and in the way of guarding the Treasury against any evasion as.be necessary, when we decide that we will enter upon what may be called an experiment. Therefore it is that I hope my friendfrom Ohio will for the present withdraw his amendment and let the sense of the Senate be taken upon the general question which is involved in the simple bill which we have submitted.