Mr. CONNESS. I do not know that I have any especial objection to the passage of this resolution; but it would please me much more if the honorable Senator, instead of offering such a resolution as this, would call up the bill before the Senate to prohibit the absences of territorial officers from the place of the performance of their duty, and by passing that bill we should have an end to these pilgrim ages made by territorial officers, mostly appointed from the East to govern the Territories of the West, to engage in mining speculations, and come back as great men to forward those speculations, and finally occasionally to take a hand in the general polities of the country. If there is any part of the administration of government in the U.S. that is worse than another, it is the government of the territories of the U.S. An inquiry into their condition, made by Congress, would have a salutary effect with reference to who constitute their officers, where those officers come from, how they came to be appointed, their fitness for the duties to which they have been appointed, and the degree to which they have remained endeavoring at least to perform those duties. This resolution perhaps will have a salutary effect in one particular case; but it seems to me to be a most shameful waste of the public money and promotion of the abandonment of public duty on our part not to stop the whole abuse to which I have referred, and which this resolution points at. I believe the honorable Senfrom Oregon oWILLIAMs] has charge of the bill of which have spoken, and I called his attention the other day to the subject and asked him why it was not called up. I believe that his answer was that there was no prospect of its passage. Why, sir, I think upon a Presentation of facts demanding the passage of such an act. no Senator would vote against it. The Terri tories of the U.S. that are to be the States of the future in their infancy are crip pled, demoralized, often degraded by the class of men who are sent out to govern them, and the Treasury is plundered in addition.