Mr. TRUMBULL. That being the opinion of the committee, I do not know but that we shall have to appropriate this sum and have to agree to this amendment that the SecyTreasury shall have placed in his hands $50,000 for the purpose of employing tempo rary clerks. I regret that it is so. I wish that the Treasury Dept could be so organized that there should be no necessity for such an appropriation; but it seems it is not, and those who are charged particularly with this branch of the public service tell us that there is a necessity for such an appropriation. It will have to go, I suppose, if that be so: but I think that the Senate and the country will feel under obligations to the Senfrom Massachusetts for having brought this subject to their notice, that we may see, and all may see, how this money, placed in the hands of the SecyTreasury for disbursement in his discretion, has been disbursed. It may at least have this good effect: it may make him cautious in the disbursement of this sum which will now be left to his discretion. As I said, my object in saying anything was to call the attention of the Senate to the vast discretionary power which we of late years, not in former times, have got in the habit of conferring upon heads of Depts. There is laid on my table this morning a statement of the public debt of the U.S., and in that statement I see it stated that there are now in the Treasury of the U.S. more than 142 million dollars. The Government owes $2, 500,000,000; and yet there is in its Treasury more than 142 million dollars today. I think the official reports will show that there has hardly been less than $142,000,000 in the Treasury at any time within a year, and I presume there has often been more than 142 nillions in the hands of the SecyTreasury. I have not looked at the tables, but that is the statement today; and my recollection of previous statements is that a sum equally large in amount has often before been reported as being in the hands of the Secretary, and I Presume that something like this has been in E. hands the whole time during the last 12 months. Now, sir, what I wish to say is, in the 1st place, that this is the most miserable economy, to be paying interest upon money that we owe by the 1000s of millions, and have nearly 150 million dollars in the Treasury lying idle. It is taxing the people of this country some 8 or 9 millions every year unnecessarily, because we are paying interest when we have the money in our Treasury with which to pay so much of our debt. But, sir, beyond that it is dangerous to the liberties of this people to have such an amount of money in the hands of any man. Why, sir, it is within the recollection of many of us that the best men in this land were alarmed at the creation of a national bank with a capital of $15,000,000. They believed it would be dangerous to the liberties of the people to charter such an institution with a capital of $15,000,000. Now, you place in the hands of the SecyTreasury $142,000,000, and make no provision to take it out leave it at his discretion to do what he pleases with it. He may put up and put down prices at his will: he may make men rich and make them poor at his will. I said that I rose to make no accusations upon the SecyTreasury. I do not say, I have not the facts that would warrant me in saying, that he has exercised the vast author.ity with which he is clothed so as to put money into the pockets of favorites, but he has had it in his power to do it. I am opposed to all this species of legislation which vests such vast discretionary power in the hands of any man. I know that in the management of the finances of this country, in the vast collections and disbursements we are making, there must be some money in the Treasury. Of course there would have to be a fund to some extent