Mr. HARDING. According to my recollection it is different. This bill is, at any rate, essentially different in all its provisions from the act to which it purports to be an amendment. By this bill the defendant is allowed to enter his appearance and tile his defense in the State court, and after subjecting the plaintiff to all the vexations delay he can, by contin quances and otherwise, when at last he is about to be driven into trial, after perhaps a year or 2 of delay, then he may file his affidavit, and without security remove the cause to the cir cuit court. He is not required to give security [ at all to outer his appearance at the circuitl court or that he will give bail there and that is not all. Another section of the bill expressly provides that it shall be the duty Of the clerk in the State court, whet her there i is any security for the payment of fees or not to make the record of the suit for removal. Now, if a party is required to give security for the filing of the record himself, then the clerk will make it out because he gets his fee. But here is an express provision that it shall notbe necessary for the defendant to give so curity for the filing of the record and then he may go to the circuit court and have the case docketed without filing the papers at all, so that it will devolve upon the other party to file them. Look at that. The party who seeks the transfer is not required to give security, but upon the mere filing of his petition at the last moment, after he has delayed his adversary as long as he can, he has the right to go into the circuit court and enter the case on the docket and then when the case comes up if the plaint iff fails to file a copy of the opera he is nonsuited with double costs, and ) that nonsuit is made a bar to any subsequent action. Is this, sir, in accordance with the common course of legal proceedings, to make a mere nonsuit a bar to a cause of action? Sir, suppose a poor man living a 150 miles from where e circuit court of the U.S. is held. has brought his suit in the State court in his own neighborhood against a defendant for having arrested and imprisoned him maliciously and without justification. Now, this bill provides that the defondant, after resorting to all the delay he can in the State court, may on the simple filing of a petition for removal, without giving security arrest all further proceedings in the State court and throw upon the plainti the necessity of either giving up his case, or of prosecuting it in a court a 150 miles distant himself paying the expenses of copying and removing the papers. Sir, in such a case every honest lawyer would advise the plaintiff to abandon his cause. For what has he to hope for? When he gets to the circuit court the defendant may not meet him. He has given no security for is appearance and if he goes he has to pay the expense of filing the record, for this bill does not impose even that upon the defendant who removes the cause. It is manifestly, more than any bill I ever saw, framed exclusively in the interest of the defendant. Now, I warn gentlemen that interested law yers may have somethingto do with a case like this. Bring me a bill that treats the plaintiff and defendant alike, and I will sanction it. But a class of interested lawyers, perhaps large contingent fees to secure the achqauvititnag of certain men, may have their art to act in these cases and why not? lien: is a bill manufactured to their hands. Sir, I aflirm that any law student just admitted into the profession, who with the aid of this bill could not succeed in the defense of his client, however guilty, would deserve to be excluded from the bar. But, sir, there are perhaps more serious objections still. Here is an attempt to intervene between parties who have litigations now progressing in the courts, an attemptto interpose a defense which was no defense at the time the act was committed. Now, I ask gentlemen to reflect whether that can be done. It is a bad rule which will not work both ways. Let as test it by looking to the interests of the laintiff for a moment. Suppose a law should lie passed, retroactive in its character, giving a plaintiff a right to recover heavy damages for an act which a year ago, at the time the act was committed, violated no law, and was, therefore, an innocent and justifiable act; can you do that? Can you intervene by a retroactive statute and declare that a certain set performed a year ago shall be considered criminal, when, at the time the act was performed, it was no violation of any law, and ptherefore was justifiable? Can that be done? and then, again, can you interfere in favor of the plaintiff when he has brought his suit in court, and declare that acertnm M! which was lawful when commit ted, shall b6 considered a trespass, and upon that he may ground his action and recover damages? Can i that be done? Will any lawyer say that it can be done? Let us look at the matter for a moment. Does not this bill declare legal and valid that which was manifestly unlawful at the time the act was committed? The bill itself oes upon the ground that all these acts were one Without law, withoutjustilication of any law, civil or military. If there was anyjustification for the act at the time it was committed, then this. bill is unnecessary. It is upon the ground that they were unlawful acts that you are now called upon to intervene and make that a lawful act which was not so when committed. Can that be done? and yet that is the very thing that is done here. Is not that retroactive“! Is it not manifestly an expostfacto law? If not, how can you define it! No gentleman would hesitate a moment to pronounce it so if the bill were framed in the interest of the plaintiff, giving hiin new cause of action that the law did not give him at the time the action was committed. But here you give the defendent a defense which there was no law for at the time the act was committed. At the time the act was committed the law then in force denounced the act as unlawful; and now you propose to pass a law, retroactive in its character, to declare that no damages shall be given for that act.