Mr. EDMUNDS. Mr. President, it isa little singular that the opposition to this measure should present itself in the way that it has done or brothers on the other side of the LChamber who have opposed it have desired very much to favor it, except that they are troubled with constitutional objections; and our friends upon this side who are opposed to it are not troubled with constitutional objections, but are 0 iposed to it because it is charity. Now, I agree or one and as others have said, I should not have said a word only for the yeas and unys, which call upon everybo y to explain, that we ought not to devote ourselves to charity; but every nation that professes to be civilized has always in cases of great public calamity, although local like this, exercised what gentlemen now style charity, exercised the political right of disbursing iublic money and public aid to relieve the su cring which those great public calamities have occasioned; and this Senate within 2 weeks last past has appropriated public property (which is just as sacred and just as muc protected by the constitution andjust as much within the scope of the Constitution as public money) by a unanimous vote and with the hearty good will of everybody to this very object. Now, it seems to me that these scruples of ours come in strange opposition to the senti ments with which we 1st set out. We know in despotic Governments to be sure they have not an constitution the head of the nation, as in e case of great inundations in France, which are familiar to most Senators, within ten years past has made large appropriations to relieve the people of particular districts that have been drowned out; and in GreatBritain large appropriations have been made to relieve the people of the particular districts, in one case where a flood overwhelmed asection, in another where an explosion occurred. It remains for us Americans, then, to be tied u by some sentiment, either of constitutiona olijcction or of charity, to find that it is not in the power of this great people to appropriate any part of its money for the great purpose of relieving a great calamity because it happens to be local. It is true that all things of this description must be watched with extreme care. We cannot go into a general system ofiusurance, it is true; but when an overwhelming calamity is visited upon any portion of the people of this country, brought upon them by no fault of theirs, I should be sorry indeed to have the American Congress say that it is not within the scope of its powers or within the scope of its wishes to deal out a small portion of public favor as we have already, and as I hope we shall now, to relieve the immediate pressure of such distresses.