Mr. JENCKES. I wish about 5 minutes. I will yield then to the Gentfrom NewJersey. Mr. Speaker, the statutes of 1790, a portion of which is sought to be repealed by the bill now before the House, created 4 capital offenses: 1st, treason, fixing the ment of treason as the Constitution empow ered Congress to do; 2nd, murder; 3rd, piracy; and 4th, forgery. This bill seeks to repeal a limitation to the prosecution of certain of these offenses. In the statute itself I find no limitation in the cases of willful mur der and forgery. Forgery has since ceased to be a capital offense in the courts of the U.S. The exception of willful murder still remains. The effect of this bill, therefore, will be to extend the time for finding indictments in cases of treason and piracy alone. I submit that upon every question of justice and public policy this bill ought not to pass. Courts of justice have, in these later times, paid greater respect to statutes of limitation than they have at any former period in the history of the law in England and in this country. They have declared emphatically in cases civil and criminal that they are conducive to the peace and welfare of society and ought not to be disturbed. They have been construed strictly both in civil and criminal actions. This proposed repeal, if it has any intention, is made only in reference to cases of treason. Piracy is always committed othe high seas and out of the jurisdiction of any State under a flag not recognized by any civilized nation. Its proper definition confines it to those who commit offenses sailing under the black flag alone. They are not only criminals against the U.S or the laws of the U.S., but are enemies of human kind, and wherever arrested and found may be punished, not only by the laws of the U.S., but by the laws of every civilized nation. I consider, therefore, this repeal does not affect any case of that kind. It is made, then, solely against the time for finding of indictments for treason. Now, Mr. Speaker, if there is any offense for punishment or prosecution to which a stat ute of limitation should be passed it is of that class denominated political offenses, of which treason is the highest. Every person who has committed that offense against the U.S. during the late rebellion has been for 20 months within the actual power of this Government; part of the time within the military power; now within both the military and civil power. This repeal refers to the time for finding the indictment. If an indictment cannot be found within 20 months, what assurance can the gentleman give that it can be found within 20 years? If it cannot be found within 3 years, what reason is there for having it found after 3 years? If the state of things briefly referred to as being the moving cause of this bill, then the defect is in the machinery by which the law is to be carried into execution. Remedy that, and do not repeal your old statutes. These offenses committed against the majesty of the State are those of all others which are soonest healed by the action of time. There has never been any sedition, any treason, any rebellion in which parties of the same country and nation, arrayed in arms against each other, when at another period they have not been found acting together. It is contrary to the history of nations to suppose that they can be perma nently or even long divided on political questions, even though those questions have driven them to arms. Mr. Speaker, we have examples in history of the error of this kind of legislation. We might go back to the republic of Rome, and find a consul arraigned after 40 years for the murder of a leader of sedition. We can go back to English history, and cite cases in addition to those cited by the Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. STEveXS] yesterday, where persons, long after the Commission of the offense, have been tried, convicted, and executed. We may look even to the case in England which in our statute falls in the exception, where a Governor of an island was indicted in London, tried, convicted, condemned, and executed 20 of the offense. If we repeal all statutes of limitations and refuse to pass statutes of indem nity, the judge advocate who prosecuted the assassins of President Lincoln, the court that tried them, the President who signed their death warrant, might be arraigned before an adverse court and jury in this District without limit as to time except the duration of their natural lives, and condemned and executed. such a state of things is foreign to the spirit of the law, of the age, and of Christianity, and it ought not to be suffered to be reinstated in the laws of this nation. It had but a brief existence, if it had any, from the time of the adoption of the Constitution until the passage of the statute of April, 1790, and never ought to be imported into our laws from the English or any other law. ears after the commission. Nay, Mr. Speaker, we might, go further: The last Congress passed acts in the nature of statutes of limitation to prevent the prosecution of loyal men in arms obeying the orders of their superiors. And this Congress has before it bills of a similar character following the examples of these precedents. A Congress of a different mind might repeal all these statutes and subject the innocent servants of the Republic to suits for damages or prosecution for crime at any time, as this bill expresses it, or within any new limit which another Congress might fix to it. I trust, Mr. Speaker, that this bill will not pass, that we shall look at this statute of 1790 as learned courts and wise judges have looked at this and other statutes of limitation, as a statute of repose, a statute of peace, and leave the punishment of crimes, the time and manner of their prosecution, to the law as it stood when the offense was committed.