Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, the loss of such a man as J soon COLLAMER to the public councils at an time would have been deeply lamented. In the existing condition of the country the feeling is deepened, and the event nstly esteemed a serious calamity. He had been so long in the public service, his course was so well uown, the character of his mind so frequently and so favorabl illustrated, his wisdom so uniformly exhibite and during our recent erils and the complications consequent upon em, his patriotism as well as his wisdom was so conspicuous and comprehensive, that wherever his death became known it was recognized as a at national affliction and so it is. Valuable as we, his associates especially, know were his teachings and example during the past 4 years, now that the shock of arms has ceased, the flow of fraternal blood arrested, and the authority of the Government everywhere reinstated, there yet remain questions of great interest to be adjusted, upon which his advice would have been of great importance. From my intimate knowledge of im, I delore his loss the more because I am satisfied that he would have greatly assisted us in so solving those questions as to make our Union more perfect than it ever has been 1865. 58 making it a Union supported by the hearts of the people as well as y the force of constitutional o liation. The measures calculated to effect at e earliest moment this great and priceless result require high intellectual and moral qualities qualities so elevated as to be inaccessible to the weaknesses and prejudices which are often, to the impairing of their usefulness, seen to control even cultivated minds. It is from the general conviction that these qualities were possessed by our deceased associate, that the voice of regret at his decease was so general. The universal sentiment seemed to be that under the guidance ofwisdom such as his all would be well that his exposition of the policy suited to the Vital difficulties of the hour would be so clear and statesmanlike as materially to influence the deliberations of Congress inform and satisfy the public judgment, and hasten their safe and speedy settlement and well might this impression revail, for to such a work the mind of Judge oLLAMEn was admirably adapted. Nature had endowed him with excellent mental capacity, and he had cultivated it with great care an dili enee. His knowledge of the institutions and history of our country was alike exactnnd profound. He had studied them not only in their details, but in their philosophy. He came, therefOre, to the consideration of all measures of public policy with great advan tages. Impressed with the conviction that our institutions, if administered as our fathers designed, contained every power necessary to secure individual liberty and the public welfhre, e was, whether in war or in peace, for kec mg every dept of the Government within the limitsprescribed by the constitution. To transcend these under any exincy he ever repudiated as inadmissible and dangerous. With a mind strongly conservative by nature and training, while doing full justice to the different opinions of others, he at all times opposed as a solemn dnt measures or principles rejected or maintainc by any Dept of the Government which he believed were unwarrantedby the constitution. This he exhibited in stron terms in his admirable and exhaustive speech of the 12th of February, 1862, on the Treasury note bill. Referring to the doctrine of necessity as justifying or excnsing the exercise of powers no"tIdelegated by the constitution, he said: do not know how other members of the Senate look upon the obligation of their oath to support the constitution of the U.S. To me it is an oath registeredin heaven aswell as upon our and there is no necessity that, in my estimation. wi jus tify moin the brewehof it. I think those men who are now risking their lives upon the high placesof the field to an ort the constitution, are not to be treated in this all by uswith the concessionthat we are ready, if the necessity calls for it, to break it. All that our rebel enemiesare an; edin is the overthrow of the constitution and all that we are contending for is its maintenance and preservation.” In the debate, too, on the confiscation bill, his view on an important question of public law is also illustrative of him. The doctrine he announced on that occasion, thooeh not held by all statesmen of the present day, is now of great practical moment as well as of vital interest to 1,000s of our citizens. Referrin to the asserted obligation of the people of the South to submit to the authority of the defacto governments which prevailed. there, and to the legal consequences of such submission, he observed: “However loyal ther feelings, as government (le acto is over them. hey cannot get away. They have nowhere to o. They have nothing to gowith. whbut would you have a man there to do? Wbathss this nation a right to demand of him 2" and among other instances, relying upon what he justly characterized as the bright and high” example of Chief Justice Hale in taking office under the usurped government of Cromwell, he stated that in his opinion a citizen otherwise loyal did not commit treason by sub"Initting to or even by holding office under a defacto government; and his concluding words upon this subject were these: “such. air, is the respect paid by the world, and I especially that part of the world fipm which wesprin, to a dafaclo government, and the nations of the cart duesuarlpwaittihont. h"emas lovornments, no matterwhat the I have no purpose and certainly the present would be a rean t occasion to indu go it if I had, to exaxmne into the correctness of this proposition or its application to the late rebellion. The speech is referred to as was the one before (noted, because it accounts in part I think, for the impression so widely entertained that a conservative and enlightened statesman in the inscrutable providence of God had been taken from us at an epoch in our countrys history when his services could not have failed to be of great value. But irrespective of all particular exhibitions of it, it was not surprising to those who knew Judge COLLAMER in a vance that he proved so well fitted to the duties of the important positions to which his State called him. An habitual student, with a mind perfectly honest, with a long experience at the bar and on the bench of his own State, (a bench ever distinguished for ability and learning) he came to the councils of the General Government thorou hly prepared to meet their highest demands, an this the result proved. From the 1st be ranked among the a lest of our jurists and statesmen, and continued to maintain that rank to the last. As long as the 9 volumes of the Vermont Reports of cases during his judicial career remain, the exactness and epth of his legal knowledge will serve to guide and inform the profession and promote everywhere the cause of enlightened jurisprudence; and while the debates of Congress during the period of his service in either branch are left, we who are yet here, and those who shall succeed us, will find in his speeches lessons full of instruction and replete with patriotism on almost every question of public polio or of constitutional In law that can arise. the purity of his life, too, the industry with which he discharged his various official functions; in his freedom from prejudice, his constant regard to the rights and interests of all the States, and in his uniform courtesy to his assoeiates we have an example at all times to be honore and followed. Mr. President, it was my good fortune to have been associated with him, not only in the senate, but for some 14 months in the executive councils during the administration of General Taylor. Before that Period I only knew him as a distinguished public servant; but in those months our relations became, to my great benefit and tification, intimate, leading to a friendship which it is agreat pleasure to me now to remember was never even for a moment distnrbed. Those who were acquainted with his administration of the postoffice Dept during that time know that it was inal respects admirable. Its vast and complicated business, throughout his administration, was never more ably conducted. I feel that it is unnecessary, in the presence in which I stand, to say more of his public career. No praise of it, however great, would those whohave been with him in this Chamber consider exa elated and for the same reason would it be idle for me to do more than to allude to his social qualities, for these we all knew and delightedin. the public business of the day ended, its cares dismissed, and private intercourse resumed, which of as does not recollect that his conversation was always instruct ive, friendly, and entertaining? To allude to it even affords but a melancholy pleasure, as it so forcibly reminds us of the great private aflliction we have sustained. But in our bereavement we are not without consolation. The adevil did not occur until our friend had served his country most faithfully and well, and particularl during the last 4 ears of its severe trio. with unsurpassed ability and the purest patriotism. It is a further consolation that it did not occur until the crisis of our nations peril had fa vorably terminated; until the frutricidal blow aimed at its life by wicked ambition, proving for a time able to mislead the honest masses of the South, was so utterly defeated and crushed that its renewal is impossible, and until the authority of the constitution and laws was restored and submitted to in every part of the land. Our consolation, however, would have been the greater if he had been suffered to remain until he could have seen established that stronger bond of union than constitution and laws alone can give, which is to be found in mu tual sympath and affection; until he had seen us a sin, an more perfectly than ever, one people, acknowledging the same political principles, influenced by the same motives, and imgelled by the samepurpose of working out, under and by virtue of the governments of the union and of the States a prosperity and renown greater than we have possessed in the past, and abandoning forever the heresyof secession, and abolishing the special institution, (the causes, direct or indirect, of the late convulsion) resolved to make our Union, to which we owe all of our happiness, individual and social, that we have heretofore enjoyed or can hope for, not only firmer than ever, but, as far as human effort can accomplish it, make it perpetual. If this additional privilege had been vouch safed him by Providence, our departed associate and friend would, I believe, have left the world without other pan than that acute one which is inseparable from tesundering of domestic ties, ties never stronger than in his case) and in the full assurance, which takes from death its sting and from the grave its victory, of that judgment in mercy which a firm beliefin the truth of the Christian disensation assures him who holdsit will be awur edto a wellspent and religious life on earth.