Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I have no objection to the reference of the resolution proposed by the honorable member from Massachusetts; but, except by a constitutional change, and that made in more comprehensive terms than has ever yet been adopted or even suggested, I doubt whether the evil, if it be an evil, can be corrected. Maryland has abolished slavery by constitutional enactment; the people of the U.S. have also abolished it in the same way; but the question whether the abolition of slavery deprives a State of the power of punishing, by a sale of his services, a criminal is quite another inquiry. The constitutional amendment of the States seems to suppose that there may be slavery or involuntary servitude for crime. The term “slavery” is not used, I believe, but involuntary servitude is abolished, except as a punishment for crime. If “involuntary servitude” means slavery, it is difficult to see why the exception does not authorize the existence of slavery in an individual if he has committed a crime and the Legislature of the State where the crime is committed makes that a mode of punishment. There is no immediate necessity, I think, as the honorable member will see, if he does not already know what I am about tomention, for taking any decisive steps in the cases to which he has adverted so far as Maryland is concerned. The parties who have been adver tised, as stated by the honorable member from Massachusetts, were tried for the offenses alleged against them in the proper court at Annapolis, the circuit court for Anne Arundel county, convicted by a jury, and the punishment of sale was inflicted under the provisions of a statute which has been upon the statute book there from the beginning of the State government. It has been supposed, however, that the judge violated the Constitution of the U.S., or in some way violated the civil rights bill. That is a question of law. He has been proceeded against under the civil rights bill. e has been, or is about to be, indicted in the circuit court of the U.S. for that imputed offense, and his case will there be tried and tried, I suppose, at a very early period and will afterward be brought to the SCOTUS When that decision is pronounced we shall know whether this species of punishment can be inflicted now; and if the court decide that it may be inflicted now, then we shall be able to decide whether it is advisable by constitutional modification or provision to prohibit such punishment in the future. I do not see, therefore, that my friendfrom Massachusetts will accomplish his purpose more speed ily by the measure he proposes than by waiting for the action of the judiciary. The judge of that circuit in Maryland has also been called before the Commissioner of the U.S. under the civil rights bill, and has given bail for his appearance there. There is a certainty, therefore, that the question will be tried, and speedily tried. There will be no difficulty in getting the SCOTUS to act upon it, for whatever may be the state of legislation which renders it difficult or impossible to have some classes of cases there tried, that difficulty will not exist so far as relates to an appeal from the circuit court of the U.S. in Maryland, or from the superior court of that State if the case should go from there, under the 2/5th section of the judiciary act, to the SCOTUS I say in conclusion, Mr. President, and the member from Massachusetts I am sure will not be displeased to know that, that perhaps there is no State in the Union in which there is a more fixed determination that slavery, in the common acceptation of the term, slavery of the innocent, slavery on account of color, slavery on any account except for crime, shall not exist than there is in Maryland; but it is possible that the people of Maryland may think there is very little difference between consigning a man to a short term of slavery for an offense and locking him up in the penitentiary for 20 or 30 years or hanging him. I think it very probable that if the party offending was given the choice he might prefer the 1st instead of the 2nd, and certainly instead of the last; that is, he would prefer serving another for a short time, when he would again become a freeman, to being hung, when of course nobody could tell what would become of him in the future. [Laughter]