Mr. COBB. Mr. Speaker, I desire to say, although knowing most of the gentlemen now at the bar of the House, all of them personally, and agreeing with most of them politically, knowing all of them as honorable members of this body, yet I feel it to be my duty to vote against the motion of the Gentfrom Indiana, [Mr. ORTH,) which would relieve them altogether of all the penalties consequent upon their absence without leave of the House. I will confess I am somewhat envious of these gentlemen. I. am envious of the happy state of mind in which they come to the House this morning compared with that of those of us who have been here all night. Although not possessed of a large amount of currency I would give much more than they are liable to be fined if I could feel the satisfaction I believe they do. While we were here struggling for 16 hours they were at home quietly sleeping. But my chief object in rising is to enter my solemn protest against this proposition. As stated by the Gentfrom Indiana, [Mr. FARQUHAR,) some of the most prominent members of this House took the initiative toward forcing action on the bill which was pending without discussion. I speak for myself and many others who sit around me when I say we did then as we have been in the habit of doing, allowed ourselves without a great amount of knowledge of the merits of the case, without investigation of the question, to be led along in the course of conduct marked out by the ComJudiciary. When, however, we had started in that course to accomplish the result desired by that committee we found our selves deserted; that the members of the ComJudiciary had backed down on the issue. Now, I served under McClellan and Burnside, but I never got into the habit of retreating so as to like it. No sooner was there danger than our leader here, as McClellan and Burnside did, retreated. If that is to be the tactics of the leaders of this House I for one am about done voting for the previous question to push forward the legislation of. the which so far as my experience has gone has ended in shameless defeat on the part of the majority of this House. That is all I wish to say.