Mr. MORRHL. I did not intend to do more than to call the attention of the Senate t6the bill comin from the ComCommerce, of which I hap on to beaincvnber. Having dissented from the liill, I thought it was perhaps advisable that I should state the distinction between the proposition which came from the other House an that reported by the committee. As the Senfrom Massacliusetts apprehends, the measure proposed by the committee is a war measure. There is no question of that. It addresses itself to the war power it seeks to find its authority nowhere else; an I think it will be difficult for anybody to find an authority so broad as is contemplated by it; outside of the war power, with which, in the last 4 or 5 years, we have become so familiar. It proceeds on the idea of using the war power; and in aid of the war power it puts at the disposal of the Government the entire means of the Treasury. They are not appropriated in so many words, but these Secretaries are empowered to use all the means at their command. Of course that includes the Military and naval forces, and, in aid of them, the resources of the Treasury. I did not care to raise the questions which the honorable Senfrom Massachusetts has so rightly up rehended. It was on account of the oxtraor inary powers to which he has referred that I shrank from the consideration of the bill, Indmit. I thought it inadvisable, and I intimated some doubt about the power to which the honorable Senfrom Vermont has soproperly alluded. After a proclamation of ace, which has come to us, the effect of which never could exactly understand, and which I think it will be left to future historians and commentators to define, and other peace has come to us in a general way, why we should s a bill putting at the discretion of the POTUS, through the SecyWar and the SecyNavy, the entire military and naval power of the country to fight the cholera, is what I cannot exactly comprehend as.a question of constitutional power. The measure reported by the committee, I say, proceeds upon that idea, and invokes that authority, and oes not find its authority an where else. y honorable friendfrom Vermont suggests for my consideration that the authority is clearly justifiable upon the ground of the de cision of the Supreme Court in the passenger cases so familiar to the country and to the Senate. But let me suggest to him whether there is an analogy between the facts of the cases. There we were proceeding under the commercial authority of the Government mot under the war power, but under the power to regulate commerce. The fact was, in those cases, as the honorable Senator doubtless recollects, that the States of NewYork and Massachusetts had imposed a tax of one dollar a head upon persons who should be imported into this country under the regulations of commerce prescribed by Congress. The U.S. in whom is the supreme authority over questions of commerce, having regulated the importation of such persons, of course the States could not interpose. The States were in direct conflict with the asserted and conceded authority of the Government of the U.S. That was a case not like this, of war, but a case of commerce. I therefore submit to my honorablefriend whether the cases are at all analogous, whether the facts justify the comparison; and I suggest to him that this is more analogous to the license cases. Under the authority of Congress importers were authorized to import into this country from abroad ardent spirits, and having brought them in under the authority of Congress they claimed the right to sell them, and the claimed that the sale was authorized, and at under their police powers the States had no right to interfere with the disposition which th? should choose to make; but there the court rew the distinction between the authority of the State and the authority of the General Government: and whereas they said that over foreign commerce the jurisdiction of the General Government is supreme and exclusive, yet when once thelbreign article has been introduced within the limits and jurisdiction of the State entirely. the State may then apply to it its police regulations, either of health, sanitary regulations, or what not, and may impose such conditions and lim itations on the article so imported under the authority of the Government of the U.S. as the State, in its own judgment, hav in exclusive jurisdiction of all matters of police in its own State, shall determine to be necessary for the protection of its own people. Now, a ply that doctrine to this case. e are to fight the cholera; where? I concede that we may fight it on our exterior limits, either by weapons of war or through the agency of the Treasury Dept, as suggested by the honorable Senfrom Massachusetts; but can you enter the States and fight it over the railroads and the turnpikes and the common highways, and in the cities and the towns, and visit the houses and take possession of all the cities and towns in an district of country? For that is what is implie in cordons for sanitary purposes. You absolutely for the time being have the custody socially, politically, civilly, economically, in every sense which is intimate, of the entire American people, houses, lanes, strcets, everything as perfectly as the police regulations of the several States and the cities and towns. Can you do that? If so under what power? If we were in a state of war, there is nothing which we could notdo against a foreign enemy. I doubt whether we can do it against an enemy such as the cholera; but against the enemy that invades, you can do any or all of these; but can you do anyone of them in this case under the war power? Iquestion very much whether it can be done. Certainly it cannot be done under the authority suggested here, under the power to regulate commerce. The cholera is not commercial in its character; it is pervasive, and it invades everywhere and knows no Federal orlocal lines. I agree with my honorable friendfrom Ver mont that it knows no State boundaries nor any boundary whatever. M honorable friendfrom Vermont suggested O not know that he meant to be committed to it something about the general welfare. Whether he intends to draw the authority for this bill from that provision of the Constitution which n oaks of 1. ie general welfare, I do not know. hardly think there is anything in the history of the country which authorizes so broad an interpretation of that provision of the Constitution. But the answer to that suggestion would be that this bill does not proceed on that idea. Suppose, however, that an specific authority coulllbe drawn, or ever ha been drawn, from the phrase of the Constitution relative to the general welfare, which I am not aware there ever was, would anybody contend that, under the language of the Constitution in regard to providing for the general welfare, a general system for doctoring the American people against cholera, for that is what it is, cond be provided by Congress? The power involved in this bill assumes, if it is eflect ive, to go the whole extent of doctoring the American people upon the great emergency oi the cholera, providingdry and wet nurses of all description, medicines, sanitary regulations, cordons, and what not; there is no limitation. Whatever is needed to be done in the premises to prevent the introduction of cholera, and control it after it is here, is to be done by authority of the General GOvernment, by physicians, by police regulations, die. Whatever may be done, may be done, and is to be done, in contemplation of this bill, by authority of the General Government. So much for the authority. I rose in the 1st place simply to suggest what was obvious upon the reading of the 2 measures, that the proposition of the HoRep proceeded upon the idea of the General Government doing something in aid of the State institutions which already exist, sanitary and otherwise, in the several States, as it very properly may to render those local and State institutions effective. There are 1,000ways in which that may be done. The Government has now in all the States a great variety of hospital stores and other stores which might very properly be delivered over to the State authorities. In that way the aid of the Government might be very eflicient; but I have no faith at all in the o ration of the measure reported by our committee. If you take the matter out of the hands of the State authorities; if you undertake to inaugurate a system here at Washington which is to supplant their regulations and be independent of them, I have no belief that you will render the scheme efficient. That is in difficulty.