Mr. BUCKALEW. I suppose that the proper motion to be supported by those who are unwilling or unable to vote for this measure would be one to postpone it. I see no ro priety in referring it to the committee whrich as charge of the expenditures of the Senate alone. Mr. President, a few years ago the large and flourishing town of Chambersburg in my State was burned to the ground. The greater part of it was destroyed, not by the act of God, by mere accident or casualty, but by the act of the public enemies. It was done at a time, too when the Government of the U.S. had stri ped our Commonwealth of her whole armed fiirce; our soldiers were under the control of the military authorities of the U.S and remote from our borders. In that defenseless situation, caused by our respond‘ing to the appeal of the General Government, our State was invaded, and one of our large, flourishing, Wealthy, and interesting towns was swept from the face of the earth by fire. Great destitution and suffering fell upon our people. If there ever was a case when an appeal could be made to the General Government for relief and for aid because of the destruction of property by fire, that was the case. All the circumstances surrounding that calamitous event would have appealed owerfully to this Governmentfor aid and for re icf to our people, because that act was caused by the do unit of this Government in defending our territory; it was caused by the act of this Government in withdrawing those forces which would have defended us on our borders, and indiscrectly and unwisely disposing of them in such situations that we were not protected. Not one dollar has this Government contributed to those sufferers or to reimburse our people for the property destroyed on that occasion. If our peeple of Pennsylvania possessed 12 votes in this body instead of two, it is possible that some appeals would have been made here and strongly pressed appeals to the charity of the Senate for relief or for reim bursement to us for the injuries which we suffered. Instead of that, sir, what has been done? Private liberality was appealed to to alleviate the suffering which fell upon our people, and subsequently our State Legislature appropriated halfa million dollars to pay for the property thus destroyed, and destroyed under circumstances that if there was any fault at all, it was a fault that rested upon this Government, and not upon the government or peeple of Pennsylvania. Now. sir, the difficulty, the pressing and sharp difficulty, which is in the mind of every reflecting m'cmber against voting for a measureof this kind is, that there is no boundary, no limit to the exercise of a charitable power of this description. You cannot distinguish between cases of casualty or of accident in different parts of the country, and administer a system of charity from this point upon any in telligent and upon any fair principle of justice. It will always be a system of favoritism if you enter upon it. In responding to some appeal in case of famine in Ireland, or some total destruction of a great city in Venezuela, there are limits to the charity of the nation. This is one of the Powers of the earth, and in its capacity as a member of the family of nations you may, perhaps, infer some color of power for charity of that description. But in exercising this (power among the States of our Union, in istributing our charity and our bounty where suffering appeals to us in the various States, we are entering upon a field of expenditure, we are entering on the exercise of a power which has no limit, no boundary, no ru e, no equality, and finally, to sum it up in a word, no principle of justice by which you can be certain that your bounty will be administered in a proper manner and that it will reach the proper persons. Now, sir. we are unaequainted with the special facts of this great disaster. We know that it is one enormous in its magnitude and most afilicting in its character, but I think that the State of Maine herself should stand forward upon this occasion. Being possessed of all the facts pertaining to this great calamity and being specially interested in it as the governing authority, having jurisdiction in the place where the disaster happened, she should step forward and administer such relief and extend such public bounty to the sufferers in this case as is appropriate; and when she has done that she will have' done no more than other States of this Union have done under similar circumstances. At all events, sir, as at present advised, I am obliged to any that so long as such cases as the destruction of Chambers urg are existing facts in our recent history I am unable to bring my mind to that frame which will enable me to vote for this measure.