Mr. SAULSBURY. Mr. President, it is unleasant to object to a.bill such as this which is now before t a Senate, because measures of this kind always commend themselves to the heart, even when the judgment generally coa demns them. I resume there is not a Senator upon this floor wh0 would not be glad to believe that he had authority to makethis appropriation. There can be nobody who does not sympathize, and sympathize deeply, with the people of Port land in their aflliction. Is eak candidly when I say that ifI believed I h the right as a member of the Senate to vote for this bill I would do it, and do it cordiall, cheerfully; but, sir, I do not believe that I have the right to cast that vote. I do not believe that the Congress of the U.S. have the right to appropriate money out of the public Treasury for anIv such purpose; and entertaining this opinion could not vote for the proposition, though all my kindred had been inhabitants of Portland and lost their all. Mr. President, if you have the authority under the Constitution to appropriate mOney to the inhabitants of Portland who suffered from the recent disastrous fire, you have the some authority to appropriate money out of the public Treasury for the benefit of every private individual in the U.S. whose house is burned down whose furniture is destroyed by fire or through accident. The number of people congregated in Portland does not distinguish it in priuci do from the case of an private sufferer in toU.S. If, Simply because there are 100s and it may be1000s of persons in the cit of Por and who have suffered from this conlfa ration, you must vote $50,000 to relieve them, how can you deny relief upon the application of a single private person who has lost his.all by a like afiiiction? I[lecausea number of individuals assembled at Portland enmasse, living in a populous town, lost their all, you are to extend bounty to them. If they had lived in different neighborhoods and a fire had occurred and they each separately had lost their all in different States of the Union, you would never have thought of making an appropriation of this kind. The fact that they all happened to be living on the same spot, near each other, does not distin ish their case from the caseof a.private individual. I should not have said a word if the yeas and nnys were not to be called upon this question. If the Senate had chosen to pass this bill subsilentio, I should have said nothing; but. as I have to record my vote I wished to state the reasons why I must.vote against the bill, though I feel as sympathetic and as kindly toward these people as any of those Senators who will vote r the appropriation.