Mr. CLARK. ‘It may be that‘I may have an o iportunity, and let the opportunity come. I will not throw around me, Mr. President, the dictum of the law that all within those lines are to be considered enemies. The man that struggled within those lines to reserve the Union deserves as much as he who struggled without the lines, for his heart was as mm to Union. It is said to me, Mr. President, and it is said to the Senate, there were not man loyal men within those States. I do not an ertake to say how many, but in the State of Tennessee we found 30,000 loyal soldiers. In northern Alabama there were Union men, and true Union men. Everywhere there were more or less of them; and where I find one of these men, if he is the only man in that Sodom, he shall have the protection of the Government, so far as I can give it; and if he has been true and loyal within the amendment of the Senfrom Illinois, ifhis loyalty has not been of the passive kind, but; of that active kind which manifested itself all along for the Government, so much the more is he deserving. Mr. President, we do not consider, I fear, what the loyal men in these districts have suffered. In NewHampshire, or anywhere in the northern art of the country, in NewYork and in the Orthwest, it may have been an easy thing to have been a loyal man. A man may have gone with the currr it. It was a dif ficult thin to be a disloyal mall; and its. man manifested any hostility to the Government he was apt to be surrounded by a crowd and mobbed and compelled to put out a fine and make a speech for the Government. lint in the southern country, where the current was all the other way, where they were overborue by masses, it was a struggle, it was a life of heroism for a man to be a loyaf man: and if through that struggle he maintains his loyalty, I ask anybody to tell me why, ifyou have had that man’s property for the benefit of the government, the Government should not pay him It is said by the Senfrom Michigan and also by the Senfrom Massachusetts that it we pass a bill of this kind we shall open the Treasury of the U.S. to claims for millions. It may be so, though I do not believe it to the extent to which they say, for there is nothing in the claims that have come before Congress up to the present time to justify any such remark; but suppose it were so, I ask the Senfrom Michigan, I ask the Senfrom Massachusetts if they are going to shut up the Treasury and refuse justice to the men who ought to have the aidI of the Government because men not deserving it may claim it. You cannot, escape these claims; you may postpone them today, you may postpone them this session, you may postpone them the next session; but the claims will come, and the man whose property you have had, who has been a loyaf man, will not be satisfied until the Government has'done him justice; the public will not be satisfied until you have done your citizens jus tice and you had better take the matter in hand while the proof is recent and can easily be made, and it can be shown on which side the man is, whether a loyal or disloyal man, and whether the Government have had his property or not, and how much. It had better c done now than done at a later day. There is within the records of the ComClaims a claim made by a citizen:1 ainst this Government in what was called “ the ast war, ” the war of 1812, and at the time he presented his petition to Congress he asked only $450. It was refused him from year to year until in 1825 a commission was appointed by both Houses of Congress to value the property he had lost, and they valued it at $2, 500. At the time he suffered the loss iteould have been settled for $450; but as years rolled along, the claim kept increasing and the proof kept increasing until it swelled up to $2, 600. It is the experience of everybody who has anything to do with these claims that the longer they lie the more uncertain they become, and the more the testimony on one side and the other accu mulates the more you are apt to do injustice. Take the thing when it is new and recent, when the people standing around, the neighbors, know how the matterl is, and decide it upon the testimony that is then presented to you, and you are vastly more likely to do justice than you are at some subsequent time. But, Mr. President, Senators seem to have misapprehended somewhat the nature of this bill. It is a bill carefully prepared by the ComJudiciary, uarded in every way that it could possibl I think be guarded, so far as they understood it; and it provides that where the claim is for over $500, the claimant shall go to the Court of Claims and make his proper preof before a judicial tribunal. There he 18to be heard by his counsel upon his claim on one side, and the Government is to be heard by its counsel and its proofs on the other side, and the matter adjudicated as shall seem fair to the court. But as to those claims which are under $500, the committee thought it was hardly worth while to drive the claimant through a lawsuit in the Court of Claims. I was myself for fixing the amount at $300, and letting every body who had a claim over $300go to the Court of Claims; but the committee thought otherwise, and thought it would be well and safe to leave it with the proper accounting officers of the Treasury to settle these claims under $500; and I can say to the Senfrom Massachusetts, I can say to the Senfrom Michigan, thatthe experience has been that those accounting officers and the QuarterMGen and Commissary General have been hard enough in all conscience on those people who have any claims. And now, sir, why should not this great government bejust to all its citizens? Why should the man who has been swept away by the current of secession, who was a loyal man, be cast, out by the Government? Swept away by so. cession and then thrown out by his own government, how ha less is his lot! Who would want to live under such a Government, who would praise such a Government, who would ield it respect‘? Sir, your Government must e foundedpupon its justice and must rely upon its justice, and its perpetuity rests upon its be nevolence and the prosperity thatit carries to all classes under it. I am not to be bound by any line between the loyal States and the disloyal States. I am for restoring in every proper way that part which was disloyal. Where there is justice in their claims I am for giving them their claims; and though they may have struck at my coantry’s flag, w new I can reach out to them the helping hand, if the be loyal now, if they accede to the terms of t le Govenment, I am for receiving them and making the resto ration and prosperity of the country complete.