Mr. JOHNSON. The question before the Senate is whether the bil as proposed to be amended should be indetinitel postponed; and in what I am about to say shall occupy the Senate but for a few moments it is not my purpose to inquire into the proposed amendments which the House bill suggests to the original act of 1864, but merely to say a few words as to the nature and legality of the act of 1864. I suppose my friendfrom Maine and the ComCommerce will hardly doubt that Congress had the power to pass the act of 1864. Under the authority to regulate commerce there can be no doubt that they could regulate the transportation of passengers, and under the same authority they could authorize the immigration of those who were unable to pay their own passage money. The country in 1864 was or was supposed to be very much in need of labor. There was a great deal of hard work to be done on railroads and canals; and more of that work perhaps is in prospect nowthan there was then. The country is about to be, if it is not actually, reinstated in its original integrity, and all those improvements must be increased. Now, the act of 1864does nothing more than this: it says to the man in Europe who wishes to come to the U.S. but who has not the means of coming of his own, or who is unable to procure there the means of comin, that he maycome in an American ship for such sum as maybe agreed upon, and thatIiis agreement to pay the amount of that passage money shall be a personal obligation to he paid within 12 months, and shall be a lien at all times upon any real estate which he may acquire, so as to constitute it in the nature of a mortga c upon an real estate which he may acuire m' his han s to return to the party who a vances the money the amount of the advance. That is the principal revision of the act of 1864. The remaindero that act is, in my judgment, just as advantageous. When the immi grant arrived at one of our large cities, and particularly NewYork, before the act of 1864 was passed, he was taken possession of by those who thought they could make money out of him, either fraudulently or otherwise; he was deceived and deluded. His purpose was to get to one portion of our country in the West or Southwest or South, but he often found that the tickets which were placed in his hands carried him to a very different locality; and the object of one provision of the act was to make it the duty of the Commissioner of Immigration to see that means were alforded to him of being transported where he wished to go. That is for his protection. There is no slavery about it except the slavery that exists in the case of any man who gets in debt for any sum, and whose debts by the law of the place where he may be are made an incumbrance upon any real estate that be may have. It seems to me, therefore, with due submission to my friendfrom Maine and to the committee, that the act of 1864 is a very good law; and as far as I am advised, I never eard any complaint from any quarter of the o)cration of that not, nor is there anything in this bill as it comes from the House which shows that there is any ground for complaint. The objcct of the bill is to enlar c the provisions of the origi nal act of 1864. ow, whether that enlargement would or would not be beneficial is a (linestion which I do not proposeto discuss, for have not examined the bil; butI agree with my friendfrom NewYork [Mr. bIORGAN] that the original act of 1864 is a very wise act, very beneficial to the country, and especially to the new States, where labor is wanted, and that the proposition of the committee to repeal the act of 1864 ought of courseto be rejected. I shall therefore vote for the motion made by that honorable member that the subject he indefinitely postponed.