Mr. HOWARD. I understood the honorable Senator to say that if he was held as a prisoner of war he could not on account of being so held, on account of being invested with certain mysterious privileges as a prisoner of war, be held amenable for treason in a civil court. I believe that I did not misunderstand the honorable Senator. If such be the immunity of JeffersonDavis, why has not my learned friend, rofound as he is in the knowledge of the law, industrious and enlightened as he confessedly is, exerted himself heretofore to relieve Davis from his imprisonment by suing out a writ of habeascorpus and testing the question whether he is amenable to the indictment found against him for treason? Why have not the learned counsel of Davis, who entertain the idea that because a man is held as a prisoner of war he cannot be convicted of treason, exerted themselves in behalf of JeffersonDavis and liber ated him upon habeas co? If he is shielded by his character as a prisoner of war from a prosecution for treason, he has but to show that to a proper court on a proper application to be relieved from his imprisonment; or if he is tried for treason, all he has to do is to set up that defense on the trial, and he must be at once acquitted. But, sir, the doctrine itself is entirely unfounded. I do not profess to be profoundly learned in the law, and I would not place myself in competition with the honorable Senfrom Maryland in this respect; but I feel quite safe in defying him to find a warrant in any of the accredited writers upon the law of nations that a legitimate Government may not try a rebel who has been captured as a prisoner, also a traitor, and inflict upon him the penalty of treason. This doctrine leads inevitably to the conclusion (if it be sound) that none of the multitudes of rebels who have been captured and held as prisoners of war by the troops of the U.S. during the whole of the recent conflict, can be held for treason upon an indictment; that the very fact that they have been captured and acknowledged as prisoners of war stands as their defense and excuse for the crime of treason they have committed. I do not wish this discussion to close and leave that point of law, pressed upon us so earnestly by the honorable Senfrom Maryland, with. Qut a reply. Sir, the doctrine is entirely false. It is contradicted by Wattel, it is contradicted by Kent, it is contradicted by Grotius, and by all the accredited writers upon the law of nations and the law of war; and I believe in the end the honorable Senator will find that it is entirely unsupported by principle, as it is unsupported by authority from the books. Now, sir, I shall not undertake to predict when JeffersonDavis will be tried either for treason or murder; I do not know; I am not in the secrets of the Cabinet; I know nothing of the undisclosed motives which may operate upon persons in authority to prevent the speedy trial of JeffersonDavis; but that he ever will be tried for treason f have not the slightest belief. That he will ultimately be liberated, and that unconditionally, by the POTUS from all responsibility on account of the crime of treason which he has committed I entertain no doubt. Sir, will a Chief Magistrate who has pardoned rebels by wholesale, pardoned them by 1000s and tens of 1,000s, proceed to try Davis, their chief, condemn him, and execute him? Will a Chief Magistrate who, during the last year and more, has been exerting all his official influence in favor of the rebels and of the rebel communities, taking them under his especial protection and guardianship, who treats them so tenderly and so considerately as to hold them up to the world almost as a persecuted people, be expected to punish the and chief of that community whose favor he has been so long courting? No, sir, it is not to be thought of. Like the rest of them. JeffersonDavis, the head and front of the rebellion, who might and ought to have been tried in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, in even Vermont, and convicted, sentenced, and executed for treason, will never be tried under this Administration. The bill immediately before us, Mr. Presi.dent, proposes to repeal the 13th section of the confiscation act of 1862. That section authorizes the POTUS by proclamation to extend pardon and amnesty to such persons and such portions of the rebels as he may see fit. What it extends besides pardon is amnesty. I hold that the Congress in passing the act of 1862 granted to the President some power, in the 13th section, be yond what he possesses under the naked constitution; that is, the power of pardoning officers. By the 13th section he is authorized to grant amnesty to such portions of the rebels as he may see fit not mere pardon, but amnesty. Amnesty is a military term. It applies to bel ligerent parties, operates as an. eternal oblivion the causes of the war, and is the basis of peace; it is a burying, a putting out of mind and memory the war itself and of the causes that led to it; and it necessarily restores the belligerent parties to whom it is granted to all the rights they possessed before the war broke out; it places them, in other words, in statu quo ante bellum. I do not believe the POTUS under the naked Constitution authorizing him to grant pardons possessed the power of pardoning by wholesale an army of rebels and all those who had aided and assisted them. The power of granting this amnesty is a power which cannot be exercised by the in virtue of his executive functions merely, nor in virtue of his capacity as Commander in Chief of the Army, because in its very nature it must rest upon the sovereign power of the nation that grants it. Amnesty is peace, and the POTUS, whether in case of rebellion and insurrection within our own limits or of foreign war, has no power to grant a permanent amnesty, which is peace, without an act of Congress. He is not vested with authority to declare and establish peace between this nation and a foreign nation when war has once supervened. That peace can only take place by the consent and by the legislation of Congress. It requires the legislation of the 2 Houses in order to change the condition of the country from a state of war to a state of peace. The power of making war belongs to Congress, and the power of making peace belongs to Congress and not to the President. If this view be correct, it o follows that we did to the President in 1862 a power which e had not under the Constitution, to wit: the power of granting amnesty, and it is that power which I think, so far as I have been able to inform myself, has been greatly abused by the F." xecutive that we now seek to take from him by the bill before us. I hope, sir, the bill may pass.