Mr. FESSENDENI Mr. President, in the perfect integrity and personal honor of the honorable Senfrom Kentucky, I, with every body else thatknows him, have the most entire confidence; I have no doubt that he would discharge any duty imposed upon him with care fulness and ability and integrity; but at the same time I must say, that with regard to anything connected with this Government that he had to investigate and report upon, I am afraid he looks upon everything, no matter what, with so jaun iced an eye that it would be a little dangerous to intrust him with deciding upon anything that the Government or the Depts have done from the beginning to the end. Therefore I cannot agree with the honorable Senfrom Ohio in saying thatI should be very ready to commit the whole matter to the honorable Senfrom Kent uck himself, and tea committee of his selection. am very much afraid that, unintentionally, we might come to a wrong conclusion. Having said this, I wish to remark further that I have had some experience with reference to these cotton transactions. The Senate willrec ollect that it became my duty, under a bill that was passed in the 1st session of the last congress, toorganize these cotton agencies. I did so to the best of my ability. I put them under the best men thatI could find. Of all that a plied, I was exceedingly careful, exceeding y minute in the examination of the character and capacity of the men selected and their general reputation and fitness for the places towhich they were appointed. They had not been in office a month, had hardly entered upon their duties so far as to have it understood that they had entered upon their duties, before I had precisely this kind of complaint, rumors, charges coming in that the Officers were doing this and doing that and cheating the public, and putting money into theirown pocket, and statements of a similar description. I investigated them at once in many cases. I told the individuals that if I found any man who had in any way shown a disposition to make private profit more than he was entitled to by law and y the regulations under it, I would dismiss him at once from the public service, and I think I would have ke t my word. In every instance in which I may o an examination, or caused one to be made, I found that the charges were totally unfounde; that they emanated from men who had been disappointed in effecting their own purposes, who had not been able to do what they desired to do; that the law, under the direction of the agents, as applied to them, had not met their Wishes; and at lastI came to this conclusion, and stated it: that whenever any persons came to me to make a charge against a public officer, they must put it in writing. specify the instance, and puttheir names toit. I received anonymous letters, letters making these general charges, but, after the establishment of that rule, I found that although I had plenty of general talk, I could not get any man to put himse f on paperwith regard to them. I have no doubt that there have been in stances in which the Government agents have acted improperly, perhaps corruptly. It would be singular i, in the very large number of agents appointed, it was not so. You could hardly expect not to be deceived in some instances. But from the ex)erience I had in the Treasury Dept, so ong as I staid in it, from what I saw and from what I learned, I became satisfied that, as a general rule, the business was conducted on the part of the agents of the Government with great integrity and with great. care; and that, as a general rulenot, perhaps, in all caseswhen complaints were made, they came either from interested speculators, men who had been cut offin their own efforts to cheat the Government, or men who were honestly misled by general rumors and statements that they picked u somewhere. When they came to me and may e these statements, and I said to them, ” Will you put yourself in writing and make the charge?" the reply always was, ” Oh, no, I do not like to be known as meddling with iIt; would rather my name would not be used.” My answer was, “Sir, ifyou come here as an honest citizen of the Republic making a complaint, trying to expose corruption, why not take the responsibility of making the charge if you believe it?” “They did not like to be mixed u in it.” I found that that was so in almost all cases; and I tell my friendfrom Kentucky that whenhe comes to the examination of the cases that have been stated to him, and asks his informant, whoever he may be, to put himself on paper, make the specific charge against the specific Officer, my belief is he will entirely fail; he will tell the Senator he is not sullieieutly aware of the facts tobe able tostate them on his own responsibility; that he 0t them from somebody else; that somebody else said so. Now. sir, the SecyTreasury has a very difficult task to perform. He is obliged to pick up this rebel cotton where he can, and I know from his own statements that he finds himself embarrassed in every direction in the manner in which it is going on now. I think a very great mistake was made in upsetting the system that was established at the time that I had the honor to be SecyTreasury. The reason for it was, undoubtedly and it seemed to be a good onethat the war had ceased and it was better to put an end to that system. I believe that it was the best system. It was the one pointed out by the statute, according to my reading of the statute. It was working well, and would have brought a great deal more money into the Treasury than any system that has been adopted since. However, the thing is done. It has edto embarrassment. Every man whose cotton is seized complains. I know of instances myself, if I may trust witnesses, where the most furious accusations are made against the cotton agents by the men who have had their own cotton seized, and who say that they are injured, and that this money has been taken for the benefit of the agent, and he is appropriating it for his benefit. Does the Senfrom I Kentucky think that, if a complaint is made to the SecyTreasury that the Government is defrauded in an individual case, he willnot investigate it and see if the Government is defrauded, and if so, whether the sum, whatever it is, cannot be secured and placed in the Treasury?Ibelieve no man is more anxious, no man is more careful, no man is more ready to investigate and see that justice is done to the Government than the present SecyTreasury. He labors in sea son and out of season to perform his very ardu ous and responsible dutiesduties too great for anyone man to perform in point of fact, as I happen to know y sad experience. That being the case, I am o posed utterly to these fishing commissions be ore any attempt has been made to get an explanation from the properquarter. The Senator says if he attempts to get justice from the Treasury Dept he cannot obtain it. I repelthe charge on the part of the Treasury Dept. He can get it, or any other man can get it; and I will never vote for a commission to investigate the doings of the Treasury dept on the strength of a statement here y any senator that he cannot get justice dofie at the Treasury Dept. Let him prove that by specific facts stated to the Senate, and then we will see whether the Dept itself wants investigation and not the inferior officers of the dept. am opposed in general to these appointments of committees of investiation on eral statements and charges. hey lea to great expense; they lead to great embarrassment; and they effect very little, in point of fact, one way or the other. But I agree with m friendfrom Ohio that when a case is resente, a specific charge made against an o cer of the Government, with all the minuteness which will amount to a reasonable certainty, for I require no more, on the strength of the names o witnesses who are credible, and who make the charge, and whom we should know and hold responsible for them, then I am ready to have an investigation by a committee; but for us to appoint a committee of investigation on the strength of a mere resolution, founded, in its very terms, on news aperrumors in part, and general statements of we know not whom, applying to nobody but covering the ground all over in this way, is a mere idle waste of time and of money, and a thing that we ought never to do. There is no end of it. It is deartin from our properduties to meddle with tings flint do not clung to us until it is satisfactori] shown to us that an examination on the part o Congress, one body or the other, is absolutely essential. 1 hope, therefore, that we will take the ground in regard to this resolution, and with regard to all others of the kind, that we will not appoint these committees of Congress to make special examinations until we have something definite and fixed upon which to found it. Thatas my friendfrom Ohio has stated; I may as well state it after himwas the unanimous opinion of the ComFinance on examining the resolution that was sent to us by the honorable Senfrom Minnesota, and to that I feel disposed to adhere. en.