Mr. BOUTWELL.Mr. Speaker, the House is aware that the ComJudiciary has been for a long time engaged in the investigation of facts concerning the assassination of the late POTUS. It must be apparent that in the prosecution of that investigation the secrets of the War Dept especially have been laid open to the committee. Now it has happened that on 2 occasions, without so far as I know any fault upon the part ofany member of the committee, the substance of papers, copies of which have come into the ban s of the committee, have found their way to the public. It must be aparent that it is of prime importance that the knowledge of the contents of those papers should not be disclosed to the public until they have been thoroughly examined by the committee. They are volumine us; they relate to important interests of the Government, and the committee felt bound to exercise all the care that was practicable. Some 4 or 5 weeks since the committee, against my own wishes, charged me with the duty of preparing a report upon this case. I may say that the committee has never yet reached a conclusion as to what should be advised, if, indeed, an thin should be advised, for the action of this house. The work in which, during that period, I have been engaged has been the examination of these paers for the purpose of ascertaining, as far as might be able, the value, if any, which they possessed with reference to the elucidation of the matter referred to. To that duty I have devoted myself with such assiduit as I possess, and with such leisure as I could command. The examination into the archives of the Wgr Dept, which contain the documents and papers found at Richmond and elsewhere in the 11 rebellious States, has, from day to day, devel oped new testimony concerning the assassination of the President and matters which are supposed to have some relation thereto. I felt, after these papers were put in my charge, that I became in a certain egrce responsible for them. They were very volumine us, and I had arranged them with reference to an examination for the purpose of preparing a report. It was not, in the first place, convenient, even if there had been no other consideration involved, that those papers should be submitted to the examination of anybod else. I may say here that should have felt myself bound to treat any other member of the committee precisely as I treated the Gentfrom NewJersey, [Mr. Rooms] I did not understand that we were engaged in the prep aration of a majority report. But I under stood that I was chargedwith the examination of those papers, whic, as the House can well understand, are of a peculiar character. Many of them were published in some of the northern papers, and in some of the southern papers. There are letters written over assumed names, involving an examination of the hand writing for the purpose of ascertaining the authors of them; oters are couched in am biguous and uncertain language, the nature and purport of which would not be fully under stood from a mere cursory reading. Others are written in cipher, which were, of course, examined and translated, so far as they could be translated at all, at the War dept. Under these circumstances, I think the House will see that when I was charged with this work, for which I was responsible to the committee and to the country, I had the right for the ti being, without infringing the rights of this house, or of any member, to keep the control of these papers. Hence I have, during all this period of time, whenever aproache by the Gentfrom NewJersey, [ Mr. Roc nns, ] declined to put these papers in his poa session. ‘