Mr. COWAN. I have always been of opinion that the 2nd clause of that amendment amounted to just nothing at all. When sla Very was abolished, it was abolished as perfectly by the 1st clause as by vboth toget ier. At the some time, however, it must be remembered that there has been a school of lawyers and politicians who contended that the constitution in itself had no operation, but that it was for Congress to make such legislation as should carry it out. I believe there was a school of politicians who contended that a fugitive slave law was not necessary, that the clause in the Constitution itself was enough, without more; and there were others again who insisted that the clause in itself amounted to nothing, unless Congress exercised the power and passed a law to carry it into effect. suppose that was in the mind of the person who drew this 2nd section, but it simply gives the right on the part of the U.S. to enforce the 1st. I say I am perfectly willing to do that. I shall not stand upon tine points with any man upon these questions. I will agree to any habeascorpus law that may be passed to res cue the negro from any unlawful restraint of any kind. I will O further which would be “appropriate legisation” in that behalf; if anybody does restrain improperly of his liberty a nevro who has been freed by the amendment to the Constitution, 1 will give the negro a right to damages against him, so that he may answer in damages to the negro himself, and if you please on may make kidnaping an offense. I illlllli there is a bill now on our table which makes the restraint of the negro under those circumstancesto be a species of kidnaping. Ihave no objection to that, because it is appropriate legislation. But, Mr. resrdeut, I suppose it will not be pretended by any lawyer in the world that the subject matter of that amendment extended to anybody but slaves. We have seen that it did not extend to mine rs, it did not extend to aprentices, it did not extend to married women. We know that it did not extend to anybody who before that time was free. Did anybody ever suppose that it had any operation whatever upon the status of the free negro, a negro who was born free or who had been emancipated ten years before it was passed? certainly not. Nobody ever dreamed of such a thing. Its operation was wholly confined to the slave; it made the slave free; it did not affect anybody else except the master by depriving him of his slave. Now what does this bill do? This bill, pretening to be based upon that amendment of the Constitution, whose subjectmatter was slaves, and which cannot be extended beyond that, proposes to legislate for a very large number of persons who were not slaves, and who were not within its purview or its operation. I mean this bill purports to give power to Congress to legislate in regard to free negroes and mulattoes. To my mind that is as clear and conclusive an objection toit upon the score of constitutionality as ever was made to a bill in the world. However constitutional it might be with regard to the emancipated slave, clearly it is as unconstitutional to all other people not embraced within that amendment. happen to have come upon a newspaperin which it is stated, and I suppose the compiler is accurate, that the free negroes did amount, before the abolition of slavery. to nearly half a million 488,070 lacking about 12,000 of half a million. There can be no pretense in the world that we have any authority to legislate in this wise in regard to them under the amendment to the Constitution; and that is the only place from whence l have heard anybody attempt to derive any shadow of constitutional authority to pass this bill. That, Mr. President, if there were nothing elsein it, would have justified this veto. A art from everything else, that alone is beyon all question indubitable; and not only would it have justified the President in vetoing the bill but he would have been false to his oath and recreunt to his duty if he had not vetoed it. As I said before, it is.not aquestion as to the merits of the bill; it is not whether in that re spect it is right or is wrong; it is uota questidn whether its provisions are salutary or whether they are not salutary; it is a question whether we have a right to pass it., We are here clothed with authority written down. powers enumerated and fixed, and that authority is accompanied by the assertion that powers not delegated we shall not exercise. fhen, if this power is not delegflltda 9 have no more right to pass this bill than we would have a right to do any ther unlawful/thing It is 100 times grea r infraction of our duty than it could possibly by it}! 8M"! e is made a criminal under this 1 Jecidein favor of his own State against its constitutionality. I have no hesitation in saying that Mr. President, I have another objection to the bill thatis anomalous. This bill provides what I think is entirely new in our ynrisprudence, and if it is not, it ought to be; it establishes and pays public prosecutors; it establishes and pays in every county where the President may choose to appoint them,persons who have no other office than to be public prosecutors. What is to be the business of these officers? They are to be as obnoxious as such an officer always has been in every other country. They are to be so nearly akin to the sneak that the one is hardly to be known from the other. They are to pry about, and they are to see that this law is executed and that all lawgivers, all Governors, all jud"cs, all juries, everybody who has anything to db with the administration of the State law are punished if this law be violated. What a compliment is thatto the American people! I thonght if there was anyonething we 1 established here among our people it was that they themselves would enforce the due administration of the criminal laws. I believe there is hardly a district attorney anywhere all over the country who holds himself bound to go and pry about and seek offenses in order that he may take them into his criminal court and have them punished. No, sir; ours has been a very different system a far more high and dignified one, and one of which as an American citizen I am proud. Who by the law has been intrusted with the duty of inquiring whether offenses are committed or notin your State, in my State? It is the grand inquest of the body of the State or of the county which inquires. It is not the aid, hired informer, who is to get a fixed sum if he catches a criminal, but it is the citizens of the vicinage, drawn, summoned, and sworn to inquire as to these offenses, and not only sworn to inquire, but sworn to do what the in former is not sworn to do, and that is to protect the citizen as well as to punish e crim inal. That institution isestablished by the Constitution of the U.S., and by that same instrument it is to “ remain as hereto fore.” By the Constitution, the grand jury and the petit jury are out of the reach even of Congress itself to alter or to change their constitution; and yet here it is proposed to substitute in the room and stead of t atbulwark of liberty (and it is the great bulwark for the see curity of the citizen) the aid and the llilLd informer in order to see that otfenses against this bill are punished. Mr. Presi cut, that, to my mind, is another atrocity, and deserves no softer name, and it not on y deserves that appellation, but it is an insult to the intelligence of our people and an insult to their institutions that they should not be supposed to know of themselves when the laws are violated and when one of them has been offended by an offense against himself, that he himself is not cometent to bring it fore the propertribunal, at that he should be aided by a commissioner and I may say that if this was intended to aid the black man, it is a poor comliment to his sagncity and comes very illy, think, from those who insist that he is now competent to bear a particular portion of the sovereignty about his person, and to be the depositary of a particular portion of political power, or in other words, help us to vote. If he is to have a commissioner. a kindof wet nnrse tosuckle him on into the lawsuits and to aid him in instituting criminal prosecutions when he himself is offended, I should think, when he is declared to be a citizen of the U.S., it is no wonder that learned gentlemen quarrel as to exactly what that term means and how much is intended to be conferred upon him by means of it. That is not just tot o negro imself. We have a great many of them in my State, and when an assault and battery is committed upon one be understands exactly how to present it as well as any white man there. If his property is taken from him, he seeks the ordinary channels to recover it, just as his neighbor. There is no necessity whatever that you should exhaust the Treasury and overload the people with office holders in Order to procure for him the vindication of these rights, if he is ever to have them. Mr. President, I have nothing to say in reply to the argument of the honorabIeSenfrom Illinois as against the veto. Indeed I have not heard any argument. It is true he says the President has been guilty of a great many in consistencies; that he once made a speech inst a veto that was sent here upon one of his favorite measures, and he has read a portion of that speech. He has told us, too, that the President has exercised, as he thinks, a great many powers not warranted by the constitution am the laws, and has been generally guilty of divers inconsistencies. Well, suppose we should grant all that, what has it got to do with this case I A bit is not an argument. To raise a laugh is not always the highest effort of reason. To show that your antagonist upon a former occasion has been guilty of some improriety of conduct is not defending your sel. The affirmative of this proposition is with the defenders and advocates of this bill. It is for them, in the 1st place, to show that it is such a bill as we have power, to pass, and 2nd, that it is one which it would be exe dient and politic for us to pass. Nothing but showing that clearly and conclusively will operate to overthrow the arguments of the veto message. There they stand, calm, cool, clear, temperate, neither criuiination nor recrimination in it; and to overthrow, to gainsay it successfully, it is necessary to sbow, as I have just thismoment said, that this bill is constitutional, and not only that it is constitutional, but that it would be wise and politic on our part to enact.it and make it a law.