Mr. MORRILL. I have got a dissertation on the bill under consideration which they ask us to pass. This is the commentary, and these are the reasons for passing the bill the reasons for making the Government of the U.S. a party to a system to engage in the purchase of labor in foreign countries and the importation of it into this country, and enforcing a lien on the labor and pursuin it into the for West wherever it goes, impounding the labor for the payment of the expenses of importation. That is it. There has been nothing more absurd than this in my day and generation in legislation. I do not know that I ought to take up an more time in commenting on this essay by which the bill is explained. It is very lengthy and refined you Will see. Another objection, it is said, is“That the workman may be harshly treated, and so justified in running away." Somebody, he imagines, will raise that objection. He answers that' The workman has some security in the fact that it is for the interest of every employer to treat him well, that he may not run away." I supposed we had got through with that kind of argument long ago, especially when we emancipated the slaves. The idea of cruelty, he says, is no argument at all. To be sure we impound these men and impound their wages, but they are under contract and they ought to be impounded, and there is no hardship in it and there will be no oppression, because it Will be for the interest of the employer always to treat them well! That is the old argument of slavery. The whole system was built up under it. ow, mind you, the not only ask that we shall authorize this hour of commissioners to make this contract, but they ask us to enforce it; they ask us to send agents all over the country, into the West and elsewhere to enforce it. By way of showmg the refinement, the extent to which it goes, let me read a little more from this document: " The new employer acts voluntarily in the matter." That is to say, these agents have a right to follow this man, and if they find him employed they impound him, or they demand that the new employer shall (pay the expenses of‘ his importation or else discharge him; and it is fancied that somebody Will object to that, and in reply to the objection, he says: “1. The new employer acts voluntarily in the matter. He elects whether to keep the man with this lizilyxility or to dismiss him. It is no burden imposed on iin.’ "2. It is clearly right in itself." Here is the logic of it, and here is the morality of it: “2. It is clearly right in itself. The original employer has imported the man uta far greater risk 1 than that incurred by the new employer in keeping him "Consider. “1. That the importer took the risk of his being wrecked or dying on the way, and his being enticed away on laii ink. “2. That the importer hired a man whom he had never seen, and took the risk of his capacity and C lllfffI.T. "3. That the importer has brought a new laborer into the country, and so is entitled to special consideration!]. “And now consider, on the other side “1. that the new employer is only electing to keep a man whom he has seen and tried, and of whose capacity and trustworthiness he can judge." This is the reasoning and this is the logic; but the query I am addressing to the Senate is, what reason is there that the Senate of the U.S. should become a party to this sort of morality and this sort of contracts? That is the question. For these and a variety of other reasons which would suggest themselves to the Senate and which are very obvious, the main one being that this is an utter and entire departure from the policy of this Government from its foundation down, the ComCommerce could not agree to this bill. While, sir, we have opened our arms to receive the downtrodden and oppressed from all the nations of the earth, whiIe we have desired and intended to make and have actually made this the asylum for the oppressed from all the nations of the earth and have made it particularly attractive, and while by the benelficence of our institutions every man when he lands on our shores is entitled to protection, and so we hold out the grandest inducement on the earth for the oppressed of all nations to come here, yet we have never thought it worth while to inaugu rate a policy to go out among the peoples of Europe and purchase them in the market like cattle, and then bind them to us by penalties and conditions and terms which would disgrace a barbarous nation and which would carry us back to that period when we were engaged in the importation of Africans, and justified our selves upon the ground that they were savages and we were improving their condition. This is but one step removed from that.