Mr. WADE. Mr. President, v I hope the Senate will not come to a conclusion on this subject without a due consideration of its importance. When the framers of our Constitution and the old statesmen of that day delib erated on any matter and came to a deliberate conclusion, we have generally found when we have undertaken to depart from what they laid dqwn that their reasoning was better than ours. l.. Sir, if at the period when this capital was located there was anything that engrossed the attention of the statesmen of that day more than this subject I should like to know what it was. Previously the seat of Government was loco motive; it had sometimes been in one city, sometimes anofiter; and it depended very much upon the temper and disposition of the States in which it happened to be located whether it could find a comfortable residence there or not. As I stated when I was up the other da, this was a great question, agitating the whole nion, North, Sonar, East, and West. As everybody knows, when you undertake to locate even a county seat, or a State ca ital, and, much more, the capital of the U.S., it is always a very agitating question, and one about which local interests compete with more avidity than upon almost any other question that we can imagine. The same great difficulty arose here. The statesmen of that day were fully impressed with the idea that there must be a permanent location of the seat of Government. It was claimed in various States and in various situations. It was exceedingly desirable by any State that the seat of this great Government should be located within its limits; and hence the competition on the question, which was the most solemn and the most agitating of anything that had arisen in the Government up to that time, and as much so as almost any question that has succeeded it until this do. I do not know how they would have located it had it not been for another subject that was up at that timeiand was almostas much debated as that, and which elicited almost as much interest as that, and that was the great question whether the debts of the revtfiutionary war should be funded or should not be funded. The southern States contended that they should not be funded, and that the Government should rather be dissolved than that they should be funded; and the northern States contended as strenuously that the seat of Government should not be broughtas far south as the banks of the Potomac. The Congressmen of that do separated upon that subject, and a dissolution seemedinevitable. The great statesmen of the time, the head patriots of conseaat the period got together, and conceiving t ta compromise might be made upon these great questions, undertook to make a compromise, and they did effect it after great difficulty. The South agreed that the debt might be funded and made a general burden upon the Federal Government, and in consideration of that, the North conceded that the capital might come here. Thus it was located upon one of the most solemn compromises that had ever been made. Whenever there has been an endeavnr in Congress to remove the capital, as the history of the legislation of Congress will show, it has been claimed at all times by those who were in favor of continuing the location here, that if the proposed removal was not unconstitutional, it was a violent breach of faith to attempt it; and so it would have been, because it was upon this cempromise that it was located here. It is not less important in our estimation. What have we done this very day, in the bill which receded the one now before the senate? Vby, sir, the layn out of millions upon this Capitol, after exentfin immense sums of money ere, shows that it is the intent of the statesmen of this day to make this the permanent seat of Government. if it is not so, what means the vote that you have just taken about enlarging the grounds of the capitol at an untold expense? Expense forms no consideration in the minds of men as they go forth to embellish this Capitol, which is an honor to the nation, the architecture of which, as I am told, rivals that of the best edifices in the whole world, and is not exceeded by any of them; and today you have voted to extend the grounds around it. ‘And yet, sir you are going to leave it so that a partisan Legislature, in times' of great civil commotion, may, by a vote taken in a moment, mutilate and destroy the symmetry of the whole. Will you permit that to be done? I brand this act of 1846 as being only a reliminary step to that rebellion that took ace afterward. Who got it up? It was the dread men of the secession that afterward levied war against the Government. They could 'do nothing more to promote the cause of the rebellion than to cede back to Virginia that territor that she gave up for this capital. It rendere you less capable of defense. Why did the fathers in locating the seat of Government here make it ten miles square? Have you ever thought of that? This very city is large enough for allthe purposes of legislation. We should find no in convenience in a legislative capacity even in this city, circumscribe in one mile square. The fathersknew aswell as you did that your capital might be builtas mavnificent as you pleased upon amile square, and that all your public buildings to car on the business of this great Governmentmig tbe located upon such a tract. But, sir, they had encountered difficulties in the States where the capital had been located; they had found that the States interfered with the freedom of their deliberations; they had threatened to drive them out frequently and to interfere with their legislation; and when they came to deliberate upon the question of a permanent seat of Government, with General Washington at their head, who had conducted your armies successfully through the terrible war of the Revolution, they knew fullwcll that it was necessary that on should have roOm and verge enough to efend the deliberations ofCongress against the interference ofany local legislatures whatever; and therefore it was that they said, “ Let it be ten miles square, that we may be entirely independent; that the federal Government shall meet with no interference in behalf of States or anythin else; any thingless than that will open it tot e interference of other tribunals and legislatures; we must be independent.” Sir, how profound, almost prophetic, was that wisdom! What disadvantages did we not suffer when this war broke out on account of this retrocession, under which the enemies of the Government could have planted their cannon upon their soil to batter down your Capitol! That retrocession broughtthis District and this great Capitol that on have erected at so much expense right under the guns of the enemy. What did we dread more than anything else? That old Virginia would fortify the heights 0n the opposite side of the Potomac and p anther cannon there upon her own soil to batter down the Capitol and to lay your capital city in ashes. Contemplating such a contingency, General Washington said, “ The permanent seat of government shall be ten miles square, and the capital erected in the center of that, will have the means of defending itself against all local legislatures and all interference from every uarter.” Was it not a righteous foresight? onld ou suffer that wisdom to be trampled under oot‘ by the politicians in modern times and in times of. eat turmoil, and when men were preparing or civilWar to overthrow your capital and your Government itself? It was under such contemplations that this act of 1846 was passed, and passed by the very men that sought the 1st opportunity to go out of the Union, as they said, and make war upon your Constitution itself.