Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, that is not this case. If the judge, under pretext of having jurisdiction, were to do a wrong. it is not. the judge that does the wrong, it is the individual. A judge may do a wrong; but hencver does it in teexecution of a law which he honestly believes to be constitutional. Here it is proposed on the part of the Congress of the U.S., to pass a law overriding certain State laws. Is that denied? Will any Senator upon the floor deny the fact that this bill is intended to override and set aside the State laws? Why, sir, if it is not to have that operation, it is to have none at all. As I understand it, there are some States of the Union I do not know where they are, because I have not been informed what States they are where certain persons are not allowed to make contracts, and if they did make them, (for I suppose there is no way of preventing a man from making a contract.) there is no way by which they can enforce them under the laws of those States, and this bill is to give them a right to enforce them, to give them a right to go intoa court where the judge says they cannot go, and he has nojurisdiction to ctermine their causes. Now, it is questioned whether that law is constitutional. Is it not questioned here? We are not unanimous. 30 Senators may be of opinion that it is, and 16 or 15, or whatever the other number may be. believe that it is not. The POTUS is ofopinion that it is not constitutional. His constitutional advisers are of that opinion or, if they are not of that opinion, they should not be there as his constitutional advisers. Well, sir, is it to be supposed that that will not be questioned in the State courts? I at it to you, Mr. President, whether you as aju go of a State court would not hesitate in that case? What are you to do? If you decide that the action cannot be maintained on the part of the plaintiff, what then? You are to lie indicted and punished. If you decide that it can. you are to be impeached by your own State Legislature and punished for taking jurisdiction of that over which the State has given you no jurisdiction. What is an honest and conse ientious judge to do there? Ican very easily tell what a cowardly man would do, a timid man, a feeble man. I suspect he would shirk his duty in some way; he would find some way to dodge it; but the honest man would decide the question as it struck him; he would decide either for or against the constitutionality of this act of Congress; and now we undertake to say that in so doing he subjects himself to a criminal prosecution, subjects himself to fine and imprisonment; and that I say here in the open light of this day is atrocious and unworthy the Congress of the U.S.A. I have no other word for it than atrocity; so it will be stigma tized, and so it will be, handed down to coming generations if we make it the law. It has not been heard of before. Mr. President, all this you will observe is aside from the main question; and that, as I said before, lying upon the threshold of this case, is the question of power. Where do we get the power to pass this bill? From what clause of the Constitution is it extracted? Where is it? Has anybody satisfied this senator, or that one or all of them, that there is such a power in the Constitution? I have listened carefully to everything almost that has a ainjle a was simply to abolish negro slaver. been said on this question; and I say that nothing worth talking about, nothing worth attention on the part of a sane man has yet been produced to show that we have any constitutional authority to pass this bill, however meritorious the bill itself may be. It is not pretended that the power was in the old constitution; no man that has ever so little reputation would hazard it upon that assertion. I have heard it said that it springs from the recent amendment abolishing slavery. There is the color, if there is color anywhere for it, and that I wopose to examine. Vhat is the fair construction of that amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery? That amendment declares that “neither la very nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted ” and that exception might just as well have been left out; it was put into the old Ordinance of 1787, and has been handed down as a kind of traditional heir loom among, r the Constitution makers ever since “shall exist within the U.S or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” What was the slaverymentioned there? What was the involuntai servitudementioned there? Was it the service that was due from the mine r to his parent? Was it the right the husband had to the services of his wife? Nobody can pretend that those things were within the purview of that amendment; nobody believes it. It wasmentioned as a matter of ridicule, in some places, that it did actually liberate the mine r from the control of his arent or guard ian; that it did actually entit e the wife to be paid for her own services, that they should not go to the husband; but that was false. The true meaning and intent of that amendrpfint at was the whole of it. What did it give to the negro? It abolished his slavery. Wherein did his slavery consist? It consisted in the restraint that another man had over his liberty, and the right that that other had to take the proceeds of his labor. This amendment derived the master of that right, and conferred it upon the negro. What more did it do? Nothing, by the terms of it and nobody can construe its terms to extend it beyond that It gave to the negro that which is described in the elementary books of the law as the right of personal liberty? What is that right of personal liberty? The right to go wherever one pleases without restraint or hinderance on the part of any other ierson. That is followed by a subsequent clause, in which it is stated that Congress shall have a right to enforce this provision by “appropriate legislation.” What is the appropriate legislation? the appropriate legislation isthat legislation which allbws personal liberty to the negro and prevents anybody from restraining him in that liberty. Allow me again to refer to the elementary books. The remedies fora restraint upon personal liberty are, 1st, the habeascorpus; and if a bill is framed to give to the negro the right to the habeascorpus, to deliver him from restraints which may be exercised over him by no body, I shall vote for that bill.