Mr. HOWE. Upon the question whether this is a more important measure than the one the Senate has previously considered, I have nothing to sa. I have no opinion about that. I believe bot of these measures come from the same committee; and I supposed as an individual we might safely trustt e chairman of that committee as to which was the mcasure most important to be considered 1st. But upon the question raised by the honor able Senfrom Ohio, that we ought not to proceed to the consideration of this measure now because the Senate is inca acitated from considering it properly and ca mly, I have a very decided opinion. If there be passion and excitement in the country at this present time, I do not hold myselfas an individual responsible for any share of it; and I am here to say that if I know myself—and if I do not know myself nobody about me knows me—I am as competent to consider this particular question today as I was the day before yesterday or last week, and, so far as myjudginent informs me, quite as competent to consider it as I expect to be next week or the week after. Let it be borne in mind, sir, that the proposition to proceed to the consideration of this particularmeasure does notemanate either from the honorable Senfrom Maine or from anyone else in consequence of anything that was said in this city or cIsewhere yesterday. Before any of the events of yesterday transpired, the Senate had been distinctly notified that it would be asked today at this very hour to proceed to the consideration of this very question. I do not know what he pened yesterday, or at any other time since that notice was given, which should authorize the Senfrom Maine, the chairman of the JtCommee, to say that he could not proceed with the business as he had marked it out in his own mind and as he had notified the Senate he should wish to proceed with it. I do not think the Senfrom Maine was authorized to throw the imputation upon the Senate that he could not ask them today to proceed with the consideration of a measure which on the day before yesterday he said he should wish them to proceed to the consideration of today. I know there were some peculiar events which transpired yesterday. I now that the POTUS, to whom the Senfrom Ohio has alluded, did use language which sounded to me as if he wereinclined to deny to the Senate of the U.S. certain prerogatives which I think they have. The President may be right, and by his word may have succeeded in convincing the Senate or the country that the Senate does not possess the character which it thought it possessed. I am as sure as I am that I live that nothing was found in the remarks of the President yesterday or at any other time, which has taken from me the character of an individual Senator. If I ever was fit to deliberate in this body, I am today. I know that and when the Senfrom Ohio asks me to vote against proceeding to the consideration of any measure, either because I dis trust my own fitness to consider it, or distrust the fitness of m associates about me, I must respectfully dec iue, not because I care particularly whether we take up this measure today or another day, but because I ask the Senate to vindicate their own course as individual men and to say that they are not to be swept from the seat of judgment by what is said, or can be said, by the 1st magistrate of the nation, or by the lowest and the last magistrate of the nation. That is all I have to say.