Mr. DAV S. I have some amendments to move, and I propose to do it now, but I will remark enpassant, Mr. President, that the most latitudine us principle in the construction of the powers of this Government that I have over eard announced has been this moment announced by the Senfrom Illinois. There is no analogy whatever between the freed negroes here and the negroes who were captured in the suppression of the slave trade. The extent to which the legislation of Congress has one in relation to negroes that were taken in t ie suppression of the slave trade is this: where our cruisers in their operations to suppress that trade captured slavers upon the coast of Africa, or where those slavers attempted to introduce slaves into the U.S. against our laws declaring the slave trade piracy, for the purpose of ireventing the starvation and the perishing of these slaves, as an office of humanity, Congress passed laws appropriating money to supply the wants of those wretched beings; and these precedents the Senfrom Illinois gravely relies upon as authorityfor the passage of this bill! N ow, Mr. President, the freed negroes in the State of Kentucky constitute a portion of our population; the irced negroes in SCarolina and in all the southern States constitute a portion of their population. It isa principle of our system of government, and the Senfrom Illinois cannot overturn or shake it, that every State is bound to provide for its own pau pers, whether they be black or white, whether those aupers have been slaves liberated and emancipated under the laws of the States before the rebellion, or whether the have been man uinitted by the operation of the amendment to the constitution. There is no distinction of principle between those classes o pau wers, and the obligation of each State to provide for its paupers is precisely the same in relation to the one class as the ot or; it is precisely the same in relation to all the classes. Do I understand the Senfrom Illinois to contend for the power of the General Government to provide tor all these pauper negroes in the late slave States? The people of Kentucky would be gratified if the Coneress of the U.S. could constitution aIl take off them this burden; but it is a burden that belongs to them, and one which neither the Government of the U.S. nor the Congress of the U.S. has any right or power whatever to as sume. If there is an obigntion or a duty or a power to take care of the negro panpers, there is I suppose, an equal obligation to take care of the white paupers of the different States. I repudiate that principle as wholly heretical and as not having a figment of authority in the constitution; and the attempt to draw a parallel between the case of the African negroes who were capturedon slaveships or who were bronght into the U.S. against the express provisions of our law for the suppression of the slave trade and the free negro paupers of the different States, is an utter failure; they are no, pore alike than the mastodon and the whale. But, Mr. President, I rose for a different purpose. Iknon"thut this bill is to as, and know that no obstacle which one as inconsidernble as myselfoan throw, or attempt to thiow, in the way of its passage will impede it for a moment. It is to pass upon the old principle, 1866. 371 I not of constitutional law, but the old of human nature, where there is it wilprtihnecripeleis a way. The majority in this Senate have the will, and they intend to devise the way, regard less of the constitution. 1 was amused at the earnestness, and instructed and gratified by the power of the n peal made by my friend, the Senfrom Pennsylvania, [Mr. Cowan] to Senators here to observe and respect the constitution and the oaths which they had taken to support it. My honorable friend must know we all knowthat in this Chamber, in the nation, in universal humanity, in high party times, there is a higher obligation than the oath to support the constitution or the provisions and principles of that constitution, and that, higher obligation, to which all others yield, is the good of party. To preserve and save party, when that comes into competition with the Constitution and constitutional obligation, that obligation and that constitution are given to the winds of heaven. The honorable Senfrom Maine [Mr. FES BENDEN] in his speech introduces another principle upon which this bill is to be passed, and that is the principle of necessity. I do not concede as a principle of our Government the principle of necessity to override the Constitution or the law in any possible case either in war or peace; but In mit that the SCOTUS have sustained the principle of necessity thus far, and no further and in obedience to the authority of that court I subscribe to it to that extent that, in time of war, when an army in the field is in an extreme exigence, and that exigence is so immediate and so impending that there is not time to resort to the forms of law, that army may take for itself the necessary military supplies, under the law of necessity; but at The same time the Supreme Court, in the case of Harmony v. 9. Mitchell, and the Court of Claims, in the opinion rendered by Justice Wilniot 2 years ago, concede explicitly that even that necessity requires the Government to pay for the property that is taken. Mr. President, has it come tot is, that the powers of this Government are to be enlarged and expanded upon the principle of necessity? My understanding is that t are is no power vested in the Government of the U.S. that is not derived from the constitution; and I understand that the Supreme Court has sustained that principle in scores of cases and yet we are told) that this limited Government, created by a constitution which especially provides that every power not therein deleted to the General Government is reserved to the people or to the States respectivel, may exand and multiply its powers upon the prinnciple of necessity. What necessity? The necessity of the nation? The necessity of preserving the constitution 7 The necessity of maintaining popular liberty? Oh, no; the necessity is that the fortunes of the Republican party are imperiled; that it is in danger of losing office and place; that the whole power of the Government and its patronage is about to slip from their hands; and this produces a necessity that cre lates a law that hereby authorizes Congress to pass the measure under consideration.Mr. President, I have always understood heretofore that in this country this odious principle of necessity, the tyrants plea, the argument that has struck down popular liberty wherever it has prevailed on this earth, the plea, upon which tyrants have risen and have established their despotic thrones, was limited to the Army and to military operations. But the honorable Senfrom 5 9 is now introducing it into the Senate, and I an pose, when it is acknowledged and acted upou by the 2 Houses of Congress, it is then to be transferred to the Supreme Court, and the Chief Justice and his associate justices are to recognize this principle of necessity. Sir, when We have arrived at that mode of interpreting our powers, when we attempt to derive them from that indefinite source. what is our constitution worth? Where is the limit of the Government of the U.S. created by its fundamental law? Where are the rights of the States? Where are the i liberties of the people? Where is the value of this form of government, and this constitution, that would require from the honest and true men of America a moments effort to save and preserve it“! Gentlemen have talked about Democracy and Republicanism here. That is a theme that does not concern me. I am no Democrat; I never was a Democrat: and I am too old now to change my name or political position; but I wish to make one remark in justice to the great Democratic party. I was an “oldline Whig.” I derived)my principles from the constitution and from the interpretations of that instrument by Hamilton and Madison and Marshall and Webster and Clay. I still adhere to the teachings of my school from those noble old preceptors. I was a Whig of the Clay school. In days gone by I always opposed the Democrats, and they always oppose me. Why and upon what principles? on principles of the temporary policy and a ministration of the Government. What were those principles and measures? There was the old U.S. Bank; there was the protective tariff; there was the disposition of the proceeds of the sale of the public lands among the States; there were the appropriations by Congress to aid in the construction of worksof internal improvement all questions of policy, of temporary administration. On those questions [differed from the Democracy, and the Democracy differed from me and my great and illustrious leader. But, sir, those questions have gone by; they are obsolete; they are among the years that were before the flood. But t mm were some principles upon which those great, grand, noble old parties agreed; and what were they? They were for the Union under and by the constitution. They were for the subordination of the military to the civil power in peace, in war, and always. They were for the writ of habeascorpus. They were for the trial by jury accordiu to the forms of the common law. They were or every man beariu" his arms about him and keeping them in his house, his castle, for his own defense. They were forever right and liberty secured to the citizen by the constitution. They believed that the constitution was the paramount law of the land, and they believed that it was a crime for any man to assail that constitution or the laws of Congress passed in conformity to it, whether that man was a rebel or a member of our own Government. They believed that all the rights and liberties reserved to the people of the States respectively by the constitution belonged to them, and that when an of the officers or authorities of the Genera Government made aggression upon the rights and reserved liberties of the States, and the State laws enacted to protect, to guard, and to preserve them, whether that eneroachment was made by a President or a SecyWar, or a strapped militia General, or anybody else, he was as much guilty of treason against the State as was JeffersonDavis against the U.S. in making war for the separation of the southern States from the Union. 1. President, those were my principles then; those are my principles now. irnc and events have rolled on. Ihe questions and measures that separated the Democracy and me have passed in the progress of time; and it is only those great, immortal constitutional principles and principles of popular liberty that are now in contest. I am their true defender, as the Democrats of that day who have not abandoned them, and shamelessly gone oveito the Republican party, are still their defenders of this day. We occupy a common platform. That plat form is the constitution of the U.S. They stood there then; so did I. They stand there now; so do I. But I care not what part name a man may bear, ifhe presents himsel and shows that he is a true, honest, and devote. friend to our constitution, to the Union under i our constitution, and to popularliberty as giiar. untied by that constitution, you may call him a Democrat or what not, he is my friend, my brother; he is engaged in the same great an l noble and holy and immortal cause that I am., H will stand shoulderto shoulder with him; and with him, Democrat though you may call him, I Will march to the death; and I Will support and vote for him for office, while he is true and honest and faithful to those great old principles that were alike sustained by Whig and Democrat, as though he had always borne the name of Whig. But, sir, I did not rise to speak of these matters. I rose to offer certain amendments to this bill; and I now ask leave to present them in their order.