Mr. HO ARD. Then, Mr. President, I did not misunderstand the effect of the bill. I am entirely opposed to it as it now stands. It is impossible to oresce or to calculate the amount of mono which will be drawn from the Treasury of the U.S. if this bill shall be passed and become a law. It will enable all persons throughout the rebel States, who by solemn actof Congress have been declared and treated as the enemies of the U.S., to present their claims to the proper officer of the Government, to prove their loyalty not a very difficult thing, by no means a difficult thing and to obtain such an amount of compensation or indemnification for property taken from them as they shall be able to establish by such proofs as they may be able to offer. In my judgment. if this shall become a law, it will cost the Treasury of the U.S. at least a billion dollars, and I presume that even that figure would not cover the entire expenditures which would be called for by this bil. And in a matter of so serious import, I object entirely to submitting such questions as will arise under this bill to the adjudication of anyone man, any officer of the Government, no matter how high may be his position, orhow great may be his talents, or how are his intention or his honesty. It opens the door to the most enormous impositions upon the Government; and it is impossible to fancy even the amount of fraud and perjn and imposition which will be practiced, an easily practiced, under this bill in the rebel States. Besides, sir. I hold that we are under no moral obligation to pay for property taken by our armies in the course of their regular operations in the field from rebels or from rebel communities. The seizure of that property was one of the necessary results of the war which they waged upon the Government; and although the effect of that war may be to work hardship and possibly injustice in many cases upon individuals, still it is one of the necessities growing out of the attitude which those rebel communities placed themselves in toward the U.S., and they are compelled by the laws of war and the laws of nations to oeket their own losses. Sir, I can never go ome to my constituents and tell them that I have voted for an act of Congress which will take out of their pockets so vast an amount of money merely to indemnify rebels and rebel oomnnities for losses accruing necessarily out, of the Operations of the armies of the U.S., of which my constituents constituted a very respectable part. I think it is entirely vain to expect that the loyal people of the U.S. will ever consent to pay off any portion of the losses which have accrued necessarily to the rebel States in the prosecution of the war for the preservation of e Government; and I object therefore in tale to the whole bill and to the whole scheme as being ii just to the loyal people of the U.S.