Mr. THAYER. I move to' strike out the last line of the amendment under consideration. The proposition which is now made by the Gentfrom Illinois is akin to the violent and unjust legislation which he has proposed on a similar subject in this House on repeated occasions before, and on which, I am prepared to say, this House has repeatedly set its seal of reprobation. Sir, this is sometimes said to be a day of great discoveries, and it would appear also to e a day of discovery in matters of legislative science as well as of other kinds of science. Why, sirl there is not a Government on the face of the earth which would perpetrate the injus tice upon its merchants and persons who are dealing with it on the faith of its honor which the Gentfrom Illinois proposes to do. Up to 1861, and in the year 1861, the legislation of this country contained in express terms the very proposition which the Gentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. RICE] moved as an amendment to this bill, that is, to prevent the application of the act increasing duties to cargoes which were afloat upon the ocean at the time of the passage of the act, and to goods which were in bon at the time of its passage. That has been the uniform legislation of this country down to, I believe, the year 1862. So late as the act of March 2, 1861, and the act of August, 1861, revising the tariff laws of this country, a proposition, almost in terms that of the Gentfrom Massachusetts, was at into the tariff law by the Congress of the U.S. Now, what is the proposition? It is to deal with these people in a different spirit. It is, after you have given a receipt in full to the men who have obeyed your laws and have imported merchandise into the country upon the faith of your laws, to lay your hands upon them and robthem; for there is no other word in the English language which can characterize the legal outrage, or I should'rather say such an illegal outrage, as is proposed to beinflicted by the proposition of the Gentfrom Illi no1s., The gentleman seeks to make his proposition popular with the House by suggesting that the merchants who have imported goods will realize large advances by the passage of this law. There may beinstancesin which that will result; there may be instances in which precisely the contrary may result. Persons who have engaged in large iuiporlations under yourlaws by reason of inability immediately to realize the proceeds of those importations, mafbe ruined by the sudden increase of the tariff upon goods im orted upon the faith of other laws. Here the hammer fell.']