252 



CONGEESS, U. 8. 



a third reading. Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, 

 alone, took the floor to express opposition to 

 its passage. He said : " With the solitary ex- 

 ception of an amendment proposed by the 

 honorable senator from Ohio, which was origi- 

 nally rejected and afterward adopted, there is 

 nothing in the bill which does aught than ad- 

 vance us toward a despotic exercise of power. 

 It refers not only to the past but to the future 

 action of the executive of the United States, 

 and it throws a shield over every act of aggres- 

 sion that ho can commit against the rights of 

 an American citizen, and interposes a bar, in 

 point of fact, to the right of recovery against 

 even the individual who is the agent for the 

 purpose of infracting those rights. The Sen- 

 ate, I have no doubt, from the votes already 

 given, will pass this bill. I do not intend to 

 enter into any argument against it further; 

 but I will make this prediction : you may pass 

 this bill, but the public sentiment of the coun- 

 try will not ratify your action. The spirit of 

 civil liberty has been dormant, but it is awa- 

 kened. Rely upon it. Gentlemen may think 

 me mistaken now, but they will find hereafter 

 that they have committed a blunder, a political 

 blunder, and that is said to be worse than a 

 crime. They will have by the passage of this 

 bill brought the legislative power into accord 

 with the executive, so as to prevent for past 

 action and for future action of the executive 

 any redress on the part of an American citizen, 

 however great the outrage may have been. In 

 my judgment it would have been better to pass 

 the House bill. That is a plain, open, manly 

 defiance of the Federal Constitution. This is 

 more indirect. It is, in some respects, sustain- 

 able ; but I trust that in others, when it comes 

 to the criterion of the courts, it will be adjudged 

 to be void and of no effect. It is useless to par- 

 ticularize now ; but whether it be done under 

 cover of law, and whether it be sustained or 

 not, it is, in my belief, equally true that the 

 passage of the bill is but an advance toward a 

 centralized despotism in this country." 



The question being taken by yeas and nays, 

 resulted as follows: 



YEAS Messrs. Anthony, Arnold, Browning, Chan- 

 dler, Clark, Collamer, Cowan, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessen- 

 den, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Harris, Hen- 

 derson, Hicks, Howard, King, Lane of Indiana, Lane 

 of Kansas, Morrill, Pomeroy, Sherman, Sumner, Ten 

 Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, Willey, Wilmot, 

 and Wilson of Massachusetts 33. 



NAYS Messrs. Bayard, Carlile, McDougall, Powell, 

 Turpic, Wall, and Wilson of Missouri 7. 



The bill passed the Senate and went to the 

 House. 



In the House, on the 18th of February, the 

 original bill, as amended by the Senate, came 

 up for consideration. Mr. Voorhees, of Indi- 

 ana, spoke at much length in opposition to it. 

 His views, however, were embraced in these 

 words : " Sir, the bill now before the House 

 has no parallel in the history of this or any 

 other free people. It is entitled 'An act to 

 indemnify the President and other persons for 



suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas 

 corpus, and acts done in pursuance thereof.' 

 But it embraces even more than its startling 

 title would indicate. It gives to the executive 

 and all his subordinates not merely security for 

 crimes committed against the citizen in times 

 past, but confers a license to continue in the 

 future the same unlimited exercise of arbitrary 

 power which has brought disgrace and danger 

 to the country. I propose, to the best of my 

 ability this day, to show that neither indemnity 

 for the past nor impunity for the future can be 

 bestowed on those who have violated, and who 

 propose further to violate, the great and funda- 

 mental principles of constitutional liberty." 



Mr. May, of Maryland, strongly opposed the 

 bill, saying : " The House bill is a pure, unmiti- 

 gated product of ideas of republican liberty as 

 manifested by the dominant party of this House. 

 The Senate's amendments claim to draw a sanc- 

 tion from a Democratic precedent. The pro- 

 visions of the amendment adopted by the Sen- 

 ate, and which is, indeed, a substitute for the 

 original bill, look to the example of the cele- 

 brated Force Bill of 1833 to justify it. But, sir, 

 the provisions of the Senate amendment go in- 

 finitely beyond the principle asserted by that 

 law. 



" The Force Bill adopted in General Jackson's 

 day proposed simply a transfer of jurisdiction 

 from the State to the Federal courts in revenue 

 cases only ; in actions brought for some alleged 

 wrong committed in the execution of the rev- 

 enue laws. The law of 1833 limited the exer- 

 cise of the right of transferring the case to the 

 period before trial, and there it ceased. 



" But here, sir, is a proceeding which gives 

 the right to remove a suit in all that com- 

 prehensive class of cases brought to redress 

 wrongs committed ' under color of any author- 

 ity derived from or exercised by or under the 

 President of the United States,' both before 

 trial and also after judgment. It also gives the 

 strange right of an appeal at once from the 

 State to Federal courts, or, if the party shall 

 prefer it, ' within six months after judgment, 

 by writ of error or other process,' to remove 

 the case from a State to the Federal Circuit 

 Court, there ' to try and determine the facts 

 and the law as if the said case had been there 

 originally commenced ; ' and provided further, 

 ' that no such appeal or writ of error shall be 

 allowed where the judgment is in favor of the 

 defendant in the State court,' and if 'the plain- 

 tiff is nonsuited or judgment passed against 

 him, the defendant shall recover double costs.' 

 These amendments further provide that if the 

 Federal judge shall certify that the defendant 

 had probable cause to act, or acted in good 

 faith, then, notwithstanding the jury have 

 found otherwise and a judgment been recov- 

 ered by the plaintiff, yet no execution shall is- 

 sue until after the next ensuing session of Con- 

 gress ; thus striking down in effect the trial by 

 jury in such cases. It is further provided that 

 an appeal shall be allowed to the defendant to 



