specie payments. The bill sets forth that it shall hereafter be a felony
for any person to make tender of any thing other than gold and silver to
any person of African descent, in any of the States lately in rebellion.
In moving the bill, the senator said that its passage was imperatively
demanded by several negroes whom he knew, and that he would not consent
to deliver these helpless persons into the hands of their late masters
without some such guarantee as this bill furnished. He quoted from
ARISTOTLE, LOCKE, and BURKE to prove that classes liable to oppression
were apt to be oppressed.

Senator TRUMBULL wished to know what that had to do with the resumption
of specie payments.

Senator SUMNER considered the inquiry impertinent. The great principles
of justice were always in order.

Senator GARRET DAVIS took the floor, and made a neat speech of three
days and a half in opposition to the bill. He said he was a Democrat,
and he always had been a Democrat. The founders of the republic would
weep if they could see what the government had come to. What would CLAY
and CALHOUN have said to seeing such men as his honorable friend from
Nevada (Mr. NYE) and himself in the Senate? If he might be permitted to
infringe upon the domain of the senator from Massachusetts, he would
quote Shakspeare, "What should such fellows as I do, crawling between
heaven and earth?" (Loud applause.) At the close of Mr. DAVIS'S speech
his friends came in from WELCKER'S, and congratulated him on having got
through. Exhausted nature made the Senate adjourn.


HOUSE.