ABSTRACT
Mr. President: This is a bill appropriating about twelve millions of dollars, to defray the expenses of the military establishment of the United States, for the ensuing fiscal year. Its form and effect are those which distinguish a general appropriation bill for the support of the army, such as is annually passed by Congress. Only one exception to it, as it came to the Senate from the House of Representatives, has been taken here. It contains what is practically an inhibition of the employment of the army of the United States, by the President, to enforce the so-called laws of the alleged Legislature of the Territory of Kansas. The Senate regards that inhibition as an obnoxious feature, and has, by what is called an amendment, proposed to strike it from the bill, overruling therein my vote; and the Senate now proposes to pass the bill thus altered here, and to remit it to the House of Representatives, for concurrence in the alteration. In the hope that that House will insist on the prohibition which has been disapproved here, and that the Senate will, in case of conflict, ultimately recede, I shall vote against the passage of the bill in its present shape.
