MR. PRESIDENT,--If the Senate has no business before it, I think it
cannot do better than to proceed to the consideration of Senate bill
No. 1, the Bill Supplementary to the Civil-Rights Act.[230] It is a
well-known bill, and I do not see how it will require any debate. I
think its reading will be enough. Its terms are expressive; the bill
proves itself. I move that the Senate proceed to its consideration.
Mr. Ferry, of Connecticut, objecting, that on the introduction of
this bill, the day before, Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, who was not
now in his seat, had expressed an earnest desire that it should be
referred to a committee, a feeling in which he himself sympathized,
“especially because the constitutional question which was prominent
in the former debate on it had been submitted to the consideration
of the Supreme Court of the United States, and its decision
promulgated since the Senate last met,”--
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