The Senator said that he had no doubt that the effect of this legislation would be to increase freight rates. I have no doubt that will be the immediate effect of the passage of this bill, not because that is the legitimate result of the passage of this bill, but because the large interest in this country opposed to the passage of this bill will make that the occasion of unnecessarily and unjustly raising the rates in order to bring into disrepute before the people of this country the measure now before the Senate.

This measure Mr. President, is not one that I would have proposed to the Senate if it had been left to me. I would have made the regulations much more stringent than they are. I would have left no loophole for controversy or debate about the meaning of any portion of this statute. But we must take this step or we must stand still upon this question. I am satisfied, from my observation and from conferences with members of this body and with members of the other House, that if this report he disagreed to on the part of the Senate, it means no legislation upon the subject during this session.

Mr. HOAR. Why?

Mr. GEORGE. Because I think that after a two weeks' work on the part of the conference committee, when concessions have been made, as I understand, by the conferees on the part of the House and on the part of the Senate-extreme concessions made on either side for the purpose of coming to an agreement-if this reasonable bill, this reasonable report, fair to the railroads, much fairer to them than it is to the people of this country, is rejected, no further concessions can be gotten. Mr. HOAR. Will the Senator from Mississippi allow me to ask him a question in that connection?

Mr. GEORGE. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOAR. Does the Senator mean to say that if a majority of the Senate are of opinion that this long and short haul clause is unjustwill raise rates, as he admits, not only temporarily, but permanently, and will defeat the purpose of the bill-there is any legislator that he knows of who will refuse to pass all the other excellent legislation which he also approves of in the bill because other Senators differ with him on that question?

Mr. GEORGE. In answer to that question I can say that there is a feeling, there is a sentiment, there is a suspicion, if I may use the term, that this bill or that all legislation on this subject is to be defeated by dilatory motions. I do not know how far that goes; I do not say that I entertain that suspicion myself; I do not, because I accord to every member of this body the same honesty and integrity of purpose that I claim for myself; but I do think, after the exposition made by the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. HARRIS], which I understand is concurred in by the Senator from Illinois [Mr. CULLOM], that any further attempt to postpone action in this matter will result in nonaction.

While I am up, Mr. President, I will supplement a little the idea which I first advanced. I believe it will be the policy of the railroad companies of this country as soon as this bill is passed, by all sorts of tricks and maneuvers, to make arrangements, to make rates which are unreasonable and unjust, and charge them to this bill.

I am not without precedent for a statement of that sort. I have had some observation in my own State which authorizes me to say, as I now do say, that every effort, every device, every trick will be resorted to on the part of the railroad companies for the purpose of bringing into disrepute legislation on this subject. And so, Mr. President, I do hope

that every member of this body who is really in earnest about having a bill passed on this subject will vote to agree with the conference report.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the pending motion that the Senate disagree to the report of the committee of conference.

Mr. EVARTS. Mr. President

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York will pause a moment. The Chair will state that upon a reference to the Journal and also to the RECORD, it does not appear that the Senator from Illinois did make the motion to agree to the report, and therefore no motion is pending except the motion made by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR], on which the Senator from New York has the floor.

Mr. CULLOM. If the Senator will yield a moment, I desire to state that my impression was that I made a motion to concur, but I was not sure about it, thinking that motion followed as a matter of course, that that was the regular motion to be put under the rules.

Mr. HOAR. I withdraw my motion to let the Senator make his. Mr. CULLOM. I will make the motion.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. If there be no objection, both motions may be presented.

Mr. HOAR. I will withdraw my motion and let the Senator make his, and then renew mine. It was not for the sake of having mine put first, because I do not understand that it is entitled to be put first if I make it, but only that it might be before the Senate so as to present a contrast between the two policies.

Mr. C'ULLOM. I think the Senator is right in saying that the motion to coneur has preference, and I make the motion now that the Senate concur in the report.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Undoubtedly, under the rules and parliamentary law, either motion is a proper motion, but the parliamentary rule requires that the motion to concur shall be first put.

Mr. HOAR. I so understand it, and I therefore will treat my motion as subsidiary, but it is pending.

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. President, what was the question before any motion was made on the subject?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question was on the motion to print, which, having been adopted, left the conference report before the Senate without any motion based on it.

Mr. HARRIS.

And what was the question, if no motion had been made, that the Chair would have put to the Senate?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Very likely the Chair would have put the question on agreeing to the report; but still a motion to disagree to the report is just as much in order as a motion to agree. The Senator from New York has the floor.

Mr. FRYE. One moment, if the Senator pleases I give notice that I shall offer a motion to recommit this bill with instructions, and if a point of order is made against that, and the Presiding Officer rules as the Senate ruled in a former case, that it is not in order (which I do not believe), I then shall make the motion to recommit, and let the instructions follow. As I understand it, either motion, if in order, will take precedence of the motion made by the Senator from Massachusetts or the Senator from Illinois.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair will decide such questions as they arise.

Mr. EVARTS. Mr. President, if no other Senator proposes at this moment to engage the attention of the Senate, I will venture to present some views that seem to me of importance. And yet a careful attention to the debate, as I have heard it, and to the record of the speeches, which I have not heard, but which I have perused, might restrain me from thinking that I could address any considerations of that kind to the Senate; but my constituents, composing the largest State in population and in wealth, and embracing all that belongs to foreign commerce, domestic manufacture, long reach of communication, . and complete and intimate arrangements for domestic intercourse, it can not but be supposed that that great community feels an interest in this bill, and desires that whatever shall be the fate of the bill, its opinions and its views may have been presented to the Senate and understood by it.

As the matter as I shall present it will involve some examination of constitutional and of legal views, I can not expect to make it interesting; but I shall endeavor to dwell at each step in the progress of such argument, if I may so call it, as I shall make so as to bring us promptly, at least so far as I am concerned, to the determination of the question before us.

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In the first place, Mr. President, this is a question really of the interest of commerce. It is generally spoken of as a measure of interstate commerce, and I had thought probably the title was confined to that; but wisely and circumspectly, even in the title of the bill, that confinement has not been practiced. It is, and is properly, described in the title as A bill to regulate commerce. It does regulate commerce among the States, but it does also regulate commerce toward foreign nations; and thus, if we reject the single clause that introduces relations with the Indian tribes, as immaterial certainly to this discussion and immaterial in general compared with the other immense topics, this measure deals with the entire power of the Government of the United States over commerce.

Whatever the effect of this bill as properly construed and as reasonably applied shall be upon commerce, it is the exercise of a power lodged in this Government, solely on the motive of commerce, not upon any other motive, not upon any other consideration than what either directly or by converting influence touches the regulation of commerce. In the arrangements of the Constitution, in the purposes, in the feelings, in the independence, in the attributes, in the essential construction which went to make these great governmental arrangements for common interests, commerce was not only the motive urging most strongly the establishment of the Union, but it was only a commerce that after it was established and committed to a general government was to be a commerce impossible, if human wisdom could prevent it, of disparity among the States themselves or between the States in their relations to the external world.

And now let me say that this power of this Government, and this bill, and all these topics of debate, have no relation to railroads except just so far as they come within the application of the principle and sole constitutional right of dealing with commerce. Punishment or disparagement, favor, patronage, development are not within the province of this power when applied to railroads. They are not subject on these considerations of police and of government that are brought within the comprehension of the legislation of Congress. They are vehicles of com

merce.

Like ships, they are vehicles of commerce. Like arrangements for conveyance that have been noted in judicial decisions, this power as to commerce may have to deal with these more intimate and more subtle arrangements as affecting trade, but all of them are included in the right and the duty and the purpose of dealing with commerce. Nor, Mr. President, has the power of this Government the right or the duty of distributing population and either furthering or resisting operations that tend in that direction and with that effect. It is not to say whether this town, this village, this seaport, in the spread of population and the vastness of man's dominion over the power of nature, shall change the gatural map so that no longer as nature made them are the points of favor and the points to be avoided still to be kept upon the map. What has happened has happened; what is to happen will happen; and if there is any line that is drawn between the powers of the Federal Government and the powers of the States it is this, that the domestic arrangements are to depend upon the determination of the State authority, and that this Government is neither a party nor is it a wisher in regard to the results and consequences that come out of the development of commerce or the changes of its methods except that this Government deals with this very subject itself of commerce in the interest of commerce.

The power of our Government, as I have already intimated, was not intended to be uncontrolled in the fundamental provisions of the Constitution. We are, then, to look at those arrangements in the light of the situation and the rights as they existed in the States before the General Government was contemplated and framed-how much they wished to forego of their independence in regard to the common interests, and how much they desired to deposit and how much to withhold; how much to withhold for the exercise of State authority; how much to withhold from both State and Federal; for what was the general freedom and equality on which the whole project rested and gave its motive, its frame, its shape, its credit, with the answering support of the various members of the Union.

We have been in the habit of saying as to foreign commerce, as it was all external-external to every part of the Union-that branch of commerce might not need to be restrained, and that after its deposit the motive or the opportunity of departure from the general and universal law, of equal advantage to all in foreign commerce, would regulate itself. But the framers of this Government were not indifferent, unconcerned, or uncircumspect in their dominion over that topic before they parted with it in the acceptance of the Constitution. I recall, and in very brief terms for all that relates to it is in very brief terms--the instructive clause upon the power of this Government in regulating foreign comIt is provided, in limitation of the power of this Government

merce.

Notax or

duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State.

No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to or from one State be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.

You will observe that this was the controlling idea working in the minds of the framers of the Constitution and its acceptance by the States that nothing should come or could come in the power of this Government that would make discrimination among the States or among their interests, but that all was to be operated, not only in the sense of the general good and by the general power that this Government was endowed with, so that it should be impossible to become partial and discriminating among the States themselves.

We then have in a most important particular, indeed in several most

important particulars, these limitations on foreign commerce and its regulation, and all tending to equality and freedom in the commerce of the people of these United States. I speak of the population of the United States-the population of all of the States-of the whole; but all of them also separately; populations, in the most important views, of individual States.

When we come to the dealing with commerce among the States, that single phrase "among the States" is all contained in the Constitution that in specific terms and by direct interpretation and acceptation relates to that subject. Was it then so important that foreign trade, the trade of our whole people ab extra, with the world outside, was to be controlled so that no discrimination should be made at home in reference to that foreign trade; and yet that this deposit of authority respecting trade among the States was unlimited with the General Government to burden it, to impede it, to derange it, to destroy it, at its will? The power to tax, as the great Chief-Justice has said, is the power to destroy; and is it true that this Government of ours is unguarded in the maintenance of equality among the States in trade, and in its freedom, by any principle or any postulate if there be wanting particular clauses of authority to govern this?

Why, Mr President, the power to regulate commerce between the States was to regulate the commerce between the States that was assumed to be and to continue forever equal and free; and the deposit of this power in the General Government was to see to it by its supervision and its imposing authority that no regulation in the special interest of any State by the power of this Government could break that absolute unity and freedom. Did you need to put into the Constitution clauses that we should not establish custom-houses between the States, that we could not make a difference between the transit from remote States to the seaboard and near States to the ports of exportation? Was that needed to protect these people of the United States against such intervention as I have indicated; and if this bill is to have that effect is it constitutional?

Generalities have their value, even if the purpose and the result is not carried out in detail and expressed in firm stipulation. In the view that I shall take of the objectionable clauses of this bill I shall denounce them as unconstitutional and utterly inconsistent with the very basis upon which this constitution of power lodged in the Federal Government on the subject of commerce was arranged and deposited.

Let me read-never too frequently to be read when matters of interest relative to great and valuable pursuits of our people come under consideration--the preamble of the Constitution:

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity.

I omit the following clauses as immaterial, now present as an undisputed and indisputable purpose that freedom and equality and justice should be the base in all internal arrangement of every kind, not to the States as States, but to the people of the different States and the people of all the United States as in one country in their internal regulations of commerce.

And now I shall venture to suggest, and I hope I shall support it by pertinent argument, that the effect of this bill as it is to be treated, has rather a tendency to resort to a less perfect union, to disestablish justice, and to insure domestic discord. If that be true, are we to regard under the light of what is the historical and what is to be called the