The bill sent from the Senate, entitled "An act for the relief of Andrew Joseph Villard," was read twice and committed to a Committee of the Whole to-morrow.
_Resolved_, That a committee be appointed to inquire whether any, and if any, what farther provision ought to be made by law, prescribing the manner in which the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of one State, shall be proved and given in evidence in another State, and the effect thereof; and that they have leave to report by bill or otherwise.
_Ordered_, That Mr. ALEXANDER, Mr. DAVID R. WILLIAMS, Mr. JOHN G. JACKSON, Mr. KEY, and Mr. QUINCY, be appointed a committee, pursuant to the said resolution.
A message from the Senate informed the House that the Senate have passed a bill, entitled "An act supplemental to an act entitled 'An act for extending the terms of credit on revenue bonds, in certain cases, and for other purposes;'" also, a bill, entitled "An act to change the post route from Annapolis to Rockhall, by Baltimore to Rockhall;" to which they desire the concurrence of this House.
The following is Mr. GARDENIER'S speech entire:
Mr. Speaker: I had intended to defer the delivery of my sentiments upon the second resolution, until that resolution should come before the House. But the course which the debate has taken, has produced a change in my original intention.
That the first resolution is an unnecessary one, because no clear, definite, practical results can flow from it, appears to me self-evident. Are the people of this country suspected of an intention to abandon their rights or their independence? Indeed, sir, they are not. Why then is it, that we are called upon to make a new declaration of independence? Or was the Administration conducted in such a manner as to make the firmness and patriotism of the nation itself doubted abroad? Even I, sir, who am not suspected of a blind confidence in our rulers, will not advance such a charge.
The true question is not, Is the matter expressed in this abstract proposition true? But, Is it necessary that a resolution containing it should be passed by this House? I agree with the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. CAMPBELL) that it would be no less ridiculous to pass this resolution than to pass one that the sun shines. Allowing both to be true, both are equally unnecessary to be embodied in a resolution of this House. Begin this system of abstract legislation, and where are you to stop? Sir, it partakes too much of the character of disturbed, revolutionary times. To such a blasphemous height was this notion of voting abstract propositions, or declarations, or truisms (call them what you will) carried at one time in France, that their Convention very gravely decreed "that there was a God!" This was a self-evident truth; and being so could not become more so by being decreed. And if the edicts of Great Britain and France go to the destruction of our "rights, honor and independence," our voting that such is their operation, makes it neither more nor less true.