I know it is said that this power is necessary _in aid of legislation_. I deny the necessity. _Convenient_, at times, it may be; but _necessary_, never. We do not drag members of the Cabinet or the President to testify before a committee, _in aid of legislation_; but I say, without hesitation, they can claim no immunity which does not belong equally to the humblest citizen. Mr. Hyatt and Mr. Sanborn have rights as ample as if they were office-holders. Such a power as this--which, without the sanction of law, and merely at the will of a partisan majority, may be employed to ransack the most distant States, and to drag citizens before the Senate all the way from Wisconsin or from South Carolina--may be convenient, and to certain persons may seem to be necessary. Throughout all time alleged necessity has been the apology for wrong. “So spake the Fiend, and with _necessity_, The tyrant’s plea, excused his devilish deeds.” Such, according to Milton, was the practice among the fallen angels. Let me be understood as admitting the power of the Senate, where it is essential to its own protection or the protection of its privileges, but not where it is required merely in aid of legislation. The difference is world-wide between what is required for _protection_ and what is required merely for _aid_; and here I part from Senators with whom I am proud on other matters to act. They hold that this great power may be exercised, not merely for the _protection_ of the Senate, but also for its _aid_ in framing a bill or in maturing any piece of legislation. To aid a committee of this body merely in a legislative purpose, a citizen, guilty of no crime, charged with no offence, presumed to be innocent, honored and beloved in his neighborhood, may be seized, handcuffed, kidnapped, and dragged away from home, hurried across State lines, brought here as criminal, and then thrust into jail. The mere statement of the case shows the dangerous absurdity of such a claim. “Nephew,” said Algernon Sidney in prison, on the night before his execution, “I value not my own life a chip; but what concerns me is, that the _law_ which takes away my life may hang every one of you, whenever it is thought convenient.” It was a dangerous _law_ that aroused the indignation of the English patriot. But in the present case there is not even a law,--nothing but an order made by a fractional part of Congress. There are Senators here who pretend to find in the Constitution the right to carry slaves into the National Territories. That such Senators should also find in the same Constitution the right to make a slave of Mr. Hyatt or Mr. Sanborn, or of anybody else, merely to aid legislation, is not astonishing; but I am at a loss how Senators who love Freedom can find any such right in the Constitution.