The Senator wishes to keep the Appropriation Bill free from extraneous matter. But this is not sufficient reason for excluding my amendment, unless the Senator is ready, for the sake of form, to sacrifice substance. If it be important that my amendment should prevail, and if at this late stage of the session it may be difficult to carry it otherwise, then am I clearly right in moving it, as I now do, and the Senator is wrong in opposing it. An appropriation bill is like a “through train,” and while its special office is to appropriate money, yet it may carry anything required by the public good. Why, Sir, there is hardly ever an appropriation bill that is not compelled to take passengers in this way. It has been so during the present session repeatedly; and if the Senator will read the “Statutes at Large,” he will find that the usage has prevailed for years. It is no new thing. I do not begin it. If it were necessary to furnish examples, I might point to my friend, the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. HALE], who gained one of his proudest triumphs in this Chamber, securing to him the sympathy and gratitude especially of sailors, by moving on an appropriation bill the abolition of the lash in the naval and commercial marine of the United States. Had he been driven to wait a special act for this purpose, I fear he would have been waiting to this day. And the example of the Senator has been followed by the Senator from Iowa [Mr. GRIMES], who, on an appropriation bill, moved and carried the abolition of grog in the navy. But I am not without personal experience under this head. I trust that I shall not take too great a liberty, if I adduce it even in detail. I was chosen to the Senate for the first time immediately after the passage of the infamous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. If I received from the people of Massachusetts any special charge, it was to use my best endeavors to secure the repeal of that act. I began the work in the first session that I was here. Disappointed in various efforts to bring the question directly before the Senate on a bill or resolution, I ventured at last--on the advice of eminent Senators who differed from me in sentiment, but who appreciated candidly the obligations of my position--to move the repeal on an appropriation bill. A debate ensued, which lasted till late in the evening. It may not be uninteresting to know that on the ayes and noes there were but four votes in the affirmative,--Mr. Chase, Mr. Hale, Mr. Sumner, and Mr. Wade. This was 26th August, 1852. Such was the weakness of our cause at that time.