The Senator is too experienced to be put aside by the suggestion that the commissioners shall serve without compensation except the payment of expenses. Does this alter the case? Without those words in this joint resolution the general diplomatic law would take effect, and it would at least be a question if they would not be entitled to the salary of $7,500 per annum. And yet a joint resolution creating three new offices is called simply a resolution of inquiry! Sir, the Senator is mistaken; and his mistake in this matter illustrates other mistakes with reference to the important subject now before the Senate. Is it right that these commissioners shall serve without compensation? Is not the laborer worthy of his hire? If they are proper men, if among them is that illustrious Professor, my much-honored friend, who has been referred to already, Mr. Agassiz, is it right to expect him to give his invaluable services without compensation? The requirement that the service shall be of this kind will necessarily limit it either to the rich or to the partisan. It does not open a free field to talent, to fitness, to those various qualities so important on the commission. I hope that the Senator will reconsider his judgment, that he will see that we cannot treat the pending proposition with the levity--he will pardon me--with which he treated it. Sir, it is something more than a resolution of inquiry. It is a serious measure, and it begins on its face by an affront to the Constitution of the United States, which expressly declares that the President “shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint, ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls”; but by this resolution he is to appoint commissioners without the advice and consent of the Senate; and yet this resolution is accepted by my honorable friend, the Senator from Ohio. The Senator, it seems to me, has not comprehended the object of this resolution. To my mind it is plain. It is simply to commit Congress to the policy of annexion. I insist upon this point: the object of the resolution, and I will demonstrate it, is to commit Congress to the policy of annexion. Otherwise, why is the resolution introduced? The President does not need it. Under existing powers he is authorized to appoint agents, if he pleases, to visit foreign countries, and he is supplied with a secret-service fund by which their expenses may be defrayed. The President does not need this resolution. It is an act of supererogation, so far as he is concerned; and it is also contrary, so far as I am informed, to the precedents of our history.