The objections to this measure were evident. It seemed tacitly to admit the right of impressment; it denied to one class of citizens rights in which all others were protected, and its Constitutionality was at least doubtful; it trenched on Executive functions and the treaty-making power; it placed American merchants under great disadvantages, depriving them of seamen, and under many circumstances making it impossible for an American ship to return from a distant port. Yet perhaps its worst practical fault consisted in pressing upon England, as an ultimatum, terms of peace which she had again and again rejected and was certain to reject. Indeed, the only argument of weight advanced in favor of the bill was that its rejection by England would heal the divisions of America. Unfortunately, even this argument seemed to have little foundation. The bill passed the House by a vote of eighty-nine to thirty-three, and February 12 went to the Senate. There Giles took it in hand, and after sharp opposition it was amended and passed, February 27, by a vote of eighteen to twelve. In its adopted form the Act did not contain the clause that roused most opposition, but reached the same result in a less direct way:-- “From and after the termination of the war,” ran the new statute, “it shall not be lawful to employ on board any of the public or private vessels of the United States any person or persons except citizens of the United States, or persons of color, natives of the United States.... No person who shall arrive in the United States from and after the time when this Act shall take effect shall be admitted to become a citizen of the United States who shall not for the continued term of five years next preceding his admission as aforesaid have resided within the United States, without being at any time within the said five years out of the territory of the United States.” The subject of impressment was so difficult to understand, even in its simpler facts, that the practical workings of this measure could not be foreseen. No one knew how many naturalized British seamen were in the American service, or how many British seamen not naturalized; and there was no sufficient evidence to serve as the foundation for a probable guess as to the number of impressments from American ships, or how they were distributed among the three classes,--(1) native American citizens; (2) naturalized British seamen; and (3) seamen avowedly British subjects. According to a report made from the Department of State, Feb. 18, 1813,[385] the supposed number of seamen registered in the United States since 1796 amounted to about one hundred and forty thousand. The actual number in any one year was unknown. In 1805 Gallatin estimated them, from the registered tonnage, at fifty thousand.[386]