Mr. Clay immediately moved the reference of the communication to the Judiciary committee. This motion called out a three days debate in the Senate, during which it became manifest that the extremists, from both the North and the South, had little faith in the power of the Government to execute the law, and were unfavorable to the policy of using the military power in its execution. Mr. Chase and Mr. Hale, on the one side, and Mr. Butler, Mr. Davis, and Mr. Rhett, on the other, contended that the provision of the Constitution guaranteeing the rendition of fugitive slaves did not require a Congressional act, even if it authorized one. Mr. Davis said that he would see Massachusetts quit the Union rather than execute the law by military power within her limits. It was evident that these men were not anxious to have the law executed at all. Their motives for the same must have been very different, but it would hardly be an unfair speculation if one should imagine that the slaveholders were not averse to having the failure of the law for another count in their indictment against the Union. The moderate men, however, of both the North and the South, claimed that the law was constitutional, that it was politic and necessary, that it had been successfully executed in a number of cases, that it could be executed in practically all cases, that it must be, even though it should require the whole military power of the country, and that the great mass of the people would sustain it as carrying out the pledges of the Constitution. Mr. Clay's motion was finally unanimously voted, and, on March 3rd, two reports were presented to the {372} Senate, one signed by all the members of the Judiciary committee except Mr. Butler, of South Carolina, and the other by Mr. Butler alone. The former expressed the opinion that the President already possessed full and adequate powers to execute the laws, and that no further legislation upon the subject was necessary. It also held that the organized military could be summoned and used by a civil officer as a part of the posse comitatus. Mr. Butler, while agreeing with the other members in recommending no further legislation for the execution of the law, denied that the President had the power from the Constitution to use the regular army and navy at his own discretion in suppressing insurrections and executing the laws, and held that the President could employ these forces for such purposes in the same manner only that he could employ the militia, that is, under the Congressional Acts of 1795 and 1807, which required, among other things, that a proclamation should precede the actual employment of military power in such cases. Congress closed its session, on the next day, without having changed or modified the law, and without having given the President any additional means for its execution. The thoughts of men were turned again upon the incidents of its execution. [Sidenote: The Sims case.]