Excerpt from Speech of Hon. James Brooks, of New York: On the President's Message, in the House of Representatives, December, 1864 Permit me, first, to call the attention of the House to the numerous amendments which are proposed to the Constitution. One of them is, to change the principle of representation, pro posed by the gentleman from Wisconsin,1 (mr. Sloan) another is, to change the great principle of the Constitution as to export duties, proposed by the honor able member from Maryland, (mr. Davis) and another comes down to us from the Senate, with the sanction of the President of the United States, and that is, to alter the Constitution on the subject of slavery. N 0 time seems to me more inauspicious than in the midst of civil war, with the clangor of arms all around us, with comparatively but a small territorial part of our whole country assembled by their Representatives upon the floor of this House; no time, sir, seems to me more inauspicious to make great fundamental changes of the Constitution of the United States. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.