Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1886 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

The minority report of the House Committee on Military Affairs on the bill for the relief of Fits John Porter was laid before tho House last week. The minority says: The only tenable ground on which tho report can be sustained and finding of tho court-martial reversed is that tho court wickedly, corruptly, and maliciously conspired to sacrifice Porter to savo Pope from the odium of defeat, and it would be a bold man who affirms that proposition. The minority argues that the bill is unconstitutional inasmuch as it is a usurpation by Congress of the functions of the co-ordinate branches of the Government. They say that if the bill does not nominate Porter to office it is an absolute nullity. If it does nominate him, it is an invasion of the executive prerogative. It is advice or law. If advice it is useless, and if law it is usurpation. If the court-martial erred, there was no appeal. The minority respected Porter for his persistence, still it could not but believe that his disobedience and inaction cast a shroud of woe over thousands at home and brought disaster to the national cause.

A proposal has been laid before the Senate to consider nominations in future with open doors. The fortifications board has estimated at $126,000,000 tho cjst of a good system of coast defenses. H. W. Cannon has resigned the Comptrollership of tho Currency to become "Vice President of a New York bank. In receiving a delegation from the South Atlantic Harbor Improvement Convention, at Washington, tho President said that his views on the transportation question had changed, and that he was now profoundly impressed with the importance of developing the natural waterways of the country. He expressed himself as in favor of a judicious ex-

penditure of public money on such improvements. * Congressman Rankin, of Wisconsin, died in Washington on the 24th nit. The Mississippi Legislature has memorialized Congress in favor of the Eads Ship Railway.