The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster / With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style

by Daniel Webster; Edwin Percy Whipple

I immediately reported this agreement of the committee of conference to the Senate; but, inasmuch as the bill was in the House of Representatives, the Senate could not act further on the matter until the House should first have considered the report of the committee, decided thereon, and sent us the bill. I did not myself take any note of the particular hour of this part of the transaction. The honorable member from Virginia[1] says he looked at his watch at the time, and he knows that I had come from the conference, and was in my seat, at a quarter past eleven. I have no reason to think that he is under any mistake on this particular. He says it so happened that he had occasion to take notice of the hour, and well remembers it. It could not well have been later than this, as any one will be satisfied who will look at our journals, public and executive, and see what a mass of business was despatched after I came from the committee, and before the adjournment of the Senate. Having made the report, Sir, I had no doubt that both houses would concur in the result of the conference, and looked every moment for the officer of the House bringing the bill. He did not come, however, and I pretty soon learned that there was doubt whether the committee on the part of the House would report to the House the agreement of the conferees. At first, I did not at all credit this; but was confirmed by one communication after another, until I was obliged to think it true. Seeing that the bill was thus in danger of being lost, and intending at any rate that no blame should justly attach to the Senate, I immediately moved the following resolution:—

"Resolved, That a message be sent to the honorable the House of Representatives, respectfully to remind the House of the report of the committee of conference appointed on the disagreeing votes of the two houses on the amendment of the House to the amendment of the Senate to the bill respecting the fortifications of the United States."

You recollect this resolution, Sir, having, as I well remember, taken some part on the occasion.[2]

This resolution was promptly passed; the secretary carried it to the House, and delivered it. What was done in the House on the receipt of this message now appears from the printed journal. I have no wish to comment on the proceedings there recorded; all may read them, and each be able to form his own opinion. Suffice it to say, that the House of Representatives, having then possession of the bill, chose to retain that possession, and never acted on the report of the committee of conference. The bill, therefore, was lost. It was lost in the House of Representatives. It died there, and there its remains are to be found. No opportunity was given to the members of the House to decide whether they would agree to the report of the committee or not. From a quarter past eleven, when the report was agreed to, until two or three o'clock in the morning, the House remained in session. If at any time there was not a quorum of members present, the attendance of a quorum, we are to presume, might have been commanded, as there was undoubtedly a great majority of members still in the city.

But, Sir, there is one other transaction of the evening which I now feel bound to state, because I think it quite important on several accounts, that it should be known.

A nomination was pending before the Senate for a judge of the Supreme Court. In the course of the sitting, that nomination was called up, and, on motion, was indefinitely postponed. In other words, it was rejected; for an indefinite postponement is a rejection. The office, of course, remained vacant, and the nomination of another person to fill it became necessary. The President of the United States was then in the Capitol, as is usual on the evening of the last day of the session, in the chamber assigned to him, and with the heads of departments around him. When nominations are rejected under these circumstances, it has been usual for the President immediately to transmit a new nomination to the Senate; otherwise the office must remain vacant till the next session, as the vacancy in such case has not happened in the recess of Congress. The vote of the Senate, indefinitely postponing this nomination, was carried to the President's room by the secretary of the Senate. The President told the secretary that it was more than an hour past twelve o'clock, and that he could receive no further communications from the Senate, and immediately after, as I have understood, left the Capitol. The secretary brought back the paper containing the certified copy of the vote of the Senate, and indorsed thereon the substance of the President's answer, and also added, that, according to his own watch, it was quarter past one o'clock.

There are two views, Sir, in which this occurrence may well deserve to be noticed. One is as to the connection which it may perhaps have had with the loss of the fortification bill; the other is as to its general importance, as introducing a new rule, or a new practice, respecting the intercourse between the President and the two houses of Congress on the last day of the session.

On the first point, I shall only observe that the fact of the President's having declined to receive this communication from the Senate, and of his having left the Capitol, was immediately known in the House of Representatives. It was quite obvious, that, if he could not receive a communication from the Senate, neither could he receive a bill from the House of Representatives for his signature. It was equally obvious, that, if, under these circumstances, the House of Representatives should agree to the report of the committee of conference, so that the bill should pass, it must, nevertheless, fail to become a law for want of the President's signature; and that, in that case, the blame of losing the bill, on whomsoever else it might fall, could not be laid upon the Senate.

On the more general point, I must say, Sir, that this decision of the President, not to hold communication with the houses of Congress after twelve o'clock at night, on the 3d of March, is quite new. No such objection has ever been made before by any President. No one of them has ever declined communicating with either house at any time during the continuance of its session on that day. All Presidents heretofore have left with the houses themselves to fix their hour of adjournment, and to bring their session for the day to a close, whenever they saw fit.

It is notorious, in point of fact, that nothing is more common than for both houses to sit later than twelve o'clock, for the purpose of completing measures which are in the last stages of their progress. Amendments are proposed and agreed to, bills passed, enrolled bills signed by the presiding officers, and other important legislative acts performed, often at two or three o'clock in the morning. All this is very well known to gentlemen who have been for any considerable time members of Congress. And all Presidents have signed bills, and have also made nominations to the Senate, without objection as to time, whenever bills have been presented for signature, or whenever it became necessary to make nominations to the Senate, at any time during the session of the respective houses on that day.