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.