Whereas Senate bill No. 141, and entitled “An act for the further security of equal rights in the District of Columbia,” having at this present session passed both Houses of Congress, was afterwards, on the 11th day of December, 1867, duly presented to the President of the United States for his approval and signature; and

  Whereas more than ten days, exclusive of Sundays, have since elapsed in
  this session without said bill having been returned, either approved or
  disapproved:  Therefore,

Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to inform the Senate whether said bill has been delivered to and received by the Secretary of State, as provided by the second section of the act of the 27th day of July, 1789.

As the act which the resolution mentions has no relevancy to the subject under inquiry, it is presumed that it was the intention of the Senate to refer to the law of the 15th September, 1789, the second section of which prescribes—­

That whenever a bill, order, resolution, or vote of the Senate and House of Representatives, having been approved and signed by the President of the United States, or not having been returned by him with his objections, shall become a law or take effect, it shall forthwith thereafter be received by the said Secretary from the President; and whenever a bill, order, resolution, or vote shall be returned by the President with his objections, and shall, on being reconsidered, be agreed to be passed, and be approved by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and thereby become a law or take effect, it shall in such case be received by the said Secretary from the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in whichsoever House it shall last have been so approved.

Inasmuch as the bill “for the further security of equal rights in the District of Columbia” has not become a law in either of the modes designated in the section above quoted, it has not been delivered to the Secretary of State for record and promulgation.  The Constitution expressly declares that—­

If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law.

As stated in the preamble to the resolution, the bill to which it refers was presented for my approval on the 11th day of December, 1867.  On the 20th of same month, and before the expiration of the ten days after the presentation of the bill to the President, the two Houses, in accordance with a concurrent resolution adopted on the 3d [13th] of December, adjourned until the 6th of January, 1868.  Congress by their adjournment thus prevented the return of the bill within the time prescribed by the Constitution, and it was therefore left in the precise condition in which that instrument positively declares a bill “shall not be a law.”