Both chambers open their daily sessions with prayer. Clergymen of nearly all denominations have served as Chaplains, including Father Pise, a very eloquent Catholic priest who was a close friend of Henry Clay and was invited at his instance to lead the devotions of the Senate. As a rule, the prayers are extemporaneous, and it seems almost inevitable that, in periods of political upheaval, some color of partisanship should creep into them. Yet such slips have been very rare indeed. The most startling was made by the late Doctor Byron Sunderland, who was Chaplain of the Senate in 1862. He was the foremost Presbyterian minister in Washington and a strong anti-slavery advocate. One day Senator Saulsbury of Delaware, who was an accomplished biblical scholar, made a speech reviewing the references in the Hebrew scriptures to human servitude, as proof that slavery was of divine origin. Doctor Sunderland, having left the hall, did not hear the speech made, but was told about it when he arrived at the Capitol the next morning. He was nettled by the news, and, before he was fairly conscious of it, he caught himself saying something like this in his opening prayer: “Oh, Lord God of Nations, teach this Senate and all the people of this country that, if slavery is of divine institution, so is hell itself, and by Thy grace help us to abolish the one and escape the other!” These few words caused a great sensation, and later in the day Mr. Saulsbury vented his indignation in a resolution to expel the offending clergyman from the chaplaincy; but some quick-witted Senator on the opposite side cut off debate by moving to adjourn, and the matter died there.
Every day’s proceedings of Congress are published in a special journal called the _Record_; but it must not be too lightly assumed that every speech reported has been made in Congress. One of the rules of the House of Representatives permits a member, with the consent of the House, to be credited with having made remarks which, as a matter of fact, he has only reduced to writing and handed to the Clerk. That is what is meant by the “leave to print” privilege. Into the authorship of these speeches, or even of some that are delivered, it is not wise to probe too far. There are trained writers in Washington who earn a livelihood by digging out statistics and other data and composing addresses on various subjects for orators who are willing to pay for them, and Congressmen are among their customers. Once in a while something happens which casts a temporary shadow over this traffic. Several years ago, for example, two Representatives from Ohio were credited in the _Record_ with the same speech. Inquiry developed the fact that it had been offered to one of them, who had refused either to pay the price demanded for it or to give it back; so the author had sold a duplicate copy to the other. But worse yet was the plight of two members who delivered almost identical eulogies on a dead fellow member, having by accident copied their material from the same ancient volume of “Rules and Models for Public Speaking.”