But you will allow me to remind you that the ideas of the Revolution and the solemn promises of the Declaration of Independence are still debated. There are some who have the hardihood to deny them. Here I venture to bespeak from you the simple loyalty of those whose places you occupy. Should an evil hour arrive, when these ideas and promises are in peril, then let them find a breastwork, not in your hills, but in your hearts. And may the rally extend until it embraces the whole country, and the Revolution begun by our fathers is completed by the establishment of all the rights of all!
POWERS OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS IN THE ABSENCE OF A QUORUM.
PROTEST IN THE SENATE, AT ITS OPENING, JULY 3, 1867.
July 3d, according to the provision in the resolution of adjournment at the last session, Congress met at noon this day. The Chief Clerk read the resolution.[228] Mr. Sumner then said that he rose to a question of order on the resolution.
The resolution under which Congress is to-day assembled, so far as it undertakes to direct the adjournment of the two Houses of Congress without day, in the absence of a quorum of the two Houses, is unconstitutional and inoperative, inasmuch as the Constitution, after declaring that “a majority of each House shall constitute a quorum to do business,” proceeds to provide that “a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members”; and therefore such resolution must not be regarded by the Chair, so far as it undertakes to provide for an adjournment without day.
As, according to the view, there is a quorum already present, the incident contemplated by the resolution will not arise; but I felt it my duty, by way of precaution and _caveat_, to introduce this protest, to the end that the resolution may not hereafter be drawn into a precedent so as to abridge the rights of the two Houses of Congress under the Constitution of the United States.
Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, differed from Mr. Sumner, and entered his “protest against any such construction of the Constitution as denies to the two Houses of Congress the right to regulate their own adjournments.” After quoting the text of the Constitution, that “a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members,” Mr. Sumner said:--