Extra Sessions of Congress.

The Constitution, Art. II. Sec. 3. provides the President may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them."

The Senate has often been called in Special Session to transact executive business, but the House of Representatives has never been caused alone.

It is now the coatom for a President, a few days before he retires from office, to issue a proclamation calling the Senate together immediately following the inauguration of his kuccessor. This gives the Senate an opportunity to elect a President pro tempore, and the Incoming President an opportunity to nominate his Cabinet and other officers.

CONGRESS 1, SESSION 1. Called for March 4, 1789; did not assemble until April 6, 1789. The object was to count the electoral votes.

Congress 5, SeSSION 1. Called by President John Adams, March 25, 1797; convened May 15, 1797. Owing to suspension of diplomatic intercourse with France, on the pretext, on the part of the French Directory, that the Jay treaty was a violation on the part of the United States of a solemn compact in relation to the French West India possessions. Charles C. Pinckney, Minister to France, had been expelled by the Directory, which issued further orders for depredation on American commerce. President Adams's recommendations approved. Session closed July 10, previously fixing November 13, time of meeting of second session.

CONGRESS 8, SESSION 1. Called by President Jefferson; convened October 17, 1803. Incident to the secret cession of Louisiana by the King of Spain to France, the Intendant of Louisiana being instructed to make the formal delivery precisely as it was held by France when ceded to Spain. In the execution of this mandate the Intendant proclaimed that New Orleans was closed as a place of deposit for merchandise, foreign commerce being forbidden that port unless carried on by Spanish subjects in Spanish bottoms. The President authorized to take possession of Louisiana under the French Treaty concluded at Paris in April, and an act passed "erecting Louisiana into two Territories, and providing for the temporary government thereof."

CONGRESS 10, SESSION 1. Called by President Jefferson; convened October 26, 1807. The attack upon the Chesapeake by the Leopard, and the seizure of alleged deserters from the British navy under the "right of search" claimed by Great Britain. Also unsettled differences with Spain. CONGRESS 11, SESSION 1. Called by President Madison; convened May 22, 1809, on account of difficulties with England.

CONGRESS 12, SESSION 1. Called by President Madison; convened November 4, 1811. To consider questions growing out of foreign affairs, particularly those resulting from the British Orders in Council, and the French Edicts, which seriously affected commerce. The affair of the Little Belt deemed likely to lead to war. The President urged upon Congress "the duty of putting the United States into an armor and attitude demanded by the crisis, and corresponding with the national spirit and

expectations." The session terminated July 6, 1812, the second session fixed for November 2, 1812, and the first session of the Thirteenth Congress for May 24, 1813.

CONGRESS 13, SESSION 3. Called by proclamation of President Madison, August 8; convened September 19, 1814. In order to provide for Treasury deficiencies, and consider negotiations then on foot with Great Britain to decide whether it should require arrangements adapted to a return of peace, or order the more effective provisions for the prosecuting of war."

CONGRESS 25, SESSION 1. Called by President Van Buren; convened September 4, 1837. The general and almost simultaneous suspension of specie payments in the month of May, 1837, and the deficit in the Treasury.

CONGRESS 27, SESSION 1. Called by President Harrison, March 17, 1841; convened May 31, 1841. "Sundry and important and weighty matters principally growing out of the condition of the revenue and finances of the country," the proclamation stated.

CONGRESS 34, SESSION 2. Called by President Pierce; convened August 21, 1856. To make provision for the army for the ensuing fiscal year. At the first session the House and Senate could not agree on the Army Bill, and the hour for adjournment fixed upon having arrived, the Speaker's hammer fell, announcing the termination of the session (August 18, 1856), leaving the Army Bill unpassed.

Immediately upon adjournment President Pierce called this extra ses

sion.

CONGRESS 37, SESSION 1. Called by proclamation of President Lincoln, April 15, 1861; convened July 4, 1861. Declaring the laws of the Republic were opposed in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, "by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals of law."

Congress was asked to consider and determine such measures as in their wisdom they thought fit and public safety might seem to demand. Session closed August 6, 1861, both branches being in full accord with the Administration in respect to the policy to be pursued toward the seceding States. CONGRESS 40, SESSION 1. Extra sessions (of three) by adjournment to keep a check upon the Southern policy of President Johnson.

Provision had been made for the meeting of this Congress and all succeeding Congresses immediately after the adjournment of the preceding Congress (see page 135), to prevent the organization of any pseudoCongress by Northern Democrats and other Southern claimants of admission.

CONGRESS 41, SESSION 1. Extra session, as per proviso noted above in extra sessions of Fortieth Congress.

CONGRESS 42, SESSION 1. Extra, under conditions as applied to the two preceding Congresses.

This was the last Congress governed by the special provision.

CONGRESS 45, SESSION 1. Called by President Hayes; convened October 15, 1877. On account of the failure of the Forty-fourth Congress to make the usual appropriations for the army and for the ensuing fiscal year, the difference between the houses being the House provision in the fifth section of the bill, which imposed restrictions upon the President in regard to the use of troops in Louisiana and South Carolina for the purpose of installing and maintaining the Packard and Chamberlain governments in those States. Session ended December 3, 1877.

CONGRESS 46, SESSION 1. Called by President Hayes; convened March 18, 1879. Because the Forty-fifth Congress had adjourned (March 3, 1879) without making the usual appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial service, and for the support of the army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880.

CONGRESS 53, SESSION 1. Called by proclamation of President Cleveland, June 30, 1893; convened August 7, 1893. The Preamble reciting that "distrust and apprehension concerning the financial situation which pervade all business circles have already caused great loss and damage to our people, and threaten to cripple our merchants, stop the wheels of manufacture, bring distress and privation to our farmers, and withhold from our workingmen the wages of labor; that the present perilous condition is largely the result of a financial policy which the Executive branch of the Government finds embodied in unwise laws which must be executed until repealed by Congress."

CONGRESS 55, SESSION 1. Called by proclamation of President McKinley, March 6, 1897, directly for the enactment of a tariff law, in accord with the words of his inaugural "to stop deficiencies by the restoration of that protective legislation which has always been the firmest prop of the Treasury."

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION,

WHEREAS, public interests require that the Congress of the United States should be convened in extra session at 12 o'clock on the 15th day of March, 1897, to receive such communications as may be made by the Executive:

Now, therefore, I, William McKinley, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim and declare that an extraordinary occasion requires the Congress of the United States to convene in extra session at the Capitol in the city of Washington on the 15th day of March, 1897, at 12 o'clock, noon, of which all persons who shall at that time be entitled to act as members thereof are hereby required to take notice.

Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, at Washington, the sixth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and twenty-first.

By the President.

JOHN SHERMAN, Secretary of State.

WILLIAM MCKINLEY.

POLITICAL PARTIES.

FACTIONS, COALITIONS, LEAGUES, AND FEDERATIONS.

Abolitionists. During the Revolution, and when the Constitution was made, various societies were formed for the abolition of slavery, the first originating in Philadelphia, April 14, 1775, with Benjamin Franklin as President. A second society, with the same purpose in view, formed in New York, January 25, 1785, with John Jay as President (later succeeded by Alexander Hamilton). These were the beginning of many throughout the States, their meetings, publications, and petitions being treated respectfully until the development of cotton planting in the early part of the nineteenth century raised the price of slaves, when the struggle between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery interests began. The contest out of which the term abolition grew, dates with William Lloyd Garrison's arraignment of slave-holders as criminals in 1829, he two years later publishing The Liberator. This was afterward followed by the formation in Boston of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, for the purpose of promoting the cause of emancipation, and with a similar object at Philadelphia, the creation of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833.

The Abolition Party was organized in December, 1839, at Warsaw, Genesee County, New York, at a mass convention, nominating James G. Birney, of New York, for President, and Francis G. LeMoyne, of Pennsylvania, for Vice-President. The party had one vital principle, the abolition of slavery, looked upon as a movement of a few political cranks. Its total vote in 1840 aggregated 7069, one-third of which was cast in New York and one-fourth in Massachusetts. In 1840 the Abolitionists divided into two wings, one favoring abolition through constitutional amendment, the other denouncing the Constitution as a bulwark of slavery. Wendell Phillips was the chief spokesman of the latter faction, or Liberty Party (q.v.). Abolitionists was applied to the Whigs by the Democracy in 1840. Abolitionists and Republicans mated on the ground of anti-slavery in 1860, the advocacy of which culminated in the Emancipation Proclamation (q.v.) of January 1, 1863. In February, 1866, slavery was abolished forever from the territory of the United States by Act of Congress.

Abolitionist was a term of contempt applied by the Democrats in 1860 to all Republicans, and by the people of the South to all Northerners who were not Democrats.

The slavery agitation had two periods; during the first, 1780-1819, it was general and spiritless; during the second, 1820-1865, it became sectional and aggressive. It was during this latter period the term abolitionist was first applied to the agitators for emancipation.

The word abolitionist had been applied in England and her colonies to the anti-slavery agitators, led by William Wilberforce, who, on May 22,

1787, formed a committee "for the abolition of the slave trade," under the presidency of Granville Sharp. As a word, abolitionist had been in use in America by the Quakers of Pennsylvania before the Revolution, as early as 1696. As a party name, it belongs distinctively to the movement of which Garrison was the first apostle.

The Abolition, Whig, and Federal were parties of liberal ideas and aggressiveness; when their mission was accomplished, each disappeared until called into life to meet a new crisis.

Absaloms. Appeared in New York City during the National Campaign of 1900, the word originating with the New York Sun. The Democratic party pushed forward young men as candidates, forming Young Men's Leagues to rouse enthusiasm among the first voters. The application of the sobriquet was to the type of young man who wants to anticipate the course of nature in stepping into the shoes of his elders.

Agrarians. Sometimes applied to the Loco-focos (q.v.), or "equal rights" party, founded in 1835. Later the Abolitionists and Republicans were branded as Agrarians by the pro-slavery party.

Agrarian Law, from the Latin ager, land, is a law for making land the common property of a nation, and not the particular property of individuals. In a modified form, it means a re-distribution of land, giving to each citizen a portion.

Albany Regency. A Democrat section (see Buck-tails), a junta of astute Democratic politicians, having their headquarters at Albany, N. Y. They controlled the action of the local Democratic State Party for many years (1820 to 1854), which gave them great weight in national politics. By a soft, conciliatory perseverance, they gained the entire control of the Republican party in the State, with its patronage and machinery.

The Allied Third Party. A product of Public Ownership men, Populists of all persuasions, Free Silver Republicans, Socialists, Single Taxers, and Bryan Democrats, formed at Kansas City, Missouri, June 19, 1901, as a local or State party, which expected to be finally taken up by the dissatisfied in the old parties from other States. Principles :

Public ownership of all public utilities, as railroads, telegraphs, etc.

While awaiting the legislation necessary to secure public ownership, rigid control of freight and passenger rates, and severe penalties for rebates and other discriminations by railroads.

Taxation of railroads and other public utility corporations in the same proportion as the value of farm and other property.

Direct legislation by the initiative and referendum, to the end that the people may initiate good legislation and veto bad legislation.

A graduated income tax, to the end that wealth, which receives government protection, shall bear its just share of the cost of the government.

That whatever is used as money shall be full legal tender, issued by the general government in sufficient volume for business purposes, and that volume fixed in proportion to population.

Just election laws throughout the State.

Home rule for cities, and abolition of the present system of using the police as a standing army to carry primary elections in the interest of dishonest politicians, representing still more dishonest special privilege corporations.

Election of United States Senators by popular vote.