otice of the time, or do not
remember it if I did; but I have heard the matter so stated.

I see no reason, Sir, for the introduction of this new practice; no
principle on which it can be justified, no necessity for it, no
propriety in it. As yet, it has been applied only to the President's
intercourse with the Senate. Certainly it is equally applicable to his
intercourse with both houses in legislative matters; and if it is to
prevail hereafter, it is of much importance that it should be known.

The President of the United States, Sir, has alluded to this loss of the
fortification bill in his message at the opening of the session, and he
has alluded, also, in the same message, to the rejection of the vote of
the three millions. On the first point, that is, the loss of the whole
bill, and the causes of that loss, this is his language: "Much loss and
inconvenience have been experienced in consequence of the failure of the
bill containing the ordinary appropriations for fortifications, which
passed one branch of the national legislature at the last session, but
was lost in the other."

If the President intended to say that the bill, having originated in the
House of Representatives, passed the Senate, and was yet afterwards lost
in the House of Representatives, he was entirely correct. But he has
been wholly misinformed, if he intended to state that the bill, having
passed the House, was lost in the Senate. As I have already stated, the
bill was lost in the House of Representatives. It drew its last breath
there. That House never let go its hold on it after the report of the
committee of conference. But it held it, it retained it, and of course
it died in its possession when the House adjourned. It is to be
regretted that the President should have been misinformed in a matter of
this kind, when the slightest reference to the journals of the two
houses would have exhibited the correct history of the transaction.

I recur again, Mr. President, to the proposed grant of the three
millions, for the purpose of stating somewhat more distinctly the true
grounds of objection to that grant.

These grounds of objection were two; the first was, that no such
appropriation had been recommended by the President, or any of the
departments. And what made this ground the stronger was, that the
proposed grant was defended, so far as it was defended at all, upon an
alleged necessity, growing out of our foreign relations. The foreign
rel