Note 62 — SEVENTH CONGRESS.—FIRST SESSION.

This is the first instance of a Message being sent to the two Houses at the commencement of a session. Though veiled and commended by temporary reasons, founded in the convenience of the members and placed in the fore part of the letter, yet the concluding reasons (which are of a general and permanent nature) disclose the true reasons for the change—which was, to make it permanent: and permanent it has been. It was one of Mr. Jefferson's reforms—the former way of assembling the two Houses to hear an address in person from the President, returning an answer to it, the two Houses going in form to present their answer, and the intervention of repeated committees to arrange the details of these ceremonious meetings, being considered too close an imitation of the royal mode of opening a British Parliament. Some of the democratic friends of Mr. Jefferson doubted whether this change was a reform, in that part of it which dispensed with the answers to the President. Their view of it was, that the answer to the Speech, or Message, afforded a regular occasion for speaking to the state of the Union, and to all the topics presented; which speaking, losing its regular vent, would afterwards break out irregularly on the discussion of particular measures, and to the interruption of the business on hand. Experience has developed that irregularity, and another—that of speaking to the Message on the motions to refer particular clauses of it to appropriate committees, thereby delaying the reference; and, in one instance during Mr. Fillmore's administration, preventing the reference during the entire session.