The Fortieth Congress met at the very moment the Thirty-ninth closed--on the fourth day of March, 1867.

The valedictory words of the presiding officers in both branches were followed immediately by the calling to order of the succeeding bodies.

The contest between the President and Congress had grown so violent, the mutual distrust had become so complete, that the latter was unwilling to have its power suspended for the customary vacation of nine months between the 4th of March and the first Monday of the ensuing December; and therefore at the preceding session a law had been passed directing that each Congress should be organized immediately after the existence of its predecessor had closed.

The Republican leaders felt that without the supervising and counteracting power of Congress, full force and effect might not be given to the Reconstruction laws by the President; that they might possibly be neutralized by hostile action from the office of the Attorney-General, and that for this reason it would be well, nay, it was imperatively demanded, that the legislative power should be kept ready to interpose with fresh enactments, the very moment those already in force should be dulled by adverse construction, or haltingly administered by Executive agents not in sympathy with the policy of Congress.
The membership of the Fortieth Congress was changed in some important respects in both branches.

Simon Cameron, at sixty-eight years of age, returned from Pennsylvania as the successor of Edgar Cowan in the Senate.