CHAPTER XV.
Thirty-Seventh Congress assembles .-- Military Situation .-- List of Senators: Fessenden, Sumner, Collamer, Wade, Chandler, Hale, Trumbull, Breckinridge, Baker of Oregon .-- List of Members of the House of Representatives: Thaddeus Stevens, Crittenden, Lovejoy, Washburne, Bingham, Conkling, Shellabarger .-- Mr.Grow elected Speaker .-- Message of President Lincoln .-- Its Leading Recommendations.
-- His Account of the Outbreak of the Rebellion .-- Effect of the Message on the Northern People .-- Battle of Bull Run .-- Its Effect on Congress and the Country .-- The Crittenden Resolution adopted .-- Its Significance .-- Interesting Debate upon it in the Senate .-- First Action by Congress Adverse to Slavery .-- Confiscation of Certain Slaves .-- Large Amount of Business dispatched by Congress .-- Striking and Important Debate between Baker and Breckinridge .-- Expulsion of Mr.Breckinridge from the Senate .-- His Character .-- Credit due to Union Men of Kentucky .-- Effect produced in the South of Confederate Success at Bull Run .-- Rigorous Policy adopted by the Confederate Government .-- Law respecting "Alien Enemies."-- Law sequestrating their Estates .-- Rigidly enforced by Attorney-General Benjamin .-- An Injudicious Policy.
The Thirty-seventh Congress assembled according to the President's proclamation, on the fourth day of July, 1861.

There had been no ebb in the tide of patriotic enthusiasm which overspread the loyal States after the fall of Sumter.

Mr.Lincoln's sagacity in fixing the session so late had apparently been well approved.

The temper of the senators and representatives as they came together could not have been better for the great work before them.

Startling events, following each other thick and fast, had kept the country in a state of absorbing excitement, and Congress saw around it on every side the indications of a sanguinary struggle to come.