XXXVIIth Congress -- First Session

WASHINGTON, February 20.

SENATE. – The Senate passed the army appropriation bill for 1862 and then went into executive session.

Mr. Wilkinson offered the following resolution:

WHEREAS, Lazarus W. Powell, after several States had severed themselves from the Union, on the 20th of June last, attended a large Southern States Convention as was the President thereof, where resolutions were passed approving of the neutrality of Kentucky and denouncing the war, and also attended another Convention on the 10th of September, where more resolutions were passed of the same import and said Powell had given all the aid and comfort he could from the position he occupied; therefore,

Resolved, That said Lazarus W. Powell will be expelled from the Senate.  Referred to Judiciary committee.

On motion of Mr. Grimes, the bill to establish a national armory at Rock Island was taken up.

Mr. Howe moved its reference to the military committee.

Mr. Wilson, of Mass., had no desire to have it referred to that committee.  He was not sure the Government needed another armory at this time, but it did need a foundry for making cannon, &c.

HOUSE. – The House took up the report from the committee of the whole on the Senates amendment to the Treasury note bill.

Mr. Hooper briefly expressed his views.  He said the object was to furnish a substantial and uniform currency, and to approve the distinction proposed to be made in favor of the holders of the stock, by paying the interest in coin.

Mr. Stevens said he had a melancholy foreboding that they were about to consummate a cunningly devised scheme which will carry great injury throughout the country.  At the [insistence] of the brokers the Senate has been persuaded to mangle and destroy what had cost the House months to digest, consider and pass.  The bill has been so defaced that its very fathers fail to recognize it.  Instead of being a beneficial, invigorating measure, affording a uniform and equal currency for all, it possesses positively great mischief.  It now has all the bad qualities which have been attributed to it, without a single good feature in its amended form.  It creates two classes of currency – one for banks and brokers, and another for the people.  It discriminates between different classes, takes away the legal tender clause, and the Government will be in the clutches of the harpies.

All the amendments to the Treasury note bill were acted on.  The amendment making the interest on the notes payable in coin was agreed to.  The amendment pledging the lands, duties, and proceeds of rebel property to the redemption of the interest and principal of the debt was rejected.  The bill goes back to the Senate again.

The Post office appropriation bill was up in the committee of the whole.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, February 21, 1862, p. 1