In the nation's capital, the Fourth of July, 1861, began with a parade.  To the accompaniment of blaring bands, twenty thousand militiamen strode proudly down Pennsylvania Avenue.  Any thoughts that this was just another festive Independence Day in Washington, D.C. quickly vanished, however, when onlookers observed the vast number of military troops camped in the city and heard reports that enemy forces stood only a day's march away.

At high noon, enduring the city's noise, dust, stench, and oppressive heat, members of Congress convened for the first time in nearly four months.  Following the April bombardment of Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln declared a state of insurrection, called for 75,000 volunteers, and summoned Congress into emergency session.  He deliberately chose this July date, so rich in national patriotism.

Forty-four senators took their places in the Senate chamber.  The crack of the presiding officer's gavel abruptly ended a dozen conversations as members turned their attention to the Senate chaplain.  Observing that "new disasters have befallen us and darkness broods the land," the Presbyterian minister reassured his senatorial congregation that this Independence Day was "a day tenfold more precious by reason of our present troubles."

As Vice President Hannibal Hamlin called members to order, he looked across a chamber that contained twenty-one ominously vacant desks—one for each of the recently departed senators representing states that had joined the Confederacy.  Perhaps he noticed the desk of former Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis, its mahogany finish newly scarred by the sharp bayonet of a passing Massachusetts soldier.  Thanks to the departure of Southern Democratic senators, the Republican party, for the first time in its brief history, now controlled the Senate by a margin of more than three-to-one.

The Senate met only briefly to swear in the two senators from the new state of Kansas. This ceremony marked the end of a bloody six-year debate over whether to admit Kansas as a slave state or a free state.  After discharging routine business, it adjourned to await a message from the president.

This emergency first session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress lasted only five weeks.  Under the threat of encircling enemy forces and the sting of an unexpected military defeat at Bull Run, Congress enacted sixty-seven major public laws, making this one of the most productive and dramatic legislative sessions in all of American history.