The Fortieth Congress is sitting in its first term in Washington DC

With Schuyler Colfax of Indiana in the chair in the House and Benjamin Wade presiding in the Senate, the first "special" session of the Fortieth Congress was sitting on this day. Significantly this Congress was partially serving for the first time in an "extra" early session in accordance with legislation of January 22, 1867 that sought to keep a unpopular president from dictating when a Congress may sit. Not until the Twentieth Amendment was ratified in January, 1933, would the schedule be set constitutionally. (By John Osborne)