The first session of the twenty-fifth Congress met in extra session, at the call of the President, on the first Monday of September, 1837. The message was a review of the events and causes which had brought about the panic; a defense of the policy of the “specie circular,” and a recommendation to break off all connection with any bank of issue in any form; looking to the establishment of an Independent Treasury, and that the Government provide for the deficit in the treasury by the issue of treasury notes and by withholding the deposit due to the States under the act then in force. The message and its recommendations were violently assailed both in the Senate and House by able and effective speakers, notably by Messrs. Clay and Webster, and also by Mr. Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, who made a formal and elaborate reply to the whole document under thirty-two distinct heads, and reciting therein all the points of accusation against the democratic policy from the beginning of the government down to that day. The result was that the measures proposed by the Executive were in substance enacted; and their passage marks an era in our financial history—making a total and complete separation of Bank and State, and firmly establishing the principle that the government revenues should be receivable in coin only. The measures of consequence discussed and adopted at this session, were the graduation of price of public lands under the pre-emption system, which was adopted; the bill to create an independent Treasury, which passed the Senate, but failed in the House; and the question of the re-charter of the district banks, the proportion for reserve, and the establishment of such institutions on a specie basis. The slavery question was again agitated in consequence of petitions from citizens and societies in the Northern States, and a memorial from the General Assembly of Vermont, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and territories, and for the exclusion of future slave states from the Union. These petitions and memorials were disposed of adversely; and Mr. Calhoun, representing the ultra-Southern interest, in several able speeches, approved of the Missouri compromise, he urged and obtained of the Senate several resolutions declaring that the federal government had no power to interfere with slavery in the States; and that it would be inexpedient and impolitic to interfere, abolish or control it in the District of Columbia and the territories. These movements for and against slavery in the session of 1837–38 deserve to be noticed, as of disturbing effect at the time, and as having acquired new importance from subsequent events.