The last session of the twenty-sixth Congress was barren of measures, and necessarily so, as being the last of our administration superseded by the popular voice, and soon to expire; and therefore restricted by a sense of propriety, during the brief remainder of its existence, to the details of business and the routine of service. The cause of this was the result of the presidential election of 1840. The same candidates who fought the battle of 1836 were again in the field. Mr. Van Buren was the Democratic candidate. His administration had been satisfactory to his party, and his nomination for a second term was commended by the party in the different States in appointing their delegates; so that the proceedings of the convention which nominated him were entirely harmonious and formal in their nature. Mr. Richard M. Johnson, the actual Vice-President, was also nominated for Vice-President. On the Whig ticket, General William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was the candidate for President, and Mr. John Tyler, of Virginia, for Vice-President. The leading statesmen of the Whig party were again put aside, to make way for a military man, prompted by the example in the nomination of General Jackson, the men who managed presidential elections believing then as now that military renown was a passport to popularity and rendered a candidate more sure of election. Availability—for the purpose—was the only ability asked for. Mr. Clay, the most prominent Whig in the country, and the acknowledged head of the party, was not deemed available; and though Mr. Clay was a candidate before the convention, the proceedings were so regulated that his nomination was referred to a committee, ingeniously devised and directed for the afterwards avowed purpose of preventing his nomination and securing that of General Harrison; and of producing the intended result without showing the design, and without leaving a trace behind to show what was done. The scheme (a modification of which has since been applied to subsequent national conventions, and out of which many bitter dissensions have again and again arisen) is embodied and was executed in and by means of the following resolution adopted by the convention: “_Ordered_, That the delegates from each State be requested to assemble as a delegation, and appoint a committee, not exceeding three in number, to receive the views and opinions of such delegation, and communicate the same to the assembled committees of all the delegations, to be by them respectively reported to their principals; and that thereupon the delegates from each State be requested to assemble as a delegation, and ballot for candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President, and having done so, to commit the ballot designating the votes of each candidate, and by whom given, to its committee, and thereupon all the committees shall assemble and compare the several ballots, and report the result of the same to their several delegations, together with such