According to convenience, the quorum should be founded on the actual Senate, being the Senators actually elected and qualified. If ever the argument of convenience was strong, peculiarly strong, it is now, when a wicked rebellion has undertaken to withdraw the Senators of eleven States, thus reducing our numbers. It is not necessary to assert that these States should be no longer counted among our stars. It is enough, if we declare that their vacant chairs shall no longer be counted in our quorum. As the language of the Constitution is drawn into debate, I cannot doubt, that, according to Parliamentary Law, the present question is within the control of the Senate, to be determined by the teachings of reason and convenience, so as to assure the public welfare. Any other interpretation must leave the Senate to all the hazards of disorganization by treason, or, it may be, by indifference. If the Senate declines to exercise this power, it will abandon an essential principle of self-defence. An extreme case might be put, where, through defection, the actual Senators are reduced to a mere handful. But the rule is not to be tried by any such extreme case, which can occur only when the Government is broken up. I rest confidently on the double conclusion: first, that the words of the Constitution with regard to the quorum of the Senate, so far as doubtful, are to be interpreted by Parliamentary Law; and, secondly, that, by Parliamentary Law, these words are within the control of the Senate, to be interpreted according to its own ample discretion under the exigency of the occasion. PROTEST AGAINST FINAL ADJOURNMENT OF CONGRESS. REMARKS IN THE SENATE, ON A RESOLUTION FOR THE FINAL ADJOURNMENT OF THE TWO HOUSES, JULY 12, 1862. July 12th, the question being on the final adjournment for the Session, Mr. Sumner said:-- MR. PRESIDENT,--I do not think, in the present state of the country, the Senate ought to adjourn, and for one I enter my protest against it, and I ask for the yeas and nays that I may make it of record. It is essential to proper legislation not only that the Senate should vote, but that it should consider measures on which it votes; and the consideration must be in proportion to their importance. Allusion is made to one measure on which the Senate has not voted,--that in charge of my friend the Senator from Ohio [Mr. WADE], the admission of West Virginia as a new State. Perhaps no question of greater importance has ever been presented. It concerns the whole question of Slavery; it concerns the pretension of State Rights; it concerns also the results of this war. Look at it, therefore, in any aspect you please, it is a great question. And yet the idea of Senators anxious to adjourn is, that it is to be hurried forward without any proper discussion.