MR. SUMNER. I am glad of it. That is the gain of a day. We were to adjourn to-day at twelve o’clock, and then again to-morrow at twelve o’clock, and now it is put off until Saturday. I cannot doubt that the Senate would do much better, if it put off the adjournment until next week. There is important business on your table, which ought to be considered. Mr. Sumner then called attention to measures deserving consideration, and continued:-- Here is another measure, which I once characterized as an effort to cut the Gordian knot of the suffrage question. It is a bill introduced by myself to carry out various constitutional provisions securing political rights in all our States, precisely as we have already secured civil rights. The importance of this bill cannot be exaggerated. There is not a Senator who does not know the anxious condition of things in the neighboring State of Maryland for want of such a bill. Let Congress interfere under the National Constitution, and exercise a power clearly belonging to it, settling this whole suffrage question, so that it shall no longer agitate the politics of the States, no longer be the occasion of dissension, possibly of bloodshed, in Maryland or in Delaware, or of difference in Ohio. Let us settle the question before we return home. When I rose, I had no purpose of calling attention to these measures. My special object was to express satisfaction that the Senate at last is disposed to harmonize with the other House on the important question of securing to Congress the power of meeting during the summer and autumn. That is a great point gained for the peace and welfare of the country. Without it you will leave the country a prey to the President; you will leave our Union friends throughout the South a sacrifice to the same malignant usurper. The substitute proposed by Mr. Edmunds was agreed to,--Yeas 25, Nays 14. The House non-concurring, it was referred to a committee of conference. March 29th, another resolution having been meanwhile adopted by the House, providing for an adjournment to the first Wednesday of June, and then, if a quorum of both Houses were not present, to the first Wednesday of September, and then, in the absence of a quorum, to the first Monday of December, Mr. Edmunds moved the following substitute:--