committees, especially two or three of them." He also declared that there was not a just and fair division with reference to questions coming before the committees, and then gave this illustration: "Take, for instance, the Committee on Commerce. On that committee the Republican party, numbering twenty out of the sixty-one members of the Senate, is assigned, of the whole number of seven, one member.... The interests of the whole lake region, the interests of New England and of New York, involving, as those large portions of the country do, such an infinite superiority of all its commerce, are found with only two members out of the seven." Mr. Hamlin here corrected Mr. Fessenden's statement, by saying, "My colleague is mistaken.... The interests of which he speaks have only _one_ member on that committee, not two." Mr. Hamlin was right; there was but one member of the Committee on Commerce to represent the immense interests of the country of the Great Lakes of the Northwest and of the whole of New England and New York, and that single member was himself. But the Republican protest, well-grounded as it was, proved then unavailing. At the first regular session of the Thirty-fifth Congress, beginning in December, 1857, Mr. Allen, of Rhode Island, presented under the rule a new list of the standing committees of the Senate for adoption. That on Commerce was only changed by the substitution of Mr. Allen for Mr. Bright of Indiana, increasing its New England but diminishing its Western membership. Messrs. Hamlin, Chandler and Wilson again made vigorous remonstrances against the unjust formation of the standing committees as a whole. This was Mr. Chandler's first speech in the Senate, and it was as follows: I find in the "Globe" of yesterday the following announcement: "The caucus of all parties in the Senate has agreed to constitute the committees as follows." And then follows a list in detail. This announcement, as I understand it, is incorrect. I believe that no such caucus has been held. I am informed that a Democratic caucus was held, and the committees made up, leaving certain blanks to be submitted to the Republicans for them to fill. They saw fit to fill these blanks, under protest. No such caucus as is announced in the statement which I have read was ever held. No assent has ever been given by the Republicans of this Senate to any such formation of committees as is there announced.