for assembling
the two Houses of Congress, I do therefore by this my proclamation
convene the said Houses to meet in the Capitol, at the city of
Washington, on Thursday, the 21st day of August instant, hereby
requiring the respective Senators and Representatives then and there
to assemble to consult and determine on such measures as the state of
the Union may seem to require.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed and signed the same with my hand.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 18th day of August, A.D. 1856, and
of the Independence of the United States the eighty-first.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By order:
W.L. MARCY,
_Secretary of State_.

SPECIAL SESSION MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, _August 21, 1856_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives_:

In consequence of the failure of Congress at its recent session to make
provision for the support of the Army, it became imperatively incumbent
on me to exercise the power which the Constitution confers on the
Executive for extraordinary occasions, and promptly to convene the two
Houses in order to afford them an opportunity of reconsidering a subject
of such vital interest to the peace and welfare of the Union.

With the exception of a partial authority vested by law in the Secretary
of War to contract for the supply of clothing and subsistence, the Army
is wholly dependent on the appropriations annually made by Congress.
The omission of Congress to act in this respect before the termination of
the fiscal year had already caused embarrassments to the service, which
were overcome only in expectation of appropriations before the close
of the present month. If the requisite funds be not speedily provided,
the Executive will no longer be able to furnish the transportation,
equipments, and munitions which are essential to the effectiveness of a
military force in the field. With no provision for the pay of troops the
contracts of enlistment would be broken and the Army must in effect be
disbanded, the consequences of which would be so disastrous as to demand
all possible efforts to avert the calamity.

It is not merely that the officers and enlisted men of the Army are to
be thus deprived of the pay and emoluments to which they are entitled by
standing laws; that the construction of arms at the public armories, the
repair and construction of ordnance at the arsenals, and the manufactu