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Footsteps up to Capitol steps.

A messenger arrives.

The Congress is talking, declaiming, debating, with no idea of the message that is about to hit them.

This is not the friendliest time in Congress.

The parties are close, and there are factions within all the parties, wigs and Democrats, but also northern wigs and southern Democrats.

It took months to elect a speaker in the House, and in the Senate, it nearly comes to pistols.

The messenger runs, message in in hand down the hallway

He hands it to the sergeant at arms

In the Senate a similar message arrives

And a senator says

Gentlemen, I must announce

The President of the United States is dying.

The Senator making that announcement is no one short of Daniel Webster.

What? The president, Zachary Taylor, seemed healthy, strong. He had been walking the streets.

He had been at the July 4th celebrations. He had dedicated the Washington Monument. No, this message says he has not days, but just hours to live. In the house, a crazy

scene, a motion is made to adjourn. That makes all the sense in the world, right?

It's as the President of the United States is dying, his family, his doctors are informing Congress now.

In the House, the news is delivered.

An emotion also is made to adjourn.

And as if to signify the era and the issues even the seemingly unimportant

honorific procedure of just adjourning the house is opposed several members

...