He [the President] may, on extraordinary occasions convene both Houses,
or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them with respect
to the time of adjournment he may adjourn them to such time as he shall
think proper. ...
According to these provisions the day of the adjournment of Congress
is not the subject of legislative enactment. Except in the event of
disagreement between the Senate and House of Representatives, the
President has no right to meddle with the question, and in that event
his power is exclusive, but confined to fixing the adjournment of the
Congress whose branches have disagreed. The question of adjournment is
obviously to be decided by each Congress for itself, by the separate
action of each House for the time being, and is one of those subjects
upon which the framers of that instrument did not intend one Congress
should act, with or without the Executive aid, for its successors.
As a substitute for the present rule, which requires the two Houses by
consent to fix the day of adjournment, and in the event of disagreement
the President to decide, it is proposed to fix a day by law to be
binding in all future time unless changed by consent of both Houses of
Congress, and to take away the contingent power of the Executive which
in anticipated cases of disagreement is vested in him. This substitute
is to apply, not to the present Congress and Executive, but to our
successors. Considering, therefore, that this subject exclusively
belongs to the two Houses of Congress whose day of adjournment is to be
fixed, and that each has at that time the right to maintain and insist
upon its own opinion, and to require the President to decide in the
event of disagreement with the other, I am constrained to deny my
sanction to the act herewith respectfully returned to the Senate.
I do so with greater reluctance as, apart from this constitutional
difficulty, the other provisions of it do not appear to me
objectionable.