In the Fifty-fourth Congress, 2d Session, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary was requested to report whether a certain resolution mentioned in a law should be in the form of a "joint resolution," and whether it was necessary that "concurrent resolutions" should be submitted to the President of the United States.

In its report the committee, while admitting that Clause 3, Section VII of Article I of the Constitution, literally applied, would make it necessary that every joint or concurrent resolution of Congress, whatever its substance or intent, would have to be submitted to the President for his approval, go on to say that the Constitution must look beyond the mere form of a resolution, to its subject-matter, and that the words "to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary" are to be construed to relate only to matters of legislation to which the concurrent action of both Houses is by the Constitution made absolutely necessary; in short, only to legislative measures. Thus, in general, joint resolutions need to be sent to the President; concurrent resolutions do not. Of these latter the committee say: "For over a hundred years . . . they have never been so presented. They have uniformly been regarded by all the Departments of the Government as matters peculiarly within the province of Congress alone. They have never embraced legislative decisions proper, and hence have never been deemed to require executive approval. This practical construction of the Constitution, thus acquiesced in for a century, must be deemed the true construction with which no court will interfere."