midnight
The friends of the bill were instructed by the leaders to make no effort to check it ; it was deemed better strategy to tire out the opposition ; it was decided to vote down every proposition to adjourn , and so continue the sitting into the night ; opponents might desert , then , one by one and weaken their party , for they had no personal stake in the bill . Sunset came , and still the fight went on ; the gas was lit , the crowd in the galleries began to thin , but the contest continued ; the crowd returned , by and by , with hunger and thirst appeased , and aggravated the hungry and thirsty House by looking contented and comfortable ; but still the wrangle lost nothing of its bitterness . Recesses were moved plaintively by the opposition , and invariably voted down by the University army . At midnight the House presented a spectacle calculated to interest a stranger . The great galleries were still thronged -- though only with men , now ; the bright colors that had made them look like hanging gardens were gone , with the ladies . The reporters ' gallery , was merely occupied by one or two watchful sentinels of the quill-driving guild ; the main body cared nothing for a debate that had dwindled to a mere vaporing of dull speakers and now and then a brief quarrel over a point of order ; but there was an unusually large attendance of journalists in the reporters ' waiting-room , chatting , smoking , and keeping on the ` qui vive ' for the general irruption of the Congressional volcano that must come when the time was ripe for it . Senator Dilworthy and Philip were in the Diplomatic Gallery ; Washington sat in the public gallery , and Col. Sellers was , not far away .