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The Continental Congresses

The Congress of the United States derives from First Continental Congress, a meeting of representatives of twelve of Great Britain's American colonies, in the autumn of 1774. The Continental Congress sent a list of grievances to King George III. When the King failed to respond, and the American Revolutionary War commenced in April 1775, the Second Continental Congress was convened—this time with thirteen colonies in attendance. A year later, on 4 July 1776, the Continental Congress declared the thirteen colonies free and independent states, referring to them as the "united States of America." This was not a formal name, however, so "united" was not capitalized in the Declaration of Independence, "States" being capitalized only because all nouns were capitalized in English before the Industrial Revolution. The Second Continental Congress continued in office while the War for Independence continued, producing the Articles of Confederation— the United States's first constitution— in 1777, which was ratified by all of the states by 1781.

Congress before the Constitution

Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was a unicameral body in which each state was equally represented, and in which each state had a veto over most action. States could, and did, ignore what did pass. The ineffectiveness of the federal government under the Articles led Congress to summon the Convention of 1787.

Originally intended to revise the Articles of Confederation, it ended up writing a completely new constitution. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates. One of the most divisive issues facing the Convention was the structure of Congress. James Madison's Virginia Plan called for a bicameral Congress; the lower house would be elected directly by the people, and the upper house would be elected by the lower house. The plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, which called for a unicameral Congress with equal representation for the states. Eventually, a compromise, known as the Connecticut Compromise or the Great Compromise was reached; one house of Congress (the House of Representatives) would provide proportional representation, whereas the other (the Senate) would provide equal representation. To preserve further the authority of the states, the compromise proposed that state legislatures, rather than the people, would elect senators. The Constitution was ratified by the end of 1788, and its full implementation was set for March 4, 1789.

Nineteenth century

The early nineteenth century was marked by frequent clashes between the House of Representatives and the Senate. For most of the first half of the nineteenth century, a balance between the free North and the slaveholding South existed in the Senate, as the numbers of free and slave states were equal. However, since the North was much more populous than the South, it dominated the House of Representatives.

After the Civil War and reconstruction, the Gilded Age was marked by Republican dominance of Congress—and the Presidency—despite the Democratic lock on the Solid South. There was much discontent with the power of state legislatures to elect senators. In many cases, Senate elections were tainted by corruption and bribery; in other instances, gridlock between the two houses of state legislatures prevented the election of a senator. (In one acute case, deadlock prevented the Delaware legislature from sending a senator to Washington for four years.) These issues were addressed by the Seventeenth Amendment (ratified in 1913), which provided for the direct election of senators.

Twentieth and twenty-first centuries

The early twentieth century witnessed the rise of party leadership in both houses of Congress. In the House of Representatives, the office of Speaker became extremely powerful, reaching its zenith under the Republican Joseph Gurney Cannon. Leaders in the Senate were somewhat less powerful; individual senators still retained much of their influence. In particular, committee chairmen remained particularly strong in both houses until the reforms of the 1970s.

During the long administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933 to 1945), the Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress, in some elections winning over two-thirds of the seats in each house. Both the Republicans and the Democrats were in control at various points during the next decade. However, after winning the elections of 1954, the Democratic Party was the majority party in both houses of Congress for forty years, except for one short period during the Reagan administration when the Republicans held a majority of seats in the Senate. The Republicans finally returned to a majority position, in both houses of Congress, in the election of 1994. The Republicans have controlled both houses since, except that the Democrats held the Senate briefly in 2001, and from 2001 to 2003.

See also

• History of the United States
• History of the United States Senate
• History of the United States House of Representatives

References

• American National Biography (1999) 20 volumes; contains scholarly biographies of all politicians no longer alive.
• Barone, Michael, and Grant Ujifusa, The Almanac of American Politics 1976: The Senators, the Representatives and the Governors: Their Records and Election Results, Their States and Districts (1975); new edition every 2 years
• Davidson, Roger H., and Walter J. Oleszek, eds. (1998). Congress and Its Members, 6th ed. Washington DC: Congressional Quarterly. (Legislative procedure, informal practices, and member information)
• George B. Galloway; History of the House of Representatives 1962
• Hunt, Richard. (1998). "Using the Records of Congress in the Classroom," OAH Magazine of History, 12 (Summer): 34–37.
• MacNeil, Neil. Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives (1963)
• Ritchie, Donald A. (1997). "What Makes a Successful Congressional Investigation." OAH Magazine of History, 11 (Spring): 6–8.
• Julian E. Zelizer. On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1948-2000 (2004)
• Julian E. Zelizer. ed. The American Congress: The Building of Democracy (2004) comprehensive history by 40 scholars

First Party System 1792-1824

• Encyclopedia of the New American Nation, 1754–1829 ed. by Paul Finkelman (2005), 1600 pp.
• Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology (1978)
• Ben-Atar, Doron and Barbara B. Oberg, eds. Federalists Reconsidered (1999)
• Brown; Stuart Gerry. The First Republicans: Political Philosophy and Public Policy in the Party of Jefferson and Madison Syracuse University Press. (1954).
• Charles, Joseph. The Origins of the American Party System (1956)
• Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. Jeffersonian Republicans: The formation of Party Organization: 1789–1801 (1957)
• Elkins, Stanley and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism (1995)
• Risjord, Norman K. The Old Republicans: Southern Conservatism in the Age of Jefferson (1965)
• Sharp, James Roger. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis (1993)
• Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. (2005).
• Wiltse, Charles Maurice. The Jeffersonian Tradition in American Democracy (1935)

Second Party System 1828-1854

• Baker, Jean (1983). Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.
• Brown, Thomas (1985). Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party.
• Brown, David. "Jeffersonian Ideology And The Second Party System" Historian, Fall, 1999 v62#1 pp 17-44
• Foner, Eric (1970). Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War.
• Holt, Michael F. (1992). Political Parties and American Political Development: From the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln.
• Holt, Michael F. (1999). The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505544-6.
• Kruman, Marc W. (1992). "The Second Party System and the Transformation of Revolutionary Republicanism". Journal of the Early Republic. 12: 509–37. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• McCormick, Richard L. (1986). The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era.
• McCormick, Richard P. (1966). The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era.
• Remini, Robert V. (1991). Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31088-4.
• Remini, Robert V. (1997). Daniel Webster.
• Riddle, Donald W. (1948). Lincoln Runs for Congress.
• Silbey, Joel H. (1991). The American Political Nation, 1838–1893.
• Watson, Harry L. Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (1990) (ISBN 0-374-52196-4)
• Wilentz, Sean (2005). The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln.

Third Party System 1854-1896

• Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth 2 vol 1888
• Josephson, Matthew. The Politicos: 1865-1896 1938.
• Keller, Morton. Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America1977.
• Morgan, H. Wayne. From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877-1896 (1969)
• Potter, David. The Impending Crisis 1848–1861. (1976)
• Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Roosevelt-Taft Administration (1920), 8 vol.
• Wilson, Woodrow. (1885). Congressional Government. Houghton Mifflin.

• History of the United States Congress
• Political history of the United States