History of the United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, commonly known as the
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The
Articles of Confederation and new Constitution
Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation 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.
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. The Constitution was ratified by the end of 1788, and its full implementation was set for March 4, 1789.
18th century
The House of Representatives began work on April 1, 1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time,
In the 1st United States Congress, Frederick Muhlenberg, a Pennsylvania Lutheran minister and politician, was the first Speaker of the House.
19th century
The early 19th century was marked by the assertion of Congress' gradual independence from the Presidency starting from the presidency of James Madison and onward. The House became the preeminent institution in Congress, originally overshadowing the Senate. For most of the first half of the 19th 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. In 1825, new Speaker of the House Henry Clay also officially announced that he and his followers would separate from Andrew Jackson and form the National Republican Party. Clay lost to Jackson in the 1832 presidential election and moved to the Senate.
During the Civil War, the key policy-maker in Congress was Thaddeus Stevens, as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and as Republican floor leader. He took charge of major legislation that funded the war effort and revolutionized the nation's economic policies regarding tariffs, bonds, income and excise taxes, national banks, suppression of money issued by state banks, greenback currency, and western railroad land grants.[6]
Stevens was also one of the major policymakers regarding Reconstruction, and obtained a House vote of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson (who was acquitted by the Senate in 1868). Hans Trefousse, his leading biographer, concludes that Stevens "was one of the most influential representatives ever to serve in Congress. [He dominated] the House with his wit, knowledge of parliamentary law, and sheer willpower, even though he was often unable to prevail."[7] Historiographical views of Stevens have dramatically shifted over the years, from the early 20th-century view of Stevens and the Radical Republicans as tools of big business and motivated by hatred of the white South, to the perspective of the neoabolitionists of the 1950s and afterwards, who applauded their efforts to give equal rights to the freed slaves.
The Democrats were a weak minority from 1861 to 1874, then made a
Between 1860 and 1920 the average tenure of House members doubled from four to eight years. This number reflects the growth of "congressional careerism." The House began to develop a more stable culture, sessions of the House became longer, and members of the House began to specialize in specific areas of policy. Power was decentralized from the
20th and 21st-centuries
The early 20th 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. In particular, committee chairmen remained particularly strong in both houses until the rules reforms of the 1970s.
On November 7, 1916, Jeannette Rankin was elected to Montana's at-large seat in the House of Representatives, becoming the first female member of Congress.[9] In 1973 Speaker of the House Carl Albert appointed Felda Looper as the first female page in the House of Representatives.[10]
After the beginning of the
The Democrats gained 30 seats in the 2006 elections, regaining control and electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker. They strengthened their control during the 2008 elections, gaining an additional 21 seats. However, the Republicans soon erased those gains after gaining 63 seats in the 2010 elections, the largest seat change for any election since 1948. Republican control of the house remained until the 2018 elections.
Number of Representatives
Congress has the power to regulate the size of the House of Representatives, and the size of the House has varied through the years in response to the admission of new states, reapportionment following a census, and the Civil War.[11]
Year | 1789 | 1791 | 1793 | 1803 | 1813 | 1815 | 1817 | 1819 | 1821 | 1833 | 1835 | 1843 | 1845 | 1847 | 1851 | 1853 | 1857 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Representatives | 65 | 69 | 105 | 141 | 182 | 183 | 185 | 187 | 213 | 240 | 242 | 223 | 225 | 227 | 233 | 234 | 237 |
Year | 1861 | 1863 | 1865 | 1867 | 1869 | 1873 | 1883 | 1889 | 1891 | 1893 | 1901 | 1911 | 1913 | 1959 | 1961 | 1963 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Representatives | 178 | 183 | 191 | 193 | 243 | 293 | 325 | 330 | 333 | 357 | 386 | 391 | 435 | 435 | 435 | 435 |
In 1911, Congress passed the Apportionment Act of 1911, also known as 'Public Law 62-5', which capped the size of the United States House of Representatives at 435 seats.[12][13] Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, and Hawaii were each granted one representative when they first entered the union. During the next reapportionment, the size of the House was again limited to 435 seats, with the seats divided among the states by population, with each state getting at least one seat.
By the 2000s, the U.S. population had more than tripled since the 1911 expansion of the House to its current 435 seats; accordingly, proposals began to be made by commentators such as
References
- ^ United States House of Representatives
- ^ Lampi, Philip. "House of Representatives, 1787–1789". Tufts Digital Library, Tufts University.
- ^ Bickford, Charlene Bangs, and Bowling, Kenneth R., Birth of the nation: the First Federal Congress, 1789–1791 (Rowman & Littlefield, 1989)
- ^ Christman, Margaret C.S., The First Federal Congress, 1789–1791 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.)
- ^ "Party In Power – Congress and Presidency – A Visual Guide To The Balance of Power In Congress, 1945–2008". Uspolitics.about.com. Archived from the original on November 1, 2012. Retrieved September 17, 2012.
- ISBN 9780674059658.
- ISBN 9780313258626.
- JSTOR 2110731.
- ^ "Jeannette Rankin". Women in Congress. Archived from the original on November 3, 2010. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
- ^ "Lincoln Evening Journal from Lincoln, Nebraska · Page 103". Newspapers.com. June 17, 1973. Archived from the original on February 15, 2015. Retrieved February 15, 2015.
- ISBN 0-690-01101-6.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on August 13, 2011. Retrieved September 12, 2011.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ America has outgrown the House of Representatives Archived February 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Matthew Cossolotto, November 21, 2001.
Further reading
- American National Biography (1999), contains biographies of all politicians no longer alive.
- Alexander, De Alva Stanwood. History and Procedure of the House of Representatives (1916) Alva Stanwood Alexander&dcontributors=De%20Alva%20Stanwood%20Alexander online edition
- 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).
- 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)
- Roger H. Davidson, Susan Webb Hammond, Raymond W. Smock, eds; Masters of the House: Congressional Leadership over Two Centuries Westview Press, 1998 online edition
- Galloway; George B. History of the House of Representatives (1962) online edition
- Green, Matthew N. The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership (Yale University Press; 2010) 292 pages; Examines partisan pressures and other factors that shaped the leadership of the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; focuses on the period since 1940.
- 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) popular history by a journalist
- Remini, Robert V. The House: The History of the House of Representatives (2006) standard scholarly history
- Ritchie, Donald A. (1997). "What Makes a Successful Congressional Investigation." OAH Magazine of History, 11 (Spring): 6–8.
- Wilson, Woodrow. (1885). Congressional Government.
- Zelizer, Julian E. On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and its Consequences, 1948–2000 (2004)
- Zelizer, Julian E. ed. The American Congress: The Building of Democracy (2004), essays by leading scholars
- Zelizer, Julian E. Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party (Penguin, 2020), focus on Jim Wright and Newt Gingrich in 1990s.