President's Room
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The President's Room is one of the most ornate rooms in the United States Capitol, richly adorned with fresco paintings by Italian-Greek artist Constantino Brumidi. The room was completed in 1859 as part of the Capitol's vast extension, which added new Senate and House wings and the new cast-iron dome.
History
When architects designed the new Senate wing in the early 1850s, senators directed them to include a President's Room, partly to symbolize the
In 1991, the room's historic furnishings were restored to the 1870s period by the Senate Commission on Art. The ceiling and walls were also restored to their original glowing colors and subtle details, and the mirrors were regilded. The room is only accessible on a guided tour with a Congressional staff member when the Senate is not in session.
During the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, Chief Justice William Rehnquist used the President's Room as an office. Chief Justice John Roberts used the room as an office during the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump.[2]
Use by presidents
The room was first used by President James Buchanan on March 4, 1861, at a time of great peril for the nation, after several southern states had left the Union and a month before the Civil War began. The country was still at war on March 3, 1865, when President Abraham Lincoln visited the President's Room to sign the usual flurry of end-of-session legislation. There he received word from Union General Ulysses S. Grant that Confederate General Robert E. Lee had requested a meeting to discuss "the subjects of controversy between the belligerents."
After consulting with Secretary of War
Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant the following month. A dozen years later, on March 3, 1877, President Grant used the President's Room to sign legislation enacted during the final days of the Forty-fourth Congress.
Woodrow Wilson had great plans for this room when he became president in 1913. The first Democratic president in sixteen years, he intended to use the President's Room as a working office to confer with congressional Democrats, who controlled both houses for the first time in eighteen years. At first, Wilson was a frequent caller, but he visited the Capitol less often as support for his legislative agenda faltered and his relations with Congress deteriorated. Republicans, who regained the Senate majority in 1918, resented Wilson's failure to confer with the Senate before negotiating the treaty ending World War I, as did many members of Wilson's own party, and the President suffered a humiliating defeat when the Senate rejected the Versailles Treaty on November 19, 1919, and again on March 19, 1920.
Wilson's last visit to the President's Room was particularly painful. While signing end-of-session legislation on March 4, 1921, he was informed by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.), who had led the fight against the treaty, that Congress had completed its work and awaited "further communication from you." His health broken by an exhausting campaign to secure popular support for the treaty, Wilson refused to look at his adversary, responding with a terse "I have no further communication."
On August 6, 1965, President
Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee had unsuccessfully urged President Richard Nixon to move his working offices to the Capitol, leaving the White House as the president's ceremonial and residential quarters. Likewise, Jimmy Carter had expressed intentions to use the signing room when he took office in 1977, but he never acted on them.
In the days following his November 1980 election victory, President-elect
Although presidents since Lyndon Johnson, have used the room for various purposes during their terms in office, Johnson was apparently the last president to sign legislation in the President's Room until
References
- ^ "President's Room Chandelier". Architect of the Capitol. Retrieved June 9, 2016.
- ^ "Dust Off the Impeachment Tables, a Senate Trial Is Underway". New York Times. Retrieved January 20, 2020.
Sources
- Fleming, Denna Frank (1930). The Treaty Veto of the American Senate. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
- Lodge, Henry Cabot (1902). "The Treaty-Making Power of the Senate". A Fighting Frigate and Other Essays and Addresses. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Senate.