History of the United States House of Representatives
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The United States House of Representatives is one of two chambers of the United States Congress. The House, like its Senate counterpart, was created in the United States Constitution of 1787, but its origins lie in the years before the American Revolutionary War.
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[edit] The Continental Congresses
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of representatives of twelve of Great Britain's seventeen North 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 began 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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, the Gilded Age was marked by close balances in the House, with the parties alternating control.
[edit] 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. 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. The Republicans returned to a majority in the election of 1994, as part of the Republican Revolution that gave the party both houses and a majority of governorships that year.
Control of the House of Representatives returned to the Democrats as a result of the 2006 elections, as voters reacted to a series of scandals during a period of relative inactivity within Congress.
[edit] References
- American National Biography (1999), contains 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).
- 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
- 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.
- Wilson, Woodrow. (1885). Congressional Government. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
- 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).
