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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2021
The early Speakers of the US House of Representatives, most historians and political scientists have agreed, aspired only to facilitate legislative business; the office served as an “impartial moderator,” its functions were “largely ceremonial,” and its occupants of no more consequence than a mere “traffic cop.” This article challenges that conclusion by presenting episodes from the tenures of four early Speakers—Jonathan Dayton, Theodore Sedgwick, Nathaniel Macon, and Joseph B. Varnum—to illustrate their contributions to debates that still occupy us today: the relationship between Congress and president; the scope of federal power; the extent of constitutional freedoms; and the functions and limitations of party government. At a moment when scholars are showing renewed interest in the historical mechanics of lawmaking, this article argues for reinserting the Speakership back into the heart of that process, where it has always belonged.
The author would like to thank Colin Jones, David Sim, the anonymous readers, and all the editorial staff at Journal of Policy History for their very welcome advice, encouragement, and support in the preparation of this article.
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13. Regional balance is the reason given for Muhlenberg’s election by Follett, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 65; Fuller, Speakers of the House, 23; and Bickford and Bowling, Birth of the Nation, 16. Legislative experience is preferred by Smith, William Henry, Speakers of the House of Representatives of the United States with Personal Sketches of the Several Speakers (1928; New York, 1971), 18Google Scholar. Both are mentioned in Jenkins and Stewart III, Fighting for the Speakership, 26–27; and Peters, American Speakership, 24–25. And Muhlenberg’s “clear penetrating voice” is cited in Remini, Robert V., The House: The History of the House of Representatives (New York, 2007), 15Google Scholar.
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29. Annals of Congress, 4th Cong., 1st sess., 30 April 1796, 1289–90, 1291–92. For Findley and his trunk, see “A Political Free Thinker” to “Mr. Scull,” Pittsburgh Gazette, 9 July 1796. If Dayton’s casting vote had been required on the appropriation too, Federalist were confident the Speaker would have delivered. For that, and also another report of Findley’s having “sneaked off,” see Jonathan Trumbull Jr. to Jeremiah Wadsworth, 2 May 1796, Correspondence with Congressmen, vol. 1: 1780–1801, Jonathan Trumbull Jr. Papers (Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford).
30. Jonathan Dayton to [no addressee], 19 Apil 1796, in Francis Childs and William Denning, Public Speculation Unfolded; in Sixteen Letters, Addressed to F. Childs and J. H. Lawrence, of New–York; by Jonathan Dayton, of New-Jersey; while Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States (New York, 1800), Letter No. XV, 18. The New York Republicans were Theodorus Bailey and Philip Van Cortlandt, who voted for the appropriation, and John Hathorn, Jonathan N. Havens, and Edward Livingston, who did not.
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34. Annals of Congress, 5th Cong., 2nd sess., 10 May 1798, 1679.
35. Ibid., 19 April 1798, 1473.
36. Ibid., 19, 21 June 1798, 1993, 2003, 2004.
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38. Annals of Congress, 5th Cong., 2nd sess., 12 February 1798, 1004.
39. Ibid., 20 Feb. 1798, 10451, 1053–54, 1056, 1057. Thomas Jefferson concluded that “the testimony bears hard on the Speaker.” Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 18 Febuary 179[8], Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-30-02-0077.
40. “Congressional Pugilists” (1798), cartoon, United States House of Representatives: History, Art, and Archives, https://history.house.gov/Collection/Listing/2004/2004-089-000/. On this incident, see also Freeman, Affairs of Honor, 174–75.
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42. Annals of Congress, 5th Cong., 3rd sess., 3 March 1799, 3054–55.
43. Jonathan Dayton to William C. C. Claiborne (draft), March [5], 1799, folder 36, Dayton Papers.
44. William C. C. Claiborne to Jonathan Dayton, 5 March 1799, folder 38, ibid.
45. Jonathan Dayton to William C. C. Claiborne (draft), March 6, 1799, folder 39, ibid. We have no record of whether the two men did resume their friendship, though Dayton’s elevation to the Senate in the Sixth Congress at least reduced the opportunities for further collision between them in the House.
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63. Ibid., 6th Cong., 2nd sess., 18, 20 February 1801, 1036, 1041–44; Follett, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 123–24.
64. Annals of Congress, 6th Cong., 2nd sess., 3 March 1801, 1079–80.
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74. Ibid., 170.
75. Ibid., 7 January 1807, 265.
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77. Annals of Congress, 9th Cong., 1st sess., 21 January 1806, 361.
78. Ibid., 8th Cong., 1st sess., 14 February 1804, 998.
79. Ibid., 9th Cong., 2nd sess., 17, 23, 29 December 1806, 172–73, 176–77, 200, 225 (quotation).
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94. John Randolph to Joseph H. Nicholson, 18 July 1801, Container 2, Joseph H. Nicholson Papers (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.).
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99. Annals of Congress, 9th Cong., 1st sess., 7 April 1806, 982.
100. Thomas Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, 5 July 1806, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-3958.
101. Samuel Smith to [no addressee], 14 December 1805, Letterbook 2 December 1805—18 April 1807, Reel 1, Samuel Smith Family Papers (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.).
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103. William Plumer to William Plumer Jr., 11 March 1806, Letterbook 1804–1807, Reel 3, William Plumer Papers (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.). The “Rubicon” expression was also used by one of Randolph’s friends. See Joseph Bryan to John Randolph, 23 April 1806, Reel 1, Bryan Family Papers (Library of Virginia, Richmond). On the Quids, see Carson, David A., “The Ground Called Quiddism: John Randolph’s War with the Jefferson Administration,” Journal of American Studies 20 (April 1986): 71–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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105. Entry for 9 December 1806, Plumer, William Plumer’s Memorandum of Proceedings in the United States Senate, 525.
106. Annals of Congress, 9th Cong., 2nd sess., 1 December 1806, 111. It was not until the Thirty-Seventh Congress (1861–63) that the rules were changed so that committee assignments were made for the entire life of a Congress rather than for a single session.
107. Nathaniel Macon to Joseph H. Nicholson, 1 December 1806, Container 3, Nicholson Papers.
108. Nathaniel Macon to Joseph H. Nicholson, 2 December 1806, Container 3, Nicholson Papers.
109. The whole charade is recounted in Annals of Congress, 9th Cong., 2nd sess., 5, 9 December 1806, 115, 130; entry for 9 December 1806, Plumer, William Plumer’s Memorandum of Proceedings in the United States Senate, 525–26; and John Rutledge to [no addressee], 10 December 1806, Reel 2, Rutledge Jr. Papers.
110. Memorandum of John Randolph, quoted in William Cabell Bruce, John Randolph of Roanoke, 1773–1833 (2 vols., New York, 1922), I, 307–8.
111. John George Jackson to James Madison, 11 October 1807, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/99-01-02-2213.
112. John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 27 October 1807, Founders Online, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-1613.
113. Nathaniel Macon to Joseph H. Nicholson, 19 November 1807, Container 4, Nicholson Papers.
114. Annals of Congress, 10th Cong., 1st sess., 26 October 1807, 782.
115. Ibid., 27, 28 October, 789–94 (quotation 791).
116. Joseph Bryan to John Randolph, 24 November 1807, Reel 1, Bryan Family Papers; Joseph B. Varnum to William Plumer, 6 December 1807, Letterbook 1791–1817, Reel 2, Plumer Papers.
117. Quincy, Life of Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, 116.
118. Entry for 7 February 1806, John Quincy Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848, ed. Charles Francis Adams (12 vols., Philadelphia, 1874–77), I, 403. For a similar view on Jefferson’s management of the legislature, see John Marshall to Alexander Hamilton, 1 January 1801, Founders Online, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-25-02-0154.
119. In addition to those cited previously, recent works on these subjects include Bird, Wendell, Press and Speech Under Assault: The Early Supreme Court Justices, the Sedition Act of 1798, and the Campaign Against Dissent (Oxford, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Estes, Todd, “Shaping the Politics of Public Opinion: Federalists and the Jay Treaty Debate,” Journal of the Early Republic 20 (Autumn 2000): 393–422Google Scholar; Marques, Leonardo, The United States and the Transatlantic Slave Trade to the Americas, 1776–1867 (New Haven, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mason, Matthew E., “Slavery Overshadowed: Congress Debates Prohibiting the Atlantic Slave Trade to the United States, 1806–1807,” Journal of the Early Republic 20 (Spring 2000): 59–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and innumerable biographies of Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, anyone seeking further illustration of this point need only compare the total number of published biographies for the first six Speakers (four) with that for the first six presidents.
120. Annals of Congress, 15th Cong., 1st sess., 1 December 1817, 399.
121. Swift, “The Start of Something New,” 22. Swift identifies only James K. Polk and Andrew Stevenson as strong leaders among the sixteen pre–Civil War Speakers that followed Henry Clay. Polk is also included in Cheney and Cheney, Kings of the Hill. No pre–Civil War examples apart from Clay feature in Bentley, Speakers of the House; Mooney, Mr. Speaker; and Strahan, Randall, Leading Representatives: The Agency of Leaders in the Politics of the U.S. House (Baltimore, 2007)Google Scholar.
122. Floor participation actually dropped after Clay departed the chair. Only Stevenson and Polk of the six succeeding Speakers addressed the House on policy-related matters at all, and then only infrequently compared to Dayton, Macon, and Varnum. See Strahan, Gunning, and Vining, “From Moderator to Leader,” 61–62.
123. On Clay’s efforts to buy the support of the [Washington] National Intelligencer see Ames, A History of the National Intelligencer, 109–11; and entry for July 28, 1822, Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VI, 47.
124. For Clay’s role the shaping of tariff policy, to take one example, see Peart, Daniel, Lobbyists and the Making of US Tariff Policy, 1816–1861 (Baltimore, 2018)Google Scholar.
125. Clay’s use of the appointing power is the subject of extensive discussion among political scientists as well as historians. This literature is summarized in Charles Stewart III, “Architect or Tactician? Henry Clay and the Institutional Development of the U.S. House of Representatives,” in Party, Process, and Political Change in Congress, Volume 2: Further New Perspectives on the History of Congress, ed. David W. Brady and Mathew D. McCubbins (Stanford, 2007).