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200 Notable Days: Senate Stories, 1787 to 2002

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200 Notable Days: Senate Stories, 1787 to 2002 C H A P T E R I I I War and Reconstruction 1851-1880 July 4, 1851 Capitol Cornerstone Dedicated n the Fourth of July, 1851, sunny and unseasonably who had witnessed the placing of the building’s original corner- mild weather attracted large crowds to the Capitol’s stone 58 years earlier. O east front plaza. The festive multitudes looked Into a specially fashioned granite block—believed to forward to a day of parades, speeches, and fireworks. These events have been placed in the northeast corner of the new House were to celebrate the laying of a cornerstone as the beginning of a wing—Capitol Architect Thomas U. Walter set current newspa- major Capitol construction project. pers, documents, and $40.44 in new coins from the Philadelphia Five new states had entered mint. Using the same trowel that President George Washington the Union over the previous six had employed in setting the 1793 cornerstone, a Masonic official years. This expansion added to performed a sealing ceremony. the membership of Congress Then all eyes turned to the east front steps for a view of the and strained the capacities of the nation’s foremost orator, former Senator Daniel Webster. In his Capitol’s already overcrowded two-hour address, Webster compared the United States of that legislative chambers. day with the nation at the time of the first cornerstone laying. The recently enacted He also noted that he had placed a brief handwritten statement Compromise of 1850 had eased under the cornerstone. That statement included his message fears that the nation would to future generations. “If it shall be the will of God that this soon break apart over the issue structure shall fall from its base, that its foundation be upturned, of permitting slavery in states . Be it known that on this day the Union of the United States created from the nation’s western of America stands firm, that their Constitution still exists unim- The Capitol is shown under territories. The resulting burst of confidence in the future of the paired, and with all its original usefulness and glory; growing construction in Present Union led Congress to authorize an expansion of the Capitol. every day stronger and stronger in the affections of the great State of the Capitol at These extensions would provide new Senate and House chambers body of the American people, and attracting more and more the Washington, dated 1853. and much-needed committee rooms. admiration of the world.” Shortly before noon on July 4, 1851, a colorful parade An artillery salute and fireworks on the mall concluded this reached the Capitol. It included President Millard Fillmore, most jubilant Independence Day. several veterans of the Revolutionary War, and three individuals Further Reading U.S. Congress. Senate. History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics, by William C. Allen. 106th Congress, 2d sess., 2001. S. Doc. 106-29. 58 June 5, 1852 First Senator Nominated as Vice President hat an imposing name: Senator King. Throughout Although King and his presidential running mate the history of the Senate, four Kings have been Franklin Pierce won the 1852 election, deteriorating W senators. In June 1852, one of them—William health kept him from returning to the Senate Chamber Rufus Devane King of Alabama—became the first senator to in his new role. Describing himself as looking like a gain a major party’s nomination for the vice presidency. Several skeleton, the vice president-elect traveled to Cuba to months later, he won that office, but then gained the dark distinc- seek a cure for his tuberculosis. There, by special act of tion of becoming the only vice president to die before getting to Congress, he took his oath as the nation’s unlucky 13th exercise that position’s responsibilities. vice president. After several weeks, King returned to his When William King received his party’s vice-presidential home in Alabama, where he died just five weeks into his nomination on June 5, 1852, he had served in the Senate for term and without ever reaching the nation’s capital. more than 28 years, making him at that time the second longest- From William King to John Edwards in 2004, 25 serving senator in history. In those days, the Senate elected a incumbent Democratic and Republican senators have president pro tempore to serve only during the absence of the received their party’s vice-presidential nomination. vice president. King had been a frequent choice as president pro On four occasions, the candidates on both sides of the tempore. His Senate colleagues considered the warm-hearted ticket were senators, such as the 1928 race that pitted and even-tempered King to be an excellent presiding officer. Majority Leader Charles Curtis against Minority Leader They saw him as a man of sound judgment and rich experience Joseph Robinson. In the years since World War II, as who could be stern “when public interests or his personal honor the vice presidency has taken on wider responsibilities, required it.” At a time when the vice president’s only significant senators have been increasingly willing to accept their duty was to preside over the Senate, King seemed to be the ideal party’s nomination. Of the 25 senatorial candidates for man for the job. vice president since 1852, 13 won the office. But only two—Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson—continued directly to the White House, in each case because of the William R. King, senator from death of the incumbent president. North Carolina (1819-1844, 1848-1852), served as vice president of the United States from March 24, 1853 until his death on April 18, 1853. Further Reading U.S. Congress. Senate. Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789-1993, by Mark O. Hatfield with the Senate Historical Office. 104th Congress, 2d sess., 1997. S. Doc. 104-16. 59 June 29, 1852 Henry Clay Dies enry Clay died of tuberculosis in Washington on senator. With Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, the other June 29, 1852. The 75-year-old Kentucky statesman two members of the Senate’s so-called Great Triumvirate, Clay H had spent his lengthy public career setting records. excelled as an orator. Each of the three senators developed a He was the first of three senators who began their service under unique speaking style. Webster’s strength lay in his use of richly the constitutionally required age of 30. He won election as cultivated language. Calhoun succeeded on the power of his intel- Speaker of the House on his first day lect, where substance took precedence over style. Clay’s success in that body. He engineered the only grew not from language or substance, but from the personal Senate censure of a president. He built style of his voice and mannerisms. One biographer reported the Whig Party. He ran three times that he “was more a debater than orator. Invariably dramatic, if (1824, 1832, and 1844) as a candidate not flamboyant, he regularly mesmerized his audience with his for the presidency. For successfully histrionics.” Another wrote that Clay changed his “rhetorical forging compromise solutions to issues costumes” depending on the occasion and location of his speaking that threatened to shatter the Union, at engagements. his death he became the first person to Alternatively haughty and captivating, Clay charmed even lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. those who differed with his policies and principles. When he By today’s tenure standards, resigned from the Senate in 1842 to prepare for the 1844 presi- Clay’s service in the Senate was rela- dential election, he apologized for the “ardor of temperament” tively brief—a total of only 16 years that had led him, on occasion, “to use language offensive and This symbolic group portrait between his first term in 1806 and his death in 1852. Yet he susceptible of ungracious interpretation towards my brother eulogizing recent legislative dominated American political life for much of that period and senators.” Perhaps John C. Calhoun had some of that language efforts to preserve the Union— set a standard for what it means to be a successful United States in mind when, setting a memorable definition for the nature of notably the Compromise of friendship among senators, he observed, “I don’t like Clay. He is 1850—features Henry Clay of Kentucky, Daniel Webster a bad man, an imposter, a creator of wicked schemes. I wouldn’t of Massachusetts, and John C. speak to him, but, by God, I love him!” Calhoun of South Carolina. Further Reading Holt, Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Remini, Robert V. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991. 60 May 22, 1856 The Caning of Senator Charles Sumner n May 22, 1856, the “world’s greatest delibera- Senate had adjourned for the day, Brooks entered the Senate tive body” became a combat zone. In one of the Chamber, where he found Sumner busily attaching his postal O most dramatic and deeply ominous moments in the frank to copies of his “Crime Against Kansas” speech. Senate’s entire history, a member of the House of Representatives Moving quickly, Brooks slammed his metal-topped cane entered the Senate Chamber and savagely beat a senator into onto the unsuspecting Sumner’s head. As Brooks struck again unconsciousness. and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly The inspiration for this clash came three days earlier when about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts antislavery Republican, himself.
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