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200 Notable Days: Senate Stories, 1787 to 2002

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200 Notable Days: Senate Stories, 1787 to 2002 200 Notable Days SENATE STORIE S • 1787 TO 2002 RICHARD A. BAKER, Senate Historian Prepared under the direction of Emily J. Reynolds, Secretary of the Senate U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTIN G O FFICE WA S HIN G T O N , D C Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Baker, rchard A. 200 notable days : Senate stores, 1787 to 2002 / rchard A. Baker. p. cm. Includes bblographcal references and ndex. ISBN 0-16-076331-2 (alk. paper) 1. Unted States. Congress. Senate—hstory. 2. Unted States. Congress. Senate—hstory—Anecdotes. 3. Legslatve bodes—Unted States—hstory. 4. Legslatve bodes—Unted States—hstory—Anecdotes. I. ttle. II. ttle: Two hundred notable days. JK1161.B313 2006 328.73’071—dc22 2006046631 For sale by the Superntendent of Documents, U.S. Government Prntng Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mal: Stop IDCC, Washngton, DC 20402-0001 ISBN 0-16-076331-2 CONTENTS C H A P T E R Introducton v I: FORMATIVE YEARS OF THE SENATE, 1787-1800 1 II: The “GoLDEN AGe” of the SenaTE, 1801-1850 29 III: WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION, 1851-1880 57 IV: ORIGINS OF THE MODERN SENATE, 1881-1920 85 V: ERA OF INVESTIGATIONS, 1921-1940 125 VI: WAR AND REORGANIZATION, 1941-1963 151 VII: THE MODERN SENATE, 1964-2002 191 Acknowledgements 218 Credts for Illustratons 219 Index 223 Introduction t s mpossble to walk through the busy corrdors of the Unted States Captol wthout hearng stores. The buldng’s marble and sandstone halls echo wth loud stores, whspered stores, stores told n I Englsh and n a multtude of other languages. Members of Congress tell stores to colleagues and consttuents. Red-jacketed Captol tour gudesC spend H Along P days T as E profess R onal storytellers, and serve as models for the many congressonal staff, seasonal nterns, and even legslatve pages called on to help ntroduce the Captol and Congress to the mllons who flock annually to Washngton, D. C. Knowng that ndvdual vstors may come to Captol Hill only once n a lfetme, these hosts rely on hstorcal vgnettes to enlven the exper- ence. Years later, many of those vstors wll recount to famly and frends, n letter-perfect detal, the stores they heard on ther first v st to the Unted States Captol. Over the past 30 years as Senate Historan, I have prepared countless hstorcal narratves to nform senators, staff, consttuents, and others who are curous about the tradtons, personaltes, and legslatve landmarks of the “World’s Greatest Delberatve Body.” More recently, I have reshaped many of these stores nto bref sketches for those who have a strong nterest n the subject but lack the tme to explore extended hstorcal essays. From hundreds of Senate anecdotes, I have selected the 200 that appear n ths volume. Each ncludes references for further readng. There are stores reflectng all areas of Senate actvty, from ts mportant consttutonal prerogatves—such as confirmaton of presdental nomnatons—to hstorcal mlestones of decdedly less mportance. An example of the latter occurred n 1930 as senators confronted the choce of contnung wth tradtonal operator- asssted telephones or acceptng a dauntng new product of communcatons technology—the dal phone. From the well-known and notorous, to the unusual and even whmscal, these stores are presented to enlghten, nspre, amuse, and nform. Each story amplfies the narratves that precede and follow t. Read collectvely, they provde clear mpressons about the forces, events, and personaltes that have shaped the Senate of the 21st century. Rchard A. Baker, Senate Historan v C H A P T E R I Formative Years of the Senate 1787-1800 June 7, 1787 State Houses Will Elect Senators ho should elect United States senators? When On June 7, 1787, the framers settled on a third option. They the framers of the Constitution convened in decided that state legislatures should select senators, without W Philadelphia in 1787, they struggled over three any involvement by the House of Representatives. The state possible answers to this question. legislatures, they argued, would provide the necessary “filtration” Under one plan, each state legislature would send a list to produce better senators—the elect of the elected. The framers of candidates to the U.S. House of Representatives so that the hoped that this arrangement would give state political leaders a House could make the selections. sense of participation, calming their fears about the dangers of a Yet this would have made the strong centralized government. The advantage of this plan, they Senate dependent upon the House, believed, was that all laws would be passed by a “dual constitu- ignoring James Madison’s advice ency” composed of a body elected directly by the people (or at that the best way to protect against least the white males entitled to vote for members of their state tyrannical governments was to legislatures) and one chosen by the elected representatives of balance the ambitions of one branch individual states. against those of a corresponding After several decades, as service in the Senate became more branch. Madison and his constitu- highly prized and political parties gained wider influence in tion-writing colleagues had in mind directing state legislative operations, this system of indirect elec- a system in which the Senate keeps tion began to break down. When separate parties controlled a an eye on the House, while the legislature’s two houses, deadlocks frequently deprived states of House watches the Senate. their full Senate representation. Fifty-five delegates met in Or perhaps the people could elect their own senators. This A plan for direct popular election lingered for decades. Philadelphia during the hot had the disadvantage, as far as city dwellers and those with Finally, a campaign to make governmental institutions more summer of 1787 to frame commercial interests were concerned, of favoring the nation’s responsive to the people propelled the measure to ratification in a new constitution for the larger agricultural population. Connecticut’s Roger Sherman 1913 as the Constitution’s 17th Amendment. United States. warned against direct election. “The people should have as little to do as may be about the government. They lack information and are constantly liable to be misled.” Further Reading Ahmar, Akhil Reed. America’s Constitution: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2005. Crook, Sara Brandes, and John R. Hibbing. “A Not-so-Distant Mirror: The 17th Amendment and Congressional Change.” American Political Science Review 91 (December 1997): 845-853. 2 June 19, 1787 Seven-Year Senate Terms? n June 19, 1787, the framers of the U.S. Constitution making this legislative body the focus of the Constitutional decided that the term of a senator should run for Convention’s Senate term debates. O seven years. They also tentatively agreed that House Framers either praised Maryland’s long terms for checking members should serve three years, that Congress should elect the the lower house’s populist impulses, or feared them for the president, that the president should serve for a term equal to that same reason. Some convention delegates believed that even of a senator, and that the Senate should appoint Supreme Court five-year U.S. Senate terms were too short to counteract the justices. Obviously, the framers had a lot of work ahead of them dangerous notions over the following three months to shape the delicately balanced likely to emerge Constitution we know today. from the House of Why a seven-year term for senators? Members of the existing Representatives. Congress under the Articles of Confederation—a unicameral James Madison body—served one-year terms. In deciding to create a bicameral first supported the congress to replace that moribund institution, the Constitution’s seven-year term but framers recognized that the Senate, chosen by state legislatures, then raised it to nine, would be a smaller body than the popularly elected House. so that one-third To avoid being unduly threatened by public opinion, or over- of the Senate seats whelmed by the House’s larger membership, senators would need could be renewed the protection of longer terms. every three years. The framers looked to the various state legislatures for Others thought that models. Although the majority of states set one-year terms for was too long. On June 26, the convention compromised on The framers of the both legislative bodies, several established longer tenures for the six-year term, with a two-year renewal cycle. None of this Constitution met in upper house members. Delaware had three-year terms with pleased New York Delegate Alexander Hamilton, who believed Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania State one-third of its senate’s nine members up for election each year. that the only protection for senators against the “amazing House, now known as New York and Virginia state senators served four-year terms. violence and turbulence of the democratic spirit” would be Independence Hall. Only Maryland’s aristocratic senate featured five-year terms, terms lasting a lifetime. Further Reading Haynes, George H. The Election of Senators. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1906. Madison, James. Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1984. Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Boston: Hillard, Gray, 1833. 3 July 16, 1787 Framers Reach a “Great Compromise” uly 16, 1987, began with a light breeze, a cloudless sky, By July 16, the convention had already set the minimum and a spirit of celebration. On that day, 200 senators and age for senators at 30 and the term length at 6 years, as opposed J representatives boarded a special train for a journey to to 25 for House members, with 2-year terms.
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