If you recall, the last time you heard from me, I was celebrating March 4th, the 220th anniversary of the first day Congress did not show up to work.
Today I am celebrating April 1, the day that the House of Representatives achieved a quorum and got to work electing its officers. (Before anyone cracks jokes about the link between Congress and April 1st, please remember that The Speaker’s House receives funding from the federal government!)
Let’s review the facts. The U.S. Constitution mandated that Congress meet once a year and the final Continental Congress selected March 4th, 1789, as the opening day of the First Congress. This seems like a relatively simple plan, except the First Congress could not open session on the fourth of March because nearly everyone had trouble arriving at New York City, our nation’s capital at the time, by that day. Since a majority of members could not make it to the City by March 4th, the First Congress could not achieve quorum, and thus, it could not begin its work on opening day. In fact, Congress could not achieve quorum throughout the entire month of March.
You could just hear some of the newly-elected Representatives and Senators, chomping at the bit to begin debating and enacting legislation, crying, “My kingdom for a mass-transit bullet train!” (Likely, one of the more sensitive members chastised them with, “Your what? Kingdom? Don’t you think you want to rephrase that?”)
Frederick Muhlenberg was among those who would have traveled by horse or stage coach, but unlike most of his colleagues, he was present on March 4, 1789 for opening session, according to the Journal of the House of Representatives. Perhaps he discovered a less arduous traveling route or left earlier than the others or just had good luck with the weather. Representative Muhlenberg attended all the March non-session sessions, from March 4th to March 31st. Every day, a few more Congressmen would straggle into New York City’s Federal Hall, incrementally increasing the number of Representatives in attendance but always falling short of making quorum. For 24 days, the First Congress had to record these dreary words, almost Shakespearean in their ominous tone, in the Journal:
But a quorum of the whole number not being present,
The House adjourned until Monday morning eleven o’clock.
It was not until April 1st, 1789 that the House, which had 66 members, achieved quorum and immediately elected Representative Muhlenberg as the first Speaker of the House. So, instead of playing tricks on your co-workers, let’s ask them a trick question: What happened in our nation’s history 220 years ago today?
