23. French to Catherine French Wells, March 13, 1834, BBFFP.
24. French, diary entry, April 2, 1837, Witness, 71–72.
25. Samuel Kernell and Gray C. Jacobson, “Congress and the Presidency as News in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Politics 49 (November 1987): 1016–35. According to Elaine Swift, in the second session of the Seventeenth Congress (1822–23), Washington’s Intelligencer devoted 33 percent of its column inches to the House and 10 percent to the Senate, while Baltimore’s Niles’ Weekly Register devoted 32 percent and 8 percent, respectively. The numbers were similar in the second session of the Twentieth Congress (1828–29) and the second session of the Twenty-third Congress (1834–35), though eventually coverage of the House and Senate evened out. Swift, The Making of an American Senate: Reconstitutive Change in Congress, 1787–1841 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1996), 193–94.
26. Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, January 19, 1848, in Life of Alexander H. Stephens, ed. Richard Malcolm Johnston and William Hand Browne (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1878), 183–84. Johnston and Browne misdate this letter to 1845. For accounts of the speech, see the Baltimore Sun, January 19, 1848, and a particularly lively account in The New York Herald, January 21, 1848.
27. Newspaper clipping in scrapbook, Fisher Family Papers, UNC. On antebellum oratory, see Kenneth Cmiel, Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley: University of California, 1990); Barnet Baskerville, “19th Century Burlesque of Oratory,” American Quarterly 20, no. 4 (Winter 1968): 726–43; Edward G. Parker, The Golden Age of American Oratory (Boston: Whittemore, Niles, and Hall, 1857); James Perrin Warren, Culture of Eloquence: Oratory and Reform in Antebellum America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999).
28. French, diary entry, May 11, 1838, Witness, 82.
29. Ibid., December 2, 1836, 68; French, “Congressional Reminiscences,” National Freemason (Washington) 2 (July 1863), 23. See also French, diary entry, December 30, 1833, Witness, 35.
30. Hale to Lucy Hale, January 8, 1844, John Parker Hale Papers, NHHS.
31. Globe, 27th Cong., 3rd Sess., February 27, 1843, 357, 359. Benton was refuting a request to adjourn. For couch-sleeping in the House, see for example Adams, diary entry, May 31, 1838, Memoirs, 9:551.
32. French, diary entry, April 2, 1837, Witness, 72. See also French’s almost identical Chicago Democrat column, dated September 29, 1837. For an evening session that follows this precise script, see Adams, diary entry, June 7, 1836, Memoirs, 294–95.
33. For a sense of the comings and goings, see the House Journal, 23rd Cong., 2nd Sess., March 3, 1835, 516–32 passim. At the start of the evening, roughly 200 men were voting; when the Democratic power play began, roughly 110 men were voting.
34. French to Harriette French, March 8, 1835, BBFFP.
35. Globe, 23rd Cong., 2nd Sess., March 3, 1835, 332.
36. Longtime Senate staffer Isaac Bassett noted that “an all night session is never a veary [sic] creditable affair.” Isaac Bassett Papers, Office of the Curator of the United States Senate, 5c134–37. My thanks to Scott Strong for this document.
37. Globe, 23rd Cong., 2nd Sess., March 3, 1835, 331–32.
38. National Era, January 28, 1847; The Huntress, August 8, 1846.
39. National Era, January 7, 1847.
40. Darryl Gonzalez, The Children Who Ran for Congress: A History of Congressional Pages (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger, 2010), 15. See also Harriet Prescott Spofford, “The Messenger Boys at the Capitol,” Harper’s Young People 63 (January 11, 1881), 162–63.
41. French, diary entry, November 18, 1841, Witness, 129.
42. The seating was changed in 1832 and changed back in 1838. A cloth ceiling was put up to discourage echoes, but it blocked out light and was removed. William Charles Allen, History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2000), 180. On the acoustics, see John Morrill Bryan, Robert Mills: America’s First Architect (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001), 217; H. Doc. 108–240, Glenn Brown’s History of the United States Capitol, 210–13.
43. The Western Literary Messenger: A Family Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, Morality and General Intelligence (Buffalo, NY) 12 (1849), 223. John Wentworth (D-IL) wrote this piece.
44. French to Harriette French, April 6, 1840, BBFFP.
45. House Report No. 1980, “Sanitary Condition of the Capitol Building,” 53rd Cong., 3rd Sess., March 2, 1895, 16. For a similar (but less juicy) earlier description, see House Report No. 65, “Ventilation of the Hall of the House of Representatives,” 40th Cong., 2nd Sess., June 20, 1868, 2.
46. Ibid., 1; Forrest Maltzman, Lee Sigelman, and Sarah Binder, “Leaving Office Feet First: Death in Congress,” Political Science and Politics 29 (December 1996): 665–71, 670, note 7. (This article contains more puns and euphemisms about death than I knew existed.)
47. House Report No. 116, “Ventilation of the Hall of the House of Representatives,” 45th Cong., 3d Sess., February 21, 1879, 3, 8, 18.
48. French to Henry Flagg French, December 18, 1857, BBFFP.
49. House Report No. 1970, “Method of Heating, Lighting, and Ventilating the Hall of the House of Representatives,” 48th Cong., 1st Sess., June 24, 1884, 11.
50. Globe, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., March 14, 1840, 268.
51. Adams, diary entry, January 3, 1840, Memoirs, 10:183. For a similar incident, see “Report … Foote Benton,” 119.
52. Adams, Memoirs, December 13, 1837, 9:450–51. In a speech in Massachusetts, Fletcher had suggested that the Democrats were under the influence of President Jackson. Adams explained that to defend himself, Fletcher would have had to declare his attackers liars (given them the “lie direct”), almost certainly resulting in violence. The Globe doesn’t include the “coarse and abusive” language that upset Fletcher. Globe, 25th Cong., 2nd Sess., December 13, 1837, 21–24. See also “Mr. Fletcher’s Address to His Constituents, Relative to the Speech Delivered by Him in Faneuil Hall,” December 23, 1837; Charles Francis Adams, diary entry, December 18 and 19, 1837, in Marc Friedlaender et al., Diary of Charles Francis Adams (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 7:363–64.
53. French, diary entry, November 23, 1835, Witness, 61. For accounts of the activities of senators on the floor, see Grace Greenwood, Greenwood Leaves: A Collection of Sketches and Letters (Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1852), 314; Windle, Life in Washington, 31.
54. Anson Burlingame to his wife, July 13, 1856, Anson Burlingame and Family Papers, LC; Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., January 21, 1859, 507.
55. Susan Hill to her children, February 28[?], 1832, Isaac Hill Papers, NHHS.
56. Adams, Memoirs, February 20, 1832, 8:476–77. See also Robert Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (New York: Norton, 1991), 383; Register of Debates, 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., February 6, 1832, 296–97.
57. There were occasional senatorial slugfests, as in 1860, when Thomas Clingman (D-NC) and Clement Claiborne Clay (D-AL) exchanged blows in the chamber over charges surrounding the presidential campaign of Stephen Douglas (D-IL); Clingman ended up with a black eye. Chicago Press and Tribune, March 31, April 6, 1860; NYT, April 5, 1860.
58. See esp. Jacob, King of the Lobby, 19–20.
59. See esp. George B. Galloway, History of the House of Representatives (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1961), 64–67; Nelson W. Polsby, “The Institutionalization of the House of Representatives,” American Political Science Review 62 (March 1968): 144–68. On the impact of committees, see Joseph Cooper, Congress and Its Committe
es: A Historical Approach to the Role of Committees in the Legislative Process (New York: Garland, 1988); idem., “The Origins of Standing Committees and the Development of the Modern House,” (Houston, Tex.: Rice University Press, 1970); Gerald Gamm and Kenneth Shepsle, “Emergence of Legislative Institutions: Standing Committees in the House and Senate, 1810–1825,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 14, no. 1 (February 1989): 39–66; Thompson, The “Spider Web,” 93–96.
60. Globe, 23rd Cong., 1st Sess., December 10, 1833, 19. On antebellum versus modern committees, see Jeffrey A. Jenkins and Charles Stewart III, Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013), 38–39.
61. Senate Doc. 100–20, 100th Cong., 1st Sess., Wendy Wolff, ed., Robert C. Byrd, The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate, 2 vols. (Washington: GPO, 1991), 2:220–37; French, diary entry, December 25, 1851, Witness, 224. When Charles Sumner took over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1861, he had the liquor removed. My thanks to James Shinn for this information.
62. Globe, 26th Cong., 2nd Sess., February 13, 1841, 173.
63. There were many controversies about minority members in committees being unable to influence the final version of a report as doctored by the majority. See for example ibid., 26th Cong., 1st Sess., March 14, 1840, 268–69.
64. Ibid., 26th Cong., 1st Sess., May 14, 1840, 397.
65. Ibid., March 11 and 14, 1840, 260–61, 268. Daniel Jenifer (W-MD) ranted about Democratic bullying on March 11, 12, 13, and 14; see ibid., 260, 263, 267–68. The two bullied Whigs were Millard Fillmore of New York and Truman Smith of Connecticut. The committee had been investigating the outcome of a contested New Jersey election; Democrats forced through their preferences in committee, then silenced Whig objectors on the floor by calling for an immediate vote. See also “Address and Suppressed Report of the Minority of the Committee on Elections on the New Jersey Case” (Washington: Madisonian Office, 1840); Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1840.
66. Globe, 26th Cong., 1st session, March 11 and 14, 1840, 260–61, 268.
67. Ibid., 25th Cong., 1st Sess., September 21 and 22, 1837, 46–78, 52, 56. Wise mentioned the episode to encourage the appointment of a select committee by ballot rather than by the Democratic Speaker James K. Polk. Outraged at a lie-filled majority report, a minority committee member had threatened to pummel whoever dared present the report to the House. The committee in question was to investigate the cause and conduct of the Florida War.
68. The New World (N.Y.), January 8, 1842, 29. Whitney denied that his hand was in his pocket, claiming that he needed both hands to defend himself. See [“The affair between Mr. Peyton, and myself”], undated, HR 24A-D24.1, National Archives, Washington, D.C. The same file contains a journal with Whitney’s answers to the committee’s interrogatories pasted inside; not allowed to speak during part of his testimony (because Peyton was so disgusted with him), he had to record his testimony on pieces of paper. On the Whitney affair generally, see John M. McFaul and Frank Otto Gatell, “The Outcast Insider: Reuben M. Whitney and the Bank War,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 91 (April 1967): 115–44. For the House investigation that exposed the Whitney affair, see Register of Debates, 24th Cong., 1st Sess., February 15–20, 1837, 1767–1878, 157–89 appendix; Globe, 24th Cong., 2nd Sess., February 15–20, 1837, 184–91, 222–39.
69. French to Henry Flagg French, January 31, 1839, BBFFP.
70. Globe, 25th Cong., 1st Sess., September 22, 1837, 56.
71. Ibid., 40th Cong., 1st Sess., March 8, 1867, 30.
72. Ibid., 30–31; “The National Metropolis,” De Bow’s Review 1 (April 1859): 389.
73. Hinds’ Precedents of the House of Representatives of the United States, 5 vols. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1907), vol. 5, chapter 147, section 7244, note 4. By 1867, both “holes” had vanished and there was seemingly less liquor in committee-rooms—or so congressmen claimed while speaking on the floor before the press. See Globe, 40th Cong., 1st Sess., March 8, 1867, 30–32.
74. Marryat, A Diary in America, 1:166.
75. Robert V. Remini, Daniel Webster: The Man and His Times (New York: Norton, 1997), 287.
76. Globe, 40th Cong., 1st Sess., March 8, 1867, 30.
77. Senate Report 475, 43rd Cong., 1st Sess., “Report of the Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expenses of the Senate,” June 22, 1874, 3. The “syrup” was bought with contingent funds in 1809–10.
78. Alexandria Herald, July 27, 1818; City of Washington Gazette, February 6, 1821. The Herald article blends material from Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard” (January 13, 1737, Pennsylvania Gazette) and Mason Locke Weems’s The Drunkard’s Looking Glass (printed for the author, 1818).
79. See generally Ian R. Tyrell, Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800–1860 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979); W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
80. The antebellum Congressional Temperance Society was formed in 1833, faltered in 1834, and had a brief revival in 1842. “Congressional Temperance Society,” in Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: A Global Encyclopedia, ed. Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrrell, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 2003), 1:171–72; Keith L. Springer, “Cold Water Congressmen: The Congressional Temperance Society Before the Civil War,” Historian 27, no. 4 (1965): 498–515.
81. In 1837, both houses passed Joint Rule 19: “No spirituous liquors shall be offered for sale, or exhibited within the Capitol, or on the public grounds adjacent thereto.” In 1844 in the House and 1867 in the Senate, attempts were made to strengthen it by precisely defining “spirituous liquors” and listing every Capitol space where drinking was banned. See Hinds’ Precedents, vol. 5, chapter 147, section 7244, note 4 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1907), 5:1090–91, note 3. See also Cincinnati Weekly Herald and Philanthropist, March 6, 1844, which approved of the amendment banning all intoxicating liquors (rather than “only spirituous liquors,” meaning hard liquor).
82. Hinds’ Precedents, vol. 5, chapter 147, section 7244, note 4.
83. Republicans tried to dry out the Capitol in the 1860s but weren’t entirely successful, and the booze flowed on. For twentieth-century commentary on drunken congressmen, see Watson’s Magazine 5 (September 1906): 341–42; Raymond Clapper, “Happy Days,” American Mercury Magazine (January 1927): 25–29; “The Committee Era: 1910s–1960s,” introduction, American Congress, ed. Zelizer, 313; Robert T. Mann, Legacy to Power: Senator Russell Long of Louisiana (New York: Paragon House, 2003 ed.), 287–88; Ron F. Smith, Groping for Ethics in Journalism (Ames: Iowa State University, 2003), 226–29.
84. Globe, 40th Cong., 1st Sess., March 8, 1867, 30.
85. Ibid., 24th Cong., 1st Sess., January 22, 1836, 761 appendix.
86. Ibid., 25th Cong., 2nd Sess., April 5, 1838, 284. The topic of debate was dueling in Congress, sparked by the death of Representative Jonathan Cilley (D-ME) in a duel at the hands of Representative William Graves (W-KY). On this duel generally, see chapter 3.
87. In the new House chamber that opened in 1857, a maximum of 1,250 people could fit into the galleries. 48th Cong., 1st Sess., Report No. 1970, “Method of Heating, Lighting, and Ventilating the Hall of the House of Representatives,” June 24, 1884, 18.
88. John Parker Hale to Lucy Hale, January 2, 1845, John Parker Hale Papers, NHHS.
89. French, diary entry, May 24, 1838, Witness, 86.
90. Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel, 3 vols. (London: Saunders and Otley, 1838), 1:300.
91. “Scenic and Characteristic
Outlines of Congress, I,” The National Magazine and Republican Review 1 (January 1839): 83–84. For more head-shots, see “A Peep at Washington,” The Knickerbocker; or New York Monthly Magazine, June 1834, 443; Greenwood, Greenwood Leaves, 326; and the ultimate head-ography, George Combe, Notes on the United States of North America, During a Phrenological Visit in 1838–39–40, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Maclachlan, Stewart, 1841), 2:95–98.
92. “A Peep at Washington,” The Knickerbocker, June 1834, 443.
93. “The Desultory Speculator No. IV. Sketches,” Southern Literary Messenger 5 (May 1839): 316–18.
94. Dickens, American Notes, 286–93.
95. On phrenology generally, see Charles Colbert, A Measure of Perfection: Phrenology and the Fine Arts in America (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1998).
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