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What Today’s Congress Can Learn From the First Congress

5 minute read
Ideas

The deepening standoff between Congress and the president over the replacement of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, threatens to damage yet another key part of what Patrick Henry once called the “crazy machine” of government. Some might imagine that the nation’s founders would be appalled if they saw government so paralyzed. In fact, it might seem to them more like deja vu.

Even in its earliest years, Congress faced seemingly intractable problems that might have crippled our new government before it got underway. But unlike the majority of our present Congress, the members of the First Congress were determined to make government work—they were afraid of the consequences if it didn’t.

Today’s Congress might find a way out of the weeds by taking a few lessons from the First Congress, which met first in New York and later in Philadelphia, from 1789 to 1791 in an atmosphere hardly less conflicted than the present-day, and was charged with the daunting task of turning the parchment plan of the Constitution into a working government. Many Americans—including members of Congress—feared that it couldn’t be done.

The nascent United States was still less a reality than an idea. As James Madison, who dominated much of the First Congress debate, put it: “We are in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us.” The country was a shaky collection of sovereign states. The government had no reliable source of revenue. More than 50 different currencies were in circulation. There was no permanent capital. The British threatened the nation’s security from the north, and bellicose Indians did so from the west. Southerners were suspicious of northerners, westerners of easterners, New Englanders of everyone else. Quakers and others were demanding an end to slavery, while southerners threatened secession if government dared to tamper with their “peculiar institution.”

Astonishingly enough, however, the First Congress produced the most successful record of accomplishment by any single Congress in American history. It established the executive departments, the first revenue streams for the national government, approved the first amendments to the Constitution, adopted a program for paying the country’s debts, embraced the principles of capitalism as the underpinning of government financial policy, founded the first National Bank, established the national capital on the Potomac River, and enacted the first patent and copyright laws. Not least, it also established the Federal Court System and the Supreme Court, with John Jay as its first Chief Justice. They didn’t accomplish all this with a group hug; they did it through shameless deal-making, the kind of flip-flopping that is ritually decried by modern pundits, and the suspension of personal principles in order to get things done.

Present-day Americans might well wonder if today’s congressmen would have been up to the tasks faced by the First Congress. But we miss the point if we think that they were made of a different caliber, or that the problems that they faced were so different in kind. The members of the First Congress were not demigods. “We are beginning to forget that the patriots of former days were men like ourselves,” as Charles Francis Adams put it, in 1871. Along with Madison and other exceptional men such as Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, their ranks were filled mostly with men of average ability. What they had in common was that the great majority of them were professional politicians, mostly lawyers. Few were amateurs, and almost none were ideological zealots. They were men experienced in government, they understood the need for compromise, even on matters of deeply held principle, and they had the experience to do it. Although they differed deeply on many issues—on slavery, centralized government, regional interests, taxation—they wanted the government to succeed. They also believed in politics as a tool for national survival. After all, the right to be political was what they had fought the Revolutionary War for: It was the engine that made republican government work.

7 Times World Leaders Addressed Congress

Pope Francis in Washington DC
Pope Francis, addressed a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress with with Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Sept. 24, 2015, urging legislators to work together to solve problems and avoid polarizationJim Lo Scalzo—EPA
US-ISRAEL-CONGRESS-NETANYAHU
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, addressed Congress on March 3, 2015, urging a stop to the Iran nuclear talks. His policy positions are often controversial, but he enjoys a privileged position when it comes to visiting the legislature, this was his third visit to Congress.Mandel Ngan—AFP/Getty Images
King Hussein JOrdan Yitzhak Rabin Israel Joint Session Congress
Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime Minister, and King Hussein of Jordan shake hands following a joint address to Congress on July 26, 1994. In the second of two Arab-Israeli appearances, Jordan's leader appeared with Israel's prime minister to celebrate their peace treaty. The treaty, signed the next month, ended a 46-year state of war.David Rubinger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Joint Session of Congress Nelson Mandela South Africa
Nelson Mandela addresses Congress on June 26, 1990. At the time, he was president of the African National Congress. Apartheid was still law in South Africa and Mandela had only just been released from prison a few months before his appearance before lawmakers.Kevin Larkin—AFP/Getty Images
Joint Session of Congress Pakistian Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan, addresses Congress on June 7, 1989. She was the first woman elected to lead an Islamic state, and she remains Pakistan's only woman prime minister to date. After serving two non-consecutive terms, she was exiled to Dubai in 1999. She returned to Pakistan in 2007 to run for the office again, and was assassinated.J.Scott—AP
Joint Session of Congress Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister, addressed Congress on Feb. 20, 1985. She was the first female head of state to do so who was not a monarch.Bob Daugherty—AP
Anwar Sadat Menachim Begin Israel Egypt Joint Session Congress
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin respond to applause in the chambers of the U.S. House of Representatives during a joint session of Congress on Sept. 18, 1978. A day earlier, the leaders had signed the historic Camp David accords, which ended 30 years of war and led to a peace treaty between the two nations in 1979.AP
Iran Shah Reza Pahlavi Joint Session Congress
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, addressed Congress on April 12, 1962. He was deposed in 1979. No Iranian leader has addressed a joint session since.Aziz Rashki—AP

So what lessons might members of Congress draw from their predecessors in order to break today’s gridlock? Public faith in our democratic institutions is more important than any single issue. Attacks on the government in order to advance a partisan agenda undermine American values and betray both the spirit and the intent of the founders. In tough times it takes experienced professional politicians to shape the compromises that will always be necessary to keep the country together and move it forward. And that doesn’t just mean compromise on the small stuff: It sometimes means sacrificing deeply-held principles in hope of prevailing another day.

That there is politics involved in Supreme Court appointments is nothing new. But if ever there has been a moment when legislators are called upon to rise above the ideological fashions of the moment in order to preserve public respect for the court, and indeed for government itself, it is now. To attempt to sabotage the president’s clear constitutional power to appoint new members to the court would indeed make the founders cry.

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