Primary Sources: U.S. Politics

Few sources document the speakership of Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, who served as Speaker in the Seventh (1801–03), Eighth (1803–05), and Ninth (1805–07) Congresses. Even the few biographies of Macon that were written, all in the nineteenth century, cover his speakership within one single page.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
In 1927, Charles Fairman, a famed art curator and historian, collected a history of the art in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. and an examination of the lives of the artists who made that art. In Chapter XV, “Speakers of the House of Representatives Collection of Their Portraits Commenced,” Fairman examined the collection held at the time of portraits of just a few of the men who had served as Speaker of the House until that time.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
Following the election in November 1899 of Rep. David Bremner Henderson of Iowa to be Speaker of the House, succeeding the retiring Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed, Rep. Charles A. Boutelle, Republican of Maine, penned a biography of the new Speaker which appeared in Munsey’s Magazine, at the time one of the most influential journals of news and opinion

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
Following a vote by the House of Representatives on a motion by Rep. George Norris, Republican of Nebraska, that the Speaker be stripped of the power to name members of House committees, Speaker Joseph G. Cannon took to the Speaker’s chair and offered his resignation to the full House.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
By 1910, Speaker Joseph G. Cannon ruled the House with an iron hand. Working on the rules established by his predecessors, Republicans and Democrats, Cannon only allowed those representatives who he wished to recognize to speak on the floor of the House. By March of that year, Democrats, in the minority, as well as a large bloc of Republicans, desired to break Cannon’s hold on the power of the speakership.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
After Speaker Newt Gingrich resigned his office, and his successor Rep. Bob Livingston stepped aside after allegations of an extramarital affair came to light, the Republicans in the House voted to make their Whip, Rep. J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, to serve as Speaker. Hastert won 220 votes to 205 for Rep. Richard Gephardt, Democrat of Missouri. Hastert was then ushered to the Speaker’s chair and sworn in to office.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
Following the disastrous assault by abolitionist John Brown on the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia), which led to Brown’s capture - along with several of his compatriots - and subsequent execution, the US House met to open the second session for the Thirty-fifth Congress on 5 December 1859 to choose a Speaker.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
The following letter was penned by John Rutledge Jr. (1766–1819), Federalist representative from South Carolina, who was a chief contender for Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Sixth Congress (1799–1801), but lost on the second ballot to Theodore Sedgwick, Federalist of Massachusetts.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
On June 4, 1800, Speaker of the House Theodore Sedgwick wrote the following letter to his constituents, after it had been announced that he would not seek re-election to his seat in Congress and was retiring from public life.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
Rep. Edwin Barber Morgan (1806–1881) was elected as a Whig in the Thirty-third Congress (1853–55), but in the Thirty-fourth Congress, and until he declined renomination in 1858, Morgan changed his party affiliation to that of a Republican. In the following letters, penned from Washington, D.C. during the fight to elect a Speaker of the House of Representatives that lasted from 3 December 1855 until 2 February 1856, Morgan outlines to his family, including his mother and brothers, the machinations and numerous ballots that swung the election back and forth until Nathaniel P. Banks, Republican of Massachusetts, was finally elected on the record 103rd ballot.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
In 1856, Speaker Nathaniel Banks worked to get Free Soilers, those former Whigs who fought for the end of slavery, to cross over from their third party - known simply as the Free Soil Party - to the Republican Party, founded in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin, and establish one entity as the anti-slavery party, instead of having anti-slavery votes being spread between several national tickets. In the following two pieces of correspondence, Banks relates how he worked during the presidential campaign that year to get Free Soilers to support and vote for John C. Frémont, the Republican’s first presidential candidate.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
Rep. Schuyler Colfax, Republican of Indiana, who himself was later to serve as Speaker of the House, penned this letter in February 1856 on the election of Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts to the speakership:

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
In 1872 and 1883, years after he had left the service of the US Congress, where he had served as Speaker (1847–49), former Rep. Robert Charles Winthrop of Massachusetts wrote two separate and important letters to his close friend Charles Deane, a merchant in Massachusetts.

From Encyclopedia of Intelligence & Counterintelligence
The 9/11 Commission was formed in late 2002 by Congressional legislation and presidential signature to investigate the events leading to September 11. The independent bipartisan panel was comprised of five Democrats and five Republicans and was chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas H. Keane.

From Supreme Decisions: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact
WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law

From Immigration and Asylum from 1900 to Present

From Immigration and Asylum from 1900 to Present

From Immigration and Asylum from 1900 to Present

From Immigration and Asylum from 1900 to Present

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
After being named as one of the negotiators of a truce with Great Britain over the War of 1812 - a conflict which he staunchly supported - Speaker of the House Henry Clay resigned as Speaker, allowing for the first speakership change since the start of the Twelfth Congress in 1811. The House then moved to elect his successor: Langdon Cheves of South Carolina.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
When the Twentieth Congress (1827–29) convened in Washington, D.C. on 3 December 1827, the forces who backed President Andrew Jackson controlled the House, 113 seats to 100 for those who supported former President John Quincy Adams, defeated for re-election by Jackson in the contentious 1828 presidential election.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
On 22 December 1835, the House of Representatives resumed debate over a petition, presented by Rep. George Nixon Briggs, anti-Jacksonian of Massachusetts, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. A number of congressmen debated the subject, including John W. Jones, Democrat of Virginia, who later served as Speaker of the House in the Twenty-eighth Congress (1843–45).

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
James Lawrence Orr, Democrat of South Carolina, took to the floor of the US House of Representatives on 8 May 1850 to denounce those abolitionists in the North who were arguing that slavery should be outlawed by Congress. Using statistics and other devices, Orr - who later served as Speaker of the House in the Thirty-fifth Congress (1857–59) - called those who opposed slavery “fanatics” and told the House that in his estimation any attempt to do away with slavery would end in “disunion.” The following, from a published version of the speech which was printed that same year, is the complete speech by Orr.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
Following the death of Speaker Michael C. Kerr, the members of the Forty-fourth Congress reconvened in Washington on 4 December 1876 and elected Samuel J. Randall, Democrat of Pennsylvania, as the Speaker.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
By 1910, Speaker Joseph G. Cannon ruled the House with an iron hand. Working on the rules established by his predecessors, Republicans and Democrats, Cannon only allowed those representatives who he wished to recognize to speak on the floor of the House. By March of that year, Democrats, in the minority, as well as a large bloc of Republicans, desired to break Cannon’s hold on the power of the speakership.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
Following his election as Speaker, Rep. Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts took to the podium near the Speaker’s chair and, before being sworn in, delivered some remarks to the assembled members of Congress.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
On 7 December 1925, Nicholas Longworth, Republican of Massachusetts, was elected Speaker of the House to succeed Frederick H. Gillett, who had been elected to a seat in the US Senate. Longworth was elected, 229 votes to 186 for Democrat Finis J. Garrett of Tennessee, with Progressive Republicans giving 13 votes to Rep. Henry A. Cooper, Republican of Wisconsin.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
In 1987, House Majority Leader James Wright, Democrat of Texas, was elected Speaker, succeeding Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, who had not run for re-election to the 100th Congress (1987–89). Almost from the start of his speakership, Wright deviated from O’Neill’s cautious leadership, pushing through legislation without input from the minority Republicans, and leading a charge against the foreign policy of the Reagan administration in areas that Speakers usually did not venture into.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
In 1994, the Republicans took control of the US House of Representatives for the first time in 50 years. Rep. Newt Gingrich, who guided the party to its stunning electoral victory, was elected Speaker, the first Republican to hold that post since Joseph Martin, Jr., who held it in the Eighty-third Congress (1953–55).

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
Following the resignation of Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Republicans who held the majority in the House elected Bob Livingston of Louisiana as the next Speaker. This came at the height of the impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton, who had perjured himself in a federal lawsuit in which he was sued for sexual harassment by a former Arkansas worker. Before he could be sworn in as Speaker, however, allegations that Livingston had been involved in several extramarital affairs led the Louisianan to take the House floor, resign the speakership, and call for President Clinton’s resignation as well.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
On 4 January 2007, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, was sworn in as the Speaker of the House, the first female to hold that position.

From Speakers of the House of Representatives, 1789-2009
Having lost the speakership earlier in the year, at the start of the 110th Congress (2007–09), Rep. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, went to the floor of the US House on 15 November 2007 and announced that effective on 26 November 2007 he would resign his seat and return home to Illinois.