The Invention of the United States Senate

No other book that I know of focuses so intently on the origins of the Senate. None, certainly, covers the ground so well. The scholarship is through, up-to-date, and sound. -- Calvin Jillson, Southern Methodist University Daniel and Stephen Wirls have presented a rich and provocative study of the origins of America's most fascinating but least-understood institution. Like skilled molecular biologists, they have cracked the genetic code of the United States Senate and the many strands that went into its creation. The book is an intellectual triumph and a delight to read. -- Ross K. Baker, Rutgers University Invention of the United States Senate is a tour de force. It is a meticulous, primary-source-based analysis of the interplay of political theory, lived experience, and state and class interests on decisions about the composition and powers of the U.S. Senate. It also analyzes the way 'ordinary' politics in the first few Congresses cemented some tendencies and caused the abandonment of others. This book will be a very important addition to the literature of American political development and Congress. Historians and contemporary scholars of Congress will find it invaluable for graduate and advanced undergraduate classes. -- Elizabeth Sanders, Cornell University

The authors show how theoretical principles of a properly constructed Senate interacted with political interests and power politics in the multidimensional struggle to construct the Senate, before, during, and after the convention.The invention of the United States Senate was the most complicated and confounding achievement of the Constitutional Convention. Although much has been written on various aspects of Senate history, this is the first book to examine and link the three central components of the Senate's creation: the theoretical models and institutional precedents leading up to the Constitutional Convention; the work of the Constitutional Convention on both the composition and powers of the Senate; and the initial institutionalization of the Senate from ratification through the early years of Congress. The authors show how theoretical principles of a properly constructed Senate interacted with political interests and power politics in the multidimensional struggle to construct the Senate, before, during, and after the convention.