April 2, 2002
First Federal Congress Project Eyes End of Session
After 36 Years and 14 Volumes, Scholars Aim to Finish
Work
By Matthew
Nehmer
Lyndon Johnson occupied the White House; Cassius Clay reigned as boxing’s
heavyweight champ; and the Beatles still dominated the charts. The year
was 1966, and GW launched a new research endeavor — the First Federal
Congress Project (FFCP). Its mission: to collect, research, and edit
with meticulous attention to detail, the comprehensive Documentary History
of the First Federal Congress, 1789–91 (DHFFC).
Now 36 years and 14 volumes later, the project’s work continues.
All the while, one might ask, “Why all the fuss over one two-year
Congress?”
“The First Federal Congress was the most important Congress in
American history,” observes FFCP Director Charlene Bickford. “Its
awesome agenda breathed life into the Constitution, establishing precedents
and constitutional interpretation which still guide us 200 years later.”
Her words come from a book she co-wrote with GW Professor Kenneth Bowling
published in 1989, Birth of a Nation: The First Federal Congress, 1789–91.
When asked to list the accomplishments of the first Congress, Bickford
quickly rattles off a laundry list of historic acts. “It established
the first three executive departments of our federal government,”
she says. “It was responsible for, among other things, the Judiciary
Act of 1789, the Bill of Rights, the decision locating the federal capital,
and for providing financial stability for the new government by establishing
a revenue system, a way to fund the Revolutionary War debts, and the
first national bank.”
The list continues: bringing the reluctant North Carolina and Rhode
Island, as well as two new states (Kentucky and Vermont), into the union;
establishing a government for the Northwest Territory; instituting an
American military; setting up the first census; and passing the copyright
and patent acts, to name a few more accomplishments.
Bickford is a fitting person to comment on the project because perhaps
few people have a greater depth of knowledge of the inner workings of
the first Congress. After all, she has worked with FFCP for 35 years,
coming on board in 1967 as a graduate student clerk/typist. “Fortunately,
I wasn’t really hired for my typing ability!” she confesses.
“The job has wonderful benefits,” says Bickford. “First
the subject, though the FFC lasted only two years and seems a small
topic, is actually a big and rich one. There are so many important and
fascinating research topics within the FFC — precedents, the Congress
and slavery, sectionalism, the application of federalism, early foreign
relations, legislative-executive relations, etc. — and there are
tons of smaller topics of interest as well.”
According to Bickford, the genesis for the project dates to a 1930s
recommendation of the US Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission, although
it was shelved for years until the National Historical Publications
Commission began to collect First Federal Congress documents in the
1950s.
“For a long time, most of the official material was stored in the
US Capitol,” says Bickford. “The Senate committee draft of
the Judiciary Act of 1789 was stored in the attic of the Capitol and
sustained water damage. Eventually, the records were transferred to
the Library of Congress, then to the Archives.”
The movement to publish these documents reached a culmination in the
1960s when the National Historical Publications and Records Commission
made the project a top priority. Federal funds followed in 1964 and
Congress passed a special resolution granting permission to publish
all First Federal Congress records, which were closed to public eyes
until that time. Two years later, the commission formed an alliance
with GW. The University would house the FFCP and Linda Grant DePauw,
then a professor of history, now an emeritus professor, was named director.
On July 4, 1972, the 800-page Senate Legislative Journal, the first
of three volumes covering the most basic official documents of the First
Congress, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. By 1977,
Volume II and III were complete and sent to the press.
Yet even with 11 years of work behind them the FFCP researchers had
perhaps the most challenging task ahead — assembling a complete
legislative history of each of the 180 bills and resolutions taken up
by the first Congress. This phase would require examining every congressional
document known to exist dated from 1789–91, as well as all of the
accounts of debates in the House and Senate. Once finished, this meticulous
restoration of history would act as a source for future researchers
to see how Congress in the late 18th century worked.
“What we did was reconstruct the moment,” says Bickford. “It
was like putting incredibly complex puzzles together. It was very detail-oriented
work and we knew that it would never be done again. The DHFFC has been
cited in briefs to the Supreme Court — it is far more important
to be correct than to be fast.”
These legislative histories became Volumes IV–VI of the series
and were published in 1986. In 1984, Bickford succeeded DePauw as director
of the project. Joining Bickford over the years to form the rest of
the FFCP editorial team was: Kenneth Bowling, Helen Veit, and William
diGiacomantonio, who remain with the FFCP to this day. Bowling and Veit
took the lead on researching Volume IX in the series, The Diary of William
Maclay and Other Notes on Senate Debates, which earned the Thomas Jefferson
Prize from the Society for the History in the Federal Government.
“William Maclay’s diary is particularly important because
it’s the only diary known to exist for the first Senate, which
met in secret,” says Bickford. Maclay’s work offers the only
insider’s look into the Senate’s inner workings. While the
diary was published twice before in the 1800s, the DHFFC version is
the most complete and also includes nine-tenths of all surviving notes
on the first Senate.
Maclay’s first-hand accounts of the Senate include colorful characterizations
of some of early American history’s biggest stars. Maclay offered
his commentary on John Adams, who presided over the Senate as the nation’s
original vice president, saying, “He is not well furnished with
small talk, more than myself, and has a very silly kind of laugh.”
Complete transcripts of House of Representative debates followed publication
of the Maclay diary, including interesting insights from the pen of
Thomas Lloyd. Lloyd recorded the House floor deliberations using a crude,
personalized form of shorthand. These debates, primarily found in contemporary
newspapers, total five volumes in the DHFFC, all published during the
1990s.
Two of these volumes contain the histories of more than 600 petitions
submitted to the FFC and all official documents that were not part of
the legislative histories. These volumes also reveal much about both
what the American people expected of their new government and congressional
precedents.
The editors recently submitted the manuscript for volumes XV–XVII
to the press, and now face the home stretch. Once the ink is dries,
only three more books remain to complete the 20-volume set. Correspondence
to and from members of the FFC and contemporary newspaper articles make
up these volumes primarily, and will flesh out the official record adding
a wealth of information on the off-the-floor politics of the first Congress,
early member-constituent relations, the members’ unofficial lives,
and their influences.
Bickford also would like to produce a CD-ROM archiving 18th century
public opinion of the first Congress, along with a user-friendly cumulative
index of the entire series. For now, in addition to producing the DHFFC,
the project also acts as a research center for anyone seeking access
to copies of primary source documents from that period or information
about the FFC, such as researchers for TV shows, high school students,
constitutional attorneys, or Congressional staff. The editors also work
with GW student interns who have interest in early American history.
“I’ve had numerous opportunities to introduce undergraduates
and graduate students, as well as educators and the general public,
to the FFC,” says Bickford. She opens this door to the American
past through her lecturing, TV interviews, classes, service as an historical
expert for teacher training, in addition to curating an exhibit, creating
Web sites, writing a book and articles.
While American history for the project’s editors begins and ends
with the first Congress, people continue to ask Bickford when she and
her team of editors are going to start work on the Second Federal Congress.
To this she replies, “We don’t have enough time in our lives.”
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
