Take a Seat
by
Art on October 6, 2014
/tiles/non-collection/2/2004_103_000-1.xml
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
Official House cartographer David Burr drew a new plan of the Chamber, illustrating the layout and who sat at each desk.
For more than a century, a desk in the
House Chamber was a Member’s office. He stowed his hat beneath his chair, wrote and stored papers in the writing desk, and occasionally propped his feet up to listen to debate. During a Representative’s temporary, boarding-house existence in the capital city, a spot in the Chamber was the most permanent home he had. The ways Members secured their all-important desks evolved from free-for-all to highly orchestrated political theater.
Why did picking one’s desk matter? It was an entirely practical matter. The best locations were those close to the Speaker’s rostrum, where a Member could hear proceedings and be easily recognized by the Speaker. The first method of assigning desks was likely some variation of a “first-come, first-choose” rule. Sutherland’s Congressional Manual, published in 1839, noted that it encouraged early arrival for the session, something devoutly wished by the House’s leaders, who struggled to reach a quorum. Sutherland added the helpful tip that ownership of a desk was accomplished by writing one’s name on the desk itself.
/tiles/non-collection/2/2005_156_000-3.xml
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
Designed by New York cabinetmaker Thomas Constantine, this desk's bowed hexagonal shape allowed for the curved seating rows in the Chamber.
By 1826,
Robert Taylor of Virginia, unhappy with his lot, introduced the first resolution to conduct a lottery to determine desk assignments. Nothing came of it, but the lottery was proposed again several times in the next decade.
Each attempt was bolstered by fresh ire at those who had obtained the best seats by early arrival or illicit trades. An 1841 dispute over desks illuminates one practice: swapping seats. Halfway through the 27th Congress,
John Sergeant of Pennsylvania resigned his seat. Two Members, freshmen
Robert Caruthers of Tennessee and
John Dawson of Louisiana,
each claimed the vacated desk. Caruthers said that he and Sergeant had exchanged
seats just before the latter’s resignation. Dawson said that the transfer was
not sanctioned by the rules of the House, and therefore Sergeant’s seat was
abandoned when he resigned. Debate centered on whether trading before a planned
departure was “unwarrantable, partial, and unjust” (Dawson). The House declared
the exchange was valid, “a custom which has heretofore been usual among members
of the House.”
Clearly, though, desk
management had broken down. In 1845, the House’s leadership determined that a
lottery really was the answer. Future Speaker Howell Cobb of Georgia
offered the resolution on December 1. Debate was vigorous and surprisingly
good-humored. The measure passed 117-77, and Clerk Benjamin French immediately
produced a box containing slips of paper with names scribbled on them. Members
gathered in the well, anxiously waiting to choose their seats as French pulled
the slips out and read the names, one by one.
/tiles/non-collection/2/2011_089_003-1.xml
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
A blindfolded Page draws numbers in the lottery to choose desks in the Chamber.
Over the next
half-century, the desk lottery became a cherished ritual at the start of a
Congress. A blindfolded Page drew slips of paper and later, numbered ivory
balls, from a mahogany box. August Members were honored by choosing their seats
in advance. By the 1870s, it was the dean of each party, former Speakers,
infirm Members, and chairmen of particularly important committees, each of whom
placed his hat on his desk to remove it from consideration in the lottery.
Although the desk
lottery disappeared in 1913, when the House installed benches, one Chamber
tradition from that earlier time still holds sway. When Members chose desks,
Democrats placed themselves to the Speaker’s right. Whigs, and later
Republicans, were to the Speaker’s left. Representatives had long clustered by state delegation, and that slowly turned into seating by
interest and, with the growth of the Whig and Democratic Parties, partisan
alliances. Today, Members of the two major political parties continue to sit
divided, across the center aisle from each other.
Sources: Joel Barlow Sutherland, A Congressional Manual; House Journal,
19th Congress, February 16, 1826, and 27th Congress, December 8, 1841; House Chamber seating plans, 1820,
1836, 1845, Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives; Frank Leslie’s
Illustrated Newspaper, March 1869 and January 1900; Artemas Hale Papers; Hamilton Fish Papers.