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This article provides the first detailed study of the origins of staggered Senate terms, which typically have been interpreted as part of the framers' intent to create an insulated, stable, and conservative Senate. I draw upon three sources of evidence-the meaning and application of 'rotation' in revolutionary America, the deliberations and decisions at the Constitutional Convention, and the arguments during Ratification-to show that the origins of and intentions behind staggered terms offer little support for the dominant interpretation. Instead, staggered terms, a mechanism to promote 'rotation' or turnover of membership, were added to the Constitution as a compromise to offset, not augment, the Senate's longer terms by exposing a legislative chamber with long individual tenure to more frequent electoral influence and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An image of an antebellum ‘golden age’ of Senate debate and deliberation has passed virtually unblemished from one generation of historians and political analysts to the next. In what ways, if any, is the image of a more deliberative Senate evident in the realities of antebellum House and Senate debates? In this article, I present a series of case studies to examine elements of the quantity and quality of floor debate in each chamber. By providing comparative evidence about House and Senate debate during the antebellum period, I offer an assessment and critique of the bicameral implications of the largely untested ‘golden age’ understanding of the Senate and join other recent efforts to reassess the nature of the early Senate and its relation to the House. My results show the conventional wisdom to be an oversimplification, at least in its implications about the scope and depth of House debates. The House debated as long, and arguably as well, as the Senate on the signal issues of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]