The Institutionalization of the Early Senate.

This paper examines the early institutionalization of the Senate. Working forward from the contradictory political expectations and constitutional uncertainties surrounding the Senate, I seek to show when and how these ambiguities and contingencies were resolved. The goal is not to discover when the Senate first developed its modern forms but to see how the operations of the early national government clarified or eliminated the most significant constitutional and political uncertainties about the place and purpose of the Senate in the new system. This paper concentrates on the Senate's relationship with the House and the presidency and how the Senate dealt with the constitutional ambiguities surrounding the separation of powers and bicameralism. The Senate was an institution poised somewhat ambiguously between the executive and the House, and the early years of the Senate in action rapidly eliminated most of that uncertainty. The actual Senate would be less dramatic in form and function than either the hopes of its creators and advocates or the fears of its detractors. By 1796, before the end of Washington’s presidency, the fundamental elements of the Senate in action had been arranged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]