All persons are commanded to keep silent, on pain of imprisonment, while the Senate of the of the United States is sitting for the trial of the articles of . . . You know the rest. Using a 109-page manual compiled in 1986 by Sens. Or 100 senators signing their oaths in a book. It's Mr. Manager this and Mr. Majority Leader that, and let us please remind everyone that all senators are to remain standing each time the chief justice enters and leaves the chamber.
Formality is generally alien to our culture.
We are a casual nation, and getting more casual by the minute. We are suspicious of formality, seeing in it echoes of oppression and phoniness. Ritual is too often the refuge of the pompous. These proceedings are a daily demonstration of formality. Some find them fascinating, like a 16th-century masque.