Evening star., 1939-03-05
u. S. A. as q Nation
Dates From Initial
Meeting of Body
Eleven States Represented
In Wall Street Building
At March Session
Bv Thomas K. Henry.

The Government Of the United States was $50
years old yesterday.
On March 4, 1885, the first Congress assembled in
New York City in accordance with the provisions of
the Constitution which had been ratified nine months
before. The Continental Congress had gone quietly
out of existence. The Nation had been drifting,
essentially without any government at all.
At the time the first Congress met it consisted
of II States OF the l3 British colonies which had
fought the Revolution together two, Rhode Island
and North Carolina, had failed to ratfy the Con-
stitution These II States had population of
slightly more than 100000. The total population of
the entire l3 determined the next year at
3929000 During the preceding 20 years. the face
of the hardshps of years of war, during which
immigration had been cut off almost completely and
doubled
There had been hard winter. Travel was
precarous Northern rivers still were blocked with ice
and Massachusetts and New Hampshire roads piled
high with snow drifts. Southern rivers in flood
stage. Roads everywhere either had been washed
out or were impossible for mud. Twenty Senator'S
two each for all the States which had ratified the
Constitution, except New York, which had not yet
chosen her members of the Upper House-and 81
Representatives had been elected. Many of them
were elderly veterans of the defunct Continental
Congress, or soldiers of the Revolution, whose old
wounds bothered them in late winter. They were
loath to leave their comfortable homes. How many
actually in their seats March is not known.
but week later there were Senators and 18
Representatives In New York.
John Langdon Preceded Washington
As First President of New Nation.
i
established by later court decision dates from their
theoretical first meeting.
1t was an inauspicious beginning. The new state
which had succeeded the old loose federation of
States had only the nucleus of legislative body. It
had President Vice President cabinet. It had
no judiciary 1t had no money. The legislators with
out quorum could do nothing except meet each
day and adjourn They could not even declare George
Washington duly elected President
Tired of this inaction, on March II the Senators
present-Langdon and Wingate of New Hampshire.
of Massachusetts.
syvana Ellsworth of Connecticut and Few of Georgia
dispatched urgent letter to their absent colleagues
urging them to drop their personal affairs and come
to New York at once, as the Nation was without any
executive authority. 1t not until April 5 that
quorum constituted in the Senate by the arrival
of Ralph lizard of South Carolina Charles Carroll of
Maryland and George Read of Delaware. Then their
first act to organize, with John Langdon,
merchant from Portsmouth, N. H., and former "Pres
dent of that State, as president of the Senate"
Thus Langdon became, in fact, the first Chief Ex-
ecutive of the United States. Whether he-rather
than George Washingon--was the first President of
the United States is largely matter of definition.
So is the question as to whether, for nearly two
months of its earliest infancy, the Nation had any
government at all If there was ruler Langdon was
the In this respect he stands quite different
grounds than the various Presidents of the Continental
Congress for whom the honor has been claimed The
United States did not exist until the Constitution
ratified and hence they could not have been its rulers
1t did exist, established Nation, under John
Langdon.
Date of Nations Birth Determined
By Meeting of First Congress.
At least until the election of Langdon. April
S. 1789 almost month to day after the first meet
Ing of the Senate the question might seriously be
raised to whether the United States, since it had
no government, really existed. This supposedly
determined however, 80 years later a Supreme
Court decision delivered by Chit Justice Marshall in
case brought to test the validity of certain land
patents in Kentucky The State of Virginia in 1785
had given patent for 900 acres two men, Owings
and Speed. In 1873 the Legislature had regranted
part of this land encouragement to prospective
settlers.
OWings and Speed brought suit the ground
that in 1888 Virginia having ratified the Constitution
was part of the United States The Constitution
prohibited any State from invalidating previous
tracts. Marshall however ruled against the plaintiffs,
holding that the Government did not come into