Date: 1981-07-31
Speaker: ROBERT C. BYRD (democrat)
Chamber: S

Mr. President. when Woodrow Wilson published his study of Congressional Government in 1885. he wrote that "it is not far from the truth to say that Congress in session Is Congress on public ex~hibition. whilst Congress In Its committeerooms is Congress at work." At the time that Wilson wrote this study. the Legislative Branch was universally recognized as having taken a superior role over the Executive Branch. which had been presided over by a series of weak presidents since the Civil War. Within the Legislative Branch. Wilson Identified the committees as the chief centers of power. "I know not how better to describe our form of government In a single phrase." Wilson wrote. "than by calling It a government by chairmen of the Standing Committees of Congress." These sentiments reflected the conditions of the 1880s. and. as we know. there have been many changes in our political system In subsequent years. such as the growth of the modern presidency. the development of party floor leaders. the various committee reforms. and the spread of subcommittees. I have quoted Wilsons remarks to show the committees at th~eir apogee. when they were the central force in the federal government of the United Footnotes at end of article. States. Today. I shall discuss the origins of some of these standing committees. as part of my continuing series of addresses on the history of the Senate. In my last remarks. concerning the events surrounding the War of 1812. I pointed out that the Senate did not create its standing committee system until 1816. nearly twentyseven years after the Senate had begun to function. The United States Constitution did not mention or provide for committees in Congress. This does not mean. however. that there were no committees in the earliest years of the Senate. for indeed. committees have operated since the very beginnings of Congress. Let me explain this paradox. The use of committees in legislative bodies antedated the First Congress. We can find records of Joint committees of the House of Lords and the House of Commons in the British Parliament as early as 1340. The first standing committee of Parliament was the Committee on Privileges and Elections. dating back to the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth. The committee system expanded during the time of Oliver Cromwell. and eventually evolved into what has been called "that allabsorbing committee." the British Cabinet. Members of the first Senate had not only the example of parliamentary committees. but also those of the Virginia House of Burgesses and other culonial legislatures. and of the Continental Congress. It was. we may recall. a select committee of Thomas Jefferson. John Adams. and Benjamin Franklin. that drafted the Declaration of Independence. So committees were a fairly common way of doing legislative business. The House of Representatives. then as now the larger body of Congress. appointed Its first standing committee in 178D. Like the first standing committee of Parliament. it was the Committee on Elections. By 1800. the House had five standing committees. and during the next twenty years it added twenty more. This proliferation of standing committees reflected the swelling size of the House. as population grew and new states were added to the Union. In 1800. there were only 106 membersof the House. But by 1823. the number of Representatives had climbed to 213.1 Of course. there were an even larger number of special committees appointed to handle single pieces of legislation. During the Third Congress. from 1793 to 1795. for example. there were some 350 such ad hoc committees in the House.& The Senate. prior to 1816. appointed only three standing committees. all for "housekeeping"! rather than legislative purposes. For the most part. the Senate relied on select committees. the first of which was the fiveperson -committee appointed on April 7. 1789. to draw up the rules of procedure for the Senate. That committee filed Its report on April 13 and. as I have explained in earlier remarks. the Senate adopted 19 of the 20 rules It recommended. In those days. the Senate spent much of Its time acting as a "Committee of the Whole." a device for Footnotes at end of article. controlling the legislation introduced and under discussion. Today. we are accustomed to a rather straightforward way of introducing bills and resolutions whenever the Senate is in session. Rule VII provides for introduction of bills durIng the Morning Business. and further stipulates that: Senators having petitions. memorials. bills. or resolutions to present after the morning hour may deliver them in the absence of objection to the Presiding officers desk. endorsing upon them their names. and with the approval of the Presiding Officer. they shall be entered on the Journal with the names of the Senators presenting them and in the absence of objection shall be furnished to the official reporter of debates for publication in the Congressional Record under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate." By contrast. a senator in 1789 could Introduce a bill only after he had given the Senate one days notice of his intention to request permission to Introduce the bill. and after a majority of senators had voted to give him such permission. According to Roy Swanstroms dissertation on "The United States Senate. 17891801." such permission was usually granted. and in fact unanimous consent was sometimes given to dispense with the oneday waiting period. But from such a rule we can see how the majority could thwart the introduction of any bill it found distasteful or objectionable. For Instance. when Senator James Monroe requested permission to introduce a bill repealing an article of the peace treaty with Great Britain. a majority of the Senate denied his request." A more common form of initiating legislation was for a senator to move that a committee be appointed to report a bill to achieve a specific goal. This method of introducing bills by permission allowed the majority party more control over legislation being deliberated. and it generally meant that most bills would be enacted once the committee reported them. since a majority had approved their introduction In the first place. During the first -session of the Senate only five bills were Introduced. of which the Senate passed and the President signed four. (At the same time. thirtythree bills were introduced in the House.) In subsequent Congresses. the number of bills increased. as did the number of rejections. With this increasIng amount of legislation caifie a corresponding need for committees. In addition. select committees were appointed in each session of Congress to deal with the individual proposals of the Presidents annual State of the Union message. There were several advantages to this system of introducing bills and forming committees. During the debate over granting permission for the introduction of a bill. the Senates sentiments on the particular Issue at hand would become clearer. providing better guidelines for the committee assigned to draft the final bill. When receiving legislation from the House. the entire Senate could participate in the amending process before the bill went to committee to be put in its final revised form. If this process sounds terribly unwieldy. I should point out that during the first session of the First Congress. the Senate had no more than twenty members present and voting at one timeand today several of our committees approach or exceed that sizel This syster.. made the select committees completely responsive to the Senate as a whole. The Senate decided their jurisdiction. and their membership. and could at any time elect another committee to handle the same matter if unsatisfied with the progress of a particular select committee. According to Professor Swanstrom. the Senate more often created committees to handle specific legislation. but ac times it gave the committees broad areas to examine. In 1794. the Senate appointed a special fiveperson committee to report whatever legislation was necessary to promote the national defense. Some committees might be assigned several bills to draft. but they were usually bills revolving around a similar subject. such as military policy. finance. or national commerceT For the most part. Senate committees consisted of three members for routine business and five members for more important issues. During the First Congress. the largest committee contained eleven members. and this was created to decide the salaries of the President and Vice President (salary issues being as controversial then as they are now). During the first session. the entire membership of the Senate was divided Into two large committees. with half on the committee to prepare legislation establishing the Federal Judiciary and the other half on the committee to define punishment of crimes against the Unitqu States. These committees obviously contained more members than was usuai. but Senator William Maclays journal tells us that In the case of organizing the Federal Judiciary a smaller subcomnmittee actually drafted the bill. Mr. President. today members of the Senate are accustomed to spending their careers as members of Just two or three major committees. specializing In certain areas of legislation and gaining sufs ficient seniority to enable them someday to become committee chairmen. Thiings were different in the early years of the Senate. With hundreds of committees created during each Congress. it was more difficult to specialize and establish seniority. However. even then. some members did specialize. Reading through the Annals of Congress. one notices the same names appearing and reappearing on certain types of committees. For instance. William Maclay served on a great many committees dealIng with private claims bills. Professor Swanstrom points out that certain other senators gained the reputation. from their committee service. of being "watchdogs of the Treasury." Merchant Robert Morris was most often a member of those commidttees dealing with commerce and shipping. Oliver Ellsworth. a framer of the Constitution who later became Chief Justice of the United States. served on practically every committee dealing with Judicial matters during his Senate years. Other senators were likely to serve on committees dealing with treaJuly 31. 1981 COIN ties and foreign affairs. From 1789 to 1797. nineteen separate committees with a total of sixtyeight members considered treaties. Yet. only twentyfour senators filled those sixtyeight positions. The majority Federalist party members predominated on these early foreign relations committeesparticularly men such as Morris. Ellsworth. Rufus King. and George Cabot.! The reappearance of certain senators on certain types of committees seems logical when we consider that the Senate as a whole elected members of each commnittee. We may assume that individual senators developed personal reputations for Interest and exlertise in particular areas that would lead their colleagues to Include them on any committee considering a related subject. Other senators developed political prominence. and sufficient reliability. to encourage the members of the majority party to place them on committees where they would be tho most effective. There was also a need to balance committee memberships according to regional and economic Interests. Western senators. for instance. were generally included on the public lands committees. Northern senators were elected to committees on commerce and manufacturing. And senators from the thirteen original states most likely served on the Revolutionary War pensions and claims committees. Rarely did two senators from the same state serve on the same committee. except In the case of relatively minor private relief bills. or legislation dealing specifically with their home state.1 With the great number of special cominittees appointed each session. the position of committee chairman was not as Influential as It became later with the establishment of standing committees. Chairmen were often the senators who introduced the legislation. since they had the most interest In the bills passage. But. generally. the chairman was the senator who received the most votes In the balloting for committee members. In 1807. Senator John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts noted in his diary that this had become the "ordinary practice." 1 Under this system it was possible for a member of the minority party (the AntiFederalists and Republicans). to serve as committee chairman. despite the Federalist majority in the Senate. However. senators who opposed the particular piece of legislation under consideration usually were not appointed to the committee assigned to drafting and reporting it. Vice President Thomas Jefferson in the manual of parliamentary practice he compiled while serving as president of the Senate. noted that the Senates committee selections followed the principle that "the child Is not to be Put to a. nurse that cares not for it."."1 The chief disadvantage of the ad hoc committee systa.m was that is permitted an unequal workload for senators. During the second session of the First Congress. for Instance. Connecticut Senator Oliver Ellsworth. a Federalist. served on thirtysix committees. while the average senator served on only eleven. During Footnotes at end of article. the second session of the Congress. Ellsv worth was elected to twentythree com- s mittees. while the average assignment was only six committees. Several senators served on no committees at all. One reads the diary of Senator John Quincy Adams with a sense that the man was enternally caught up In the work of one committee or another. One of his entries reads: "The whole of this month I have been so much eng~aged upon committees and their business that I have been obliged entirely to forego the continuation of my lectures." Adams noted that since all the committees were chosen by ballot. the number of committees a senator serves on was a fair measure of his Influence and weight in the Senate. on the other hand. "as much of the labor of business is transacted In committees. an exemption from those which are important Is also an exemption from toil. and leaves profittable leisure.""1 The unequal distribution of committee memberships continued from the Federalist to the Republican Congress. durIng the years prior to 1816. Dr. Mary Giunta. in her doctoral dissertation on the legislative career of Virginia Senator William Branch Giles. surveyed the committee memberships of senators from the Eighth to the Thirteenth Congresses. from 1803 to 1815. During the Eighth Congress. Georgia Senator Abraham Baldwin. the Republican president pro tempore. served on fortyone committees. or eleven percent of the total number of committees appointed during that Congress. By contrast. the majority of senators served on fewer than fifteen committees. In the Ninth Congress Senator Baldwin was elected to ninetyone committeesthink of It. 9.1 committees. While the majority of his colleagues served on fewer than eighteen. By the Thirteenth Congress. the last before the creation of standing committees. the range had been reduced considerably. Senator Rufus King. a New York Federalist. served on the most committees. nineteen. while the majority of the Senate served on fewer than eight committees."4 When the Jeffersonian Republicans won control of the Senate for the first time in 1801. they continued the system of ad hoc committees. although they institutzd some changes. Early in the Seventh Congress. Senator John Breckenridge. one of the Jeffersonian floor leaders. gave notice that he would introduce a bill to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1801. the first priority of the new majority and a major request of President Jeffersons State of the Union message. Breckenridge announced that he was Prepared to offer his sentiments on the subject" immediately. if his colleagues had no objection. Federalist Senator Uriah Tracy of Connecticut immediately rose to his feet to observe that the custom until then had been for the Senate to refer each portion of the presidents annual message to a separate special committee. which would then prepare a report so that "the minds of the House would be drawn more precisely to the points involved in it. than could be expected from a resolution so loose as the present. which could only give rise to verbal discussions." Senator Stevens Maon of Virginia disagreed with Tracy. ks the Annals of Conzgress records It: He believed the mode. now pursued. wits perfectly correct and comfortable to a principle adopted this session. that the Senate was to be considered as a comnaittee of the whole on the Presidents Mfessage. whenever taken up. Nor did he discern the necessity. in a body so select as this. of referring each subject to a select committee." " Thus. while the House continued to refer separate Portions of the presidents message to separate committees. the Sellate took up the message as the Committee of the Whole. The Senate debated Breckenridges resolution for six days. with some sixteen members speaking. indicating that the new procedure did not hamper debate on the issue. As Alex Lacy. Jr.. has written in his doctoral dissertation on "Jefferson and Congress": "It can be said to the credit of the Republicans that during the Jefferson Administrations they never used their niajority In either house to shut off debate unless the Federalists were pursuing dilatory tactics." 10 As I have mentioned In an earlier address. Federalist Senator Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey moved to have the Judiciary Act repeal sent to a select committee to see if some compromise could be reached. The Republicans anticipated a victory. but the vote on Daytons measure was 15 to 15. and Vice President Aaron Burr. a close friend of Daytons broke the tie In favor of referring the resolution to committee. In the jockeying to create a favorable committee. Professor Lacy notes. "The Senate broke one of its most rigid customs .... It was customary to place the original mover of a measure on any committee considering that measure. Usually. this member would serve aS chairman of the committee. Breckinridge missed election to the committee by one vote." ""he Republicans were saved from embarrassment when an absent senator returned to the capital. giving them sufficient majority to move to discharge the resolution from the select committee. Breckinridge argued against the committee on tbe grounds that the question was a matter of principle: whether the Judiciary Act should be repealed or not. Questions of principle. said Breckinridge. should be decided by the Senate as a whole: "A committee cannot. and ought not to settle principles. On the floor of this House alone ought principles. furnishing the groundwork of legislation. to be originated and settled. Details only are proper from your select committees."" While the Senate was considering Jef fersons annual message as a Committee of the Whole. it was changing its traditional practice by considering presidential nominations through select committees. At first. only controversial nominations went to committee. and in the first session of the Seventh Congress only eight were so referred. But by the Tenth Congress. the Senate routinely began to refer nominations to committees. In 1801. three committees considered a total of eight nominations. July 31P 1981 while in 1807 four committees considered scveraI hundred noiain. Committee meetings In the early years of the Senate bore many similarities to committee meetings today. Committees met before and after but not during sessions of the Senate. Senators could attend meetings of committees of which they were not members. although of course they could not vote in them. Occasionally. a committee would hear testimony from witnesses. but this was quite rtare. For Instance. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson appeared before one Senate committee to discuss President Washingtons diplomatic nominations. No transcript of this or any other committee hearing was made at that time. nor indeed would any be made until well into the nineteenth century. Instead it was the official report of the committee which the Senate would use in its deliberation over legislation. nominations. and treaties." Mr. President. although no transcripts of these early committee meetings were kept. we are fortunate to have some fascinating inside glimpses of committee workings from the diaries of senators. These diaries are all the more important because of the sparseness of the Annals of Congress. The Annals. a forerunner of our Congressional Record. were prepared afterthef act. from newspaper accounts and other contemporary sources. Let me give a graphic example from the diary of Massachusetts Senator John Quincy Adams. son of President John Adams and himself a future president of the United States. The Annals o1 Congress tell us that on October 27. 1807. President Jefferson sent his annual message to Congress. and that the message was devoted in large part to British naval aggressions against the United States. The next day. Senator Adams moved that a select committee be created to deal with the issues raised in the presidents message: That so much of the Presidents Message as relates to the recent outrages committed by British armed vessels within the jurisdiction. and In the waters of the United states. and to the Legislative provisions which may be expedient as resulting from them. be referred to a selectcommittee. with leave to report by bill or otherwise."o On October 30. the Senate appointed a fiveperson committee composed of Adams. Samuel Smith of Maryland. John Milledge of Georgia. Samuel Mitchell of New York. and Joseph Anderson of Tennessee. However. a few days later. on November 4. we find Senator Stephen Bradley of Vermont introducing a similar resolution calling for the appointment of another select committee: Resolved. that a committee be appointed to inquire whether any. and. if any. what further and more effectual provisions are necessary in addition to the act. entitled An act for the more effective preservation of peace In the ports and harbors of the United States. and In the waters under their jurisdiction. with leave to report by bill or otherwise." On November 9. Bradleys resolution was referred to the already appointed committee of five. but Senator Bradley and Senator Thomas Sumnter of South Carolina were added to the committee. Footnotes at end of article. The Annals tell us no more until November 24 when Senator Adams reported for the committee its bill relating to British aggressions and harbor defense. On November 26. the Senate debated the bill and "after progress. adjourned." The Senate never voted on the committees report." Now. by contrast to this rather thin and uniformative official Verson. let me read from the diary of John Quincy Adams concerning the same events: November 20. 1807. The subcommittee on aggressions met. and /Stephen/ Bradley presented a bill which he has drawn under the vote of the general committee. which I took home with me to examine and modify. I employed the evening In that work: but Mr. /Joseph/ Anderson. who voted against me on the question. requested me this day to renew Itand told me that on further reflection he was convinced my project was the best. Mitcliill told me that he voted with Bradley only to keep him in good humor and to pledge him in support of a plan upon the idea that It was his own. and Mr. /John/ Milledge urged me with some anxiety to renew the question upon my selection: which. however. I shall decline. November 23. Met the subcommittee this morning at ten. Mr. Bradley had two or three additional sections to offer. which. with modifications. were agreed to. as was -my bill. and all to be reported to the committee of seven. The Senate then sat .... Adjourned before one. Committee of seven met. discussed the bill of the subcommittee. and. with some alterations. ordered me to report It. I gave It accordingly to the clerks. to be copied by tomorrow morning. Through the whole of this transaction I have had some difficulty to steer my way. I moved the first resolution. which has Issued In thili bill. the day after the. Presidents message at the commencement of the session. merely to put the Senate upon some work. For I knew they would otherwise do nothing but what should come from the House. I was obliged to leave It three or four days for consideration. and when the committee was appointed I was made Its chairman. But Bradley not happening to be on the committee (though of live) Immediately felt his pride piqued. and he determined to take the business out of my hands. so that. some days after. he moved for a new commuittee. substantially upon the same subject. though varied in form (a Practice often used when the chairman Of a committee of importance happens to be a federalist). and he took an Opportunity to Move this resolution when!I was not in the House. From the moment It Was made I Saw Its motive and object. but I saw that to attempt resistance against it was vain. So perfectly similar was it to my resolution In substance that it was noticed by a number of members. and he finally professed that he meant Its reference to the same committee. I then moved the addition of two members to the committee. that he might be one of the number. When the comnnmittee met. he opposed the first principle Upon Which I wished the bill to be formed. and prevailed. He then Proposed successively his Own measures. most of which were adopted. and elentually I did scarcely any thing more than draw the bill. Even this. however. he has violently contested. and having drawn a mere proviso. upon the same principle in substance as one which I had drawn. and the committee having given the preference to mine. he broke Into a passion. and told them he would vote against the Whole bill. and would not vote upon any of the subsequent sections. I believe his purpose Is to defeat the whole. and he has introduced some sections which he knows will be violently opposed. with the intention that they shall first fail.. and then he will fly from the whole with great disgust at the want of energy In the Government. November 26. The bill I had reported was taken up In committee of the whole. Bradley renewed his attack upon the proviso. Mr. /James/ Hillhouse and Mr. /Timothy/ Pickering Immediately sided with him. and a debate of two hours ensued upon a few words which he moved to strike out. On the question taken. It was decided the words should standfifteen to fourteen. Mr./ John/ Pope than moved to strike out the whole first section. upon which a second debate arose as warm and as long as the first. It was finally closed by a motion to adjourn. Which was agreed +to. Bradley supported Popes motion. with a view to have the bill recommitted. with Instructions simply to continue the act of 3d of March. 1805. and then add his new propositions to it. His ultimate object Is to defeat the whole bill.. The majority -of the Senate. at the end of this days debate. obviously wished for delayprocrastination. and I shall not hurry them onthey shall take their own time. The bill Itself. as It stands. is no favorite of mine. and I shall not be much concerned at the fate which awaits it.3" Mr. President. the diary of John Quincy Adams has obviously left us a far richer account of this incident than did the Annals of Congress. The two hour debate on November 28. to which Senator Adams referred. is contained in exactly six lines In the Annals. merely noting that the Committee of the Whole took up the second reading of the bill. and that "after progress" the Senate adjourned without Voting. Not only does Adams diary tell us the story behind this debate. but it reveals the apparently common practice to create a second committee as a means of removing an ~unpopular or minority Party chairman. .The increasing business of the committees. particularly in the handling of nominations. the pressing needs of national defense during the War of 1812. and the growing institutional needs of a body that was now over a quarter century old. all pushed. the Senate toward the creation of standing committees. Until 1816. as I have mentioned. the Senate had appointed only three standing committees. all of which dealt with housekeeping functions. They were Enrolled Bills in 1789. Engrossed Bills in 1806. and Contingent Expenses in 1807.2" The latter was proposed by Senator John Quincy Adams to be appointed at the beginning of each session of Congress to audit and control the Senates contingent expenses." These first three standing committees may be seen as forerunners of the current Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. By contrast. the House of Representatives had appointed several standing committees. with both housekeeping and legislative functions. during the years Prior to 1816. These included Enrolled Bills In 1789. Commerce and Manufactures and Ways and Means In 1795. Public Lands In 1805. Post Office and District of Columbia in 1808. Judiciary and Pensions in 1813. and Expenditures In Executive Departments In 1816. The House acted first because it was the larger body and could not perform as Intimately and effectively as a Commidttee of the Whole. and because Its Republican members wanted to establish the Houses legislative Independence from the Federalist July .31. 19 81 COl executive departments. The Jeffersonians opposed Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamiltons plan to have legislative proposais referred first to executive agencies rather than to congressional committees. During the Republicancontrolled Third Congress. from 1793 to 1795. Hamilton resigned as Secretary of the Treasury and the House created Its Ways and Means Committee. As Professor George Goodwin has written: "These steps put an end to a tendency that could have moved the country In the direction of British cabinet government." 21 By the end of the War of 1812. the stage was set for the Senate to consider establishing its own system of standing committees. Meeting In the "Old Brick Capitol" -because the Capitol Building itself was under repair for damages which the British troops had Inflicted upon It during the warmembers of the Senate were most likely concerned about the permanency. continuity. and stability of governmental processes. Perhaps their struggling with the Issues of the wvar made more members realize the need for specialization over areas of legislation. In addition. from the constant movement of members of the House over to the Senate we may assume that former House members brought with them a preference for standing committee assignments. During the first session of the Fourteenth Congress. meeting in December 1815. the Senate appointed n series of select committees to report on various portions of the Presidents State of the Union miessage. However. Instead of allowing these select committees to disband after they had completed their immediate work. the Senate utilized the same committees for other business during the session. The select committee on Finance. for example. which dealt with matters of finances and currency in the presidents message. also handled the two most important Issues of that session of Congress. the Tariff of 1816 and the rechartering of the National Bank." .During the second session of the Fourteenth Congress. meeting in December 1816. Senator Nathan Sanford of New York moved to have the presidents annual message broken into its component Parts and distributed to select committees for consideration. as was the usual Practice. But on December 5. Senator James Barbour of Virginia moved that the Senate instead create eleven standing committees: on Foreign Relations. Ways and Means. Commerce and Manufactures. Military Affairs. the Militia. Naval Affairs. Public Lands. Claims. Judiciary. Post Office and Post Roads. and Pensions. On Tuesday. December 10. 1816. the Senate adopted Barbours motion. However. it changed the name of Ways and Means to Finance. a title It had used for such select committees in the Past. By Friday of that week. the first appointments to standing committees were announced. Five members were ap)pointed to each committee. with the exception of Commerce and Judiciary. each of which began with four members. On that same day. the presidents message was referred to the appropriate standing Footnotes at end of article. coimttees. their first official business. Also on that day. five select committees were appointed to consider issues raised by the presidents message that did not fall within any of the standing committees jurisdiction: weights and measures. a national university. roads and canals. the slave trade. and the creation of a new Executive Department."~ The appointment of standing committees permitted the Senate to assign long term studies and investigations to committees. In addition to regular legislative duties. For Instance. the Commerce Committees first assignments consisted largely of compiling statistical reports and conducting investigations required by the Senate on harbor Improvements. foreign trade. canal construction. and shipping regulations. Standing committees also spent much of their time handling presidential nominations and petitions from citizens.29 It is Interesting to note that In creatIng standing committees. members of the majority party did not appropriate all of the chairmanships to themselves. In 1816. Federalist senators served as chairmen of the committees on Commerce and Manufacturers and Military Affairs. and had a majority of members on Finance and Military Affairs.-1 I wonder If we could contemplate such a circumstance today! Since the Senate as a whole elected members of each committee. and the member with the most votes became chairman. this nonpartisanship lingered on through the 1830s. when growing party spirit and factionalism finally made majority party leadership of committees tho standard rule. Members of the Senate found the ballottng for committee membership at the beginning of each Congress an increasingly unappealing system. There was both an element of humiliation in the possibility of being turned down for a committee position by ones colleagues In the Senate. and also an annoyance with the tedious and timeconsuming system of balloting. In 1823. Senators John Eaton and Andrew Jackson of Tennessee pre..sed for the Senate to elect committee chairmen and then have the chairmen appoint the rest of the committee members. This plan. however. lost to a proposal .by Senator Barbour. the original author of the standing committee system. to have the presiding officereither the vice president or president pro temporeto appoint committee members. Until 1845. this system. interspersed by attempts to revive the ballotIng system. set the course for Senate committee memberships. During the Mexican War. the system was finally changed. By a margin of one vote the Senate removed from the presiding officer the power to appoint committee members. During the debate. Senator Willie Mangum. the Whig minority leader. accused the Democratic caucus of having prepared a "list made out and decided on by a meeting of members of this body belonging to a particular party." This was obviously what had been done. for when the Senate voted for committee chairmen they were selected by a strict party vote. By the following year. it had become the accepted practice for the members of each party. through their respective caucuses. to name their party members to the standing committees." Mr. President. the standing committee system of the Senate has now been in existence for 165 years. Over those many years the Senate has added to. substituted from. and divided up its standing committees as the national government took on new areas of responsibilities and the Congress attempted to streamline its procedures. There were times. particularly around the turn of this century. when the Senate created standing committees primarily as an excuse to assign office space and staff members to senators from the majority party. For Instance. pulling ain old Congressional Directory off the shelf at random for the year 1904. one could count fiftyfive standing committees and another dozen select committees. These standing committees Included Revolutionary Claims. wvhich we may assumne did little business 125 years after the Revolutionary War had ended. In1 1946. the Senate and House both reduced the number of their standing committees sharply through the Legislative Reorganization Act of that year. Most recently. In 1977. the Temporary Select Committee to Study tihe Senate Committee System. chaired by Senator Adlai Stevenson. recommended the merger of several committees and reorganization of jurisdiction to reduce Senate standing and Joint committees from thirtyone to twentyfour." We now have sixteen standing committees. three select comnmittees. one special comittee. and four joint committees. Many of our current committees in the NintySeventh Congress have a henitftge dating back to the F ourteenth Con gress. The committees on Foreign Relations. Finance. and Judiciary remain the same in name and similaralthough greatly expandedin function. Our Armed Services Committee combines what. in 1816. were the committees on Military Affairs. the Militia. and Naval Affairs. Commerce and Manufactures has become Commerce. Science and Transportation. Functions of the Pensions Committee are now performed by the Veterans Affairs Committee. functions of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee are divided among the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Environment and Public Works Committee. Post Office Committee responsibilities are now handled by a subcommittee of the Governmental Affairs Committee. Mr. President. I have spoken today about the origins of our stqnding committees. During the course of my remarks in coming weeks I shall have more to say about individual committees and the role they have played in our national political history. In the preparation of these remarks I have found most useful the ten committee histories that various Senate committees have prepared to mark their anniversaries. These are most Interesting documents. such as the one I now hold In my hand. The Hi1story of the committee on Finance. I will affix a list of them to the conclusion of my re-