This is a complete list of United States representatives during the 1st United States Congress listed by seniority.
As a historical article, the districts and party affiliations listed reflect those during the 1st Congress (March 4, 1789 – March 3, 1791). Seats and party affiliations on similar lists for other congresses will be different for certain members.
House seniority Seniority depends on the date on which members were sworn into office. Representatives in early congresses were often elected after the legal start of the Congress. Such representatives are attributed with unbroken seniority, from the legal start of the congressional term, if they were the first person elected to a seat in a Congress. The date of the election is indicated in a note.
The seniority date is normally taken from the members entry in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, except where the date given is the legal start of the Congress and the actual election (for someone who was not the first person elected to the seat in that Congress) was later. The date of election is taken from United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997. In a few instances the latter work provides dates, for the start and end of terms, which correct those in the Biographical Directory.
The Biographical Directory normally uses the date of a special election, as the seniority date. However, mostly in early congresses, the date of the member taking his seat can be the one given. The date of the special election is mentioned in a note to the list below, when that date is not used as the seniority date by the Biographical Directory.
In the 1st Congress the only formal leader was the speaker of the House. This congress had only one standing committee, the Committee on Elections, created on April 13, 1789. There was also a Ways and Means Committee for part of the 1st session. Although the Ways and Means Committee was not formally added to the list of standing committees until 1802, the present-day committee considers the one established in 1789 to be its forerunner. Committees, in this period, were appointed for a session at a time and not necessarily for every one in a Congress. Apart from the members of the Elections Committee in the 1st session (who were selected by balloting the House), the speaker appointed the members. The office of speaker and other party or committee leadership positions in the House are often associated with seniority. However, leadership is typically not associated with seniority.
U.S. House seniority list A numerical rank is assigned to each of the 65 members initially elected to the 1st Congress. Other members, who were not the first person elected to a seat but who joined the House during the Congress, are not assigned a number (apart from the representatives from the two states, admitted after ratifying the constitution during the Congress, who are numbered 60–65). One representative-elect was not sworn in, as he declined to serve. The list below includes that representative-elect (with name in italics), with the seniority he would have held if he had been sworn in.
Rank Representative Party District Seniority date Notes 1 Fisher Ames Pro-Administration Chairman: Elections (1790) 2 Abraham Baldwin Anti-Administration 3 Egbert Benson Pro-Administration Elected March 3–5, 1789 4 Theodorick Bland Anti-Administration Died June 1, 1790 5 Elias Boudinot Pro-Administration Elected February 11-April 27, 1789 6 John Brown Anti-Administration 7 Aedanus Burke Anti-Administration 8 Lambert Cadwalader Pro-Administration 9 Daniel Carroll Pro-Administration 10 George Clymer Pro-Administration 11 Isaac Coles Anti-Administration 12 Benjamin Contee Anti-Administration 13 Thomas Fitzsimons Pro-Administration Chairman: Ways and Means (July 24-September 17, 1789) 14 William Floyd Anti-Administration 15 George Gale Pro-Administration 16 Elbridge Gerry Anti-Administration 17 Nicholas Gilman Pro-Administration 18 Benjamin Goodhue Pro-Administration 19 Samuel Griffin Pro-Administration 20 Jonathan Grout Anti-Administration 21 Thomas Hartley Pro-Administration 22 John Hathorn Anti-Administration 23 Daniel Hiester Anti-Administration 24 Daniel Huger Pro-Administration 25 Benjamin Huntington Pro-Administration 26 James Jackson Anti-Administration 27 John Laurance Pro-Administration Elected March 3–5, 1789 28 Richard B. Lee Pro-Administration 29 George Leonard Pro-Administration 30 Samuel Livermore Anti-Administration 31 James Madison Anti-Administration 32 George Mathews Anti-Administration 33 Andrew Moore Anti-Administration 34 Frederick Muhlenberg Pro-Administration Speaker of the House, elected April 1, 1789 35 Peter Muhlenberg Anti-Administration 36 John Page Anti-Administration 37 Josiah Parker Anti-Administration 38 George Partridge Pro-Administration Resigned August 14, 1790 39 James Schureman Pro-Administration 40 Thomas Scott Pro-Administration 41 Theodore Sedgwick Pro-Administration Elected May 11, 1789 United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997, page 2 42 Joshua Seney Anti-Administration 43 Roger Sherman Pro-Administration 44 Peter Silvester Pro-Administration Elected March 3–5, 1789 45 Thomas Sinnickson Pro-Administration 46 William Smith Anti-Administration 47 William L. Smith Pro-Administration 48 Michael J. Stone Anti-Administration 49 Jonathan Sturges Pro-Administration 50 Thomas Sumter Anti-Administration 51 George Thatcher Pro-Administration 52 Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. Pro-Administration 53 Thomas T. Tucker Anti-Administration 54 Jeremiah Van Rensselaer Anti-Administration 55 John M. Vining Pro-Administration 56 Jeremiah Wadsworth Pro-Administration 57 Benjamin West n/a Representative-elect, who declined to serve, probably in May 1789 United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997, page 2 and note 11 on page 3 58 Alexander White Pro-Administration 59 Henry Wynkoop Pro-Administration Members joining the House, after the start of the Congress ... Abiel Foster Pro-Administration 60 Hugh Williamson Anti-Administration Took seat from newly represented state 61 John B. Ashe Anti-Administration 62 Timothy Bloodworth Anti-Administration 63 John Steele Pro-Administration Took seat from newly represented state 64 John Sevier Pro-Administration ... William B. Giles Anti-Administration Special election 65 Benjamin Bourne Pro-Administration Elected August 31, 1790. Took seat from newly represented state.
Notes
References
United States Congressional Elections 1788-1997, by Michael J. Dubin (McFarland and Company 1998)
See also 1st United States Congress List of United States congressional districts List of United States senators in the 1st Congress
External links House Journal, First Forty-three Sessions of Congress House of Representatives list of members of the 1st Congress