Major Research Project Launched on Early Petitions to Congress (cont'd)

The Byrd Center plans to prepare a book-length study of the selected petitions and also to make many of the petitions available on this website. The original petitions can be found in the National Archives in Washington, DC. They represent an unexplored treasure of American history as seen through the stories of ordinary people across the land.

This research project actually began more than fifteen years ago, when the Office of the Historian of the U. S. House of Representatives first proposed to do an edition of the petitions. The staff of the House Historian’s office, especially Raymond Smock, Bruce Ragsdale, and Joel Treese, gathered and transcribed several hundred of the petitions and began research to explain the context of the petitions. The introductory headings that follow are taken from that initial research.

This petitions project was to have been the first phase of long range multi-volume documentary project on the History of the House of Representatives that was described in the “Final Report of the Commission on the Bicentenary of the U. S. House of Representatives” House Report 101-815 (1990). In 1995, however, the Office of the Historian of the House of Representatives was eliminated by Speaker Newt Gingrich. Only recently, in 2006, has the House again appointed a Historian and re-established the House History Office.  The Byrd Center for Legislative Studies is pleased to be able to resurrect this important research project. We hope the House of Representatives will someday take up the task of preserving its own history through a multi-volume documentary project like the one proposed sixteen years ago.

The following selection is a small sample of petitions submitted to the Senate and the House of Representatives. They are offered here to demonstrate the diversity of issues that the public presented for the attention of Congress.  Some resulted directly in the passage of requested legislation or were referred to committee along with additional petitions related to a broad issue then before the House and Senate.  Other petitioners failed in their appeals but offered notable expressions of important policy issues or posed constitutional and jurisdictional questions for the developing government.

The various petitions reveal a highly politicized society in which even the most remote regions of the nation followed closely the proceedings of Congress. Many petitions arrived in quick reaction to legislation while others attempted to influence bills still under consideration. All indicate a striking awareness of public debate and the political process. Individuals and organizations expected their representatives in Congress to defend their interests and called on the elected officials to serve as advocates for particular appeals.  The referral and debate on the petitions indicate the seriousness with which both Houses responded to the popular appeals and the importance of petitions for the formulation of federal policy.