The Senate Chamber (LoC)

The Senate was created by Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution, which divided Congress into two legislative bodies: the House of Representatives and the Senate.  The Senate’s special powers include confirmation of presidential appointments, approval of treaties, and serving as the court of impeachment.  The states are equally represented with two senators from each state. Senators were originally appointed by state legislatures, but they are now popularly elected. Senators serve six-year terms.  The vice president is the president of the Senate; in his absence, the president pro tempore or a designee presides.

On November 21, 1922, 87-year-old Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia took her oath as the nation’s first woman Senator. The nation’s first African American Senator, Hiram R. Revels, took the oath of office on February 25, 1870.  The impeachment trials of President Andrew Johnson (1868) and President William Jefferson Clinton (1999) were held in this chamber.

The Senate Chamber was first occupied on January 4, 1859.  It was reconstructed and remodeled in the 20th century (completed in 1951).  Republicans sit to the right and Democrats to the left when facing the presiding officer.  Forty-eight of the desks are originals, ordered from cabinetmaker Thomas Constantine in 1819.  As new states entered the Union, additional desks of similar design were made.  Daniel Webster’s desk is unique because it has not been modified with a writing box.  In 1974, a Senate resolution permanently assigned the desk to the senior senator from New Hampshire, Webster’s birth state.

The original ivory gavel, often referred to as a “rapper,” is believed to have been used since the Senate first met in 1789.  The gavel broke in 1954; the solid ivory gavel now in use was presented to the Senate in 1954 by the vice president of India. In 1886 the Senate established a collection of marble vice presidential busts.  After the first busts filled the niches in the Chamber, additions to the collection were placed throughout the Senate wing.  All vice presidents are represented in the collection, and busts continue to be added to honor each person to hold that office.