The dais in the Old Senate Chamber (AoC)

This room served as the Senate Chamber from 1810 to 1859. It was the third chamber created for the use of the Senate in the Capitol.  After the British set fire to the Capitol in 1814, Architect of the Capitol Benjamin Henry Latrobe enlarged the chamber to its present dimensions.  Architect of the Capitol Charles Bulfinch completed the chamber by December 1819.

Issues debated here included slavery, territorial expansion, and states’ rights vs. federal rights.  The Missouri Compromise (1820), the Webster-Hayne Debates (1830), and the Compromise of 1850 were notable debates involving the Great Triumvirate of antebellum senators: Henry Clay (KY), Daniel Webster (MA), and John C. Calhoun (SC).

Slavery was a contentious issue in the 1850s. In 1856 Senator Charles Sumner (MA), as he sat at his desk, was beaten with a cane by Congressman Preston Brooks (SC) because of a speech Sumner had given criticizing Brooks’s uncle, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler.

The Supreme Court met here from 1860 to 1935. After years of debilitating general use, the Old Senate Chamber’s restoration was completed in 1976.  Since then, it has been open to the public as a historic site.

The portrait of George Washington (1823) is by Rembrandt Peale. The carved and gilded eagle and shield suspended above the dais is original and dates to ca. 1834. The vice president’s desk is original to the chamber; the senators’ desks and chairs are reproductions.

The shelves on either side of the dais are “bill hoppers.”  According to tradition, the bill hoppers were used to organize legislation; newly introduced bills were placed on the bottom shelf, and the bills proceeded through the legislative process they move up the hopper.  One of the hoppers on display is an original on loan from the Smithsonian Institution.