Welcome to the Deep Dive. We have a massive amount
of ground to cover today. We really do. Today's
mission is an exploration of the surprisingly
dramatic, intensely consequential, and constantly
evolving history of the United States Senate.
And we're basing this entirely on a comprehensive
Wikipedia history of the institution. Exactly.
So if you are listening to this, you're the learner
here. You probably look at the modern Senate
and see this maze of complex rules, parliamentary
procedures and, well, frequent gridlock. Right.
It can look pretty dry from the outside. But
our goal today is to demystify all of that. We
want to show you how a single 5 -4 vote at the
1787 Constitutional Convention, the Connecticut
Compromise, basically created this legislative
body that would completely shape the nation.
It really proves the Senate is far more than
just a boring room where bills go to die. Okay,
let's unpack this. We have to start with the
wild early days of the Senate. Yeah, the early
days are fascinating. Because the very first
Congress met in 1789, they were in New York City,
and they held their Senate sessions in complete
secrecy. Completely locked down. I mean, no journalists,
no public spectators allowed in the galleries,
nothing. It sounds so bizarre to us now. Right.
But there is a reason for it. It really matters.
The founders intended the Senate to be a much
slower, more deliberate check on the House of
Representatives. Because the House was supposed
to be the voice of the people. Exactly. The House
was reacting to the passions of the day. But
the Senate. They locked the doors so they could
debate without that immediate public pressure.
Wow. And you see this culture solidify early
on. Take the 1804 impeachment acquittal of Supreme
Court Justice Samuel Chase. Right. That was a
huge moment. It was. The House impeached him
basically over political differences. But the
Senate acquitted him. And Aaron Burr, who was
vice president at the time. He actually presided
over that trial, right? He did. And he gave this
famous farewell quote right after. He called
the Senate a sanctuary, a citadel of law and
order meant to resist the storms of political
frenzy. The storms of political frenzy. I love
that 19th century language. It's very traumatic.
But those storms were very real. Which brings
us to the 1820s through the 1860s, the crucible
of slavery and sectional conflict. This is where
that structural imbalance. really takes center
stage. Right, because the defining feature of
the Senate is equal representation. Every state
gets two votes, regardless of population. And
that made it the ultimate battleground for the
issue of slavery. Because the North's population
was just exploding at this time. Exactly. The
North easily took control of the House of Representatives
because of their population size. But the Senate...
That was a different story. The Senate allowed
the slave states to maintain this incredibly
powerful grip on the legislative agenda. They
absolutely needed to keep a perfect balance of
free and slave states to hold on to that power.
Which led to some incredibly intense moments,
like the Webster -Haine debate of 1830. Oh, that
was huge. New England pitted directly against
the South. Just massive sectional tension. And
lawmakers were constantly trying to pass legislation
to keep the country from falling apart. You had
the Missouri Compromise of 1820. And then the
compromise of 1850 later on. But the tension
kept building until it reached a literal boiling
point. This detail is just shocking. In 1856,
Senator Charles Sumner gave a speech heavily
criticizing slavery. And then a few days later.
A representative, Preston Brooks, walked right
onto the Senate floor and physically assaulted
Sumner. He beat him with a metal -topped cane.
Right at his desk. beaten unconscious over a
speech. It just emphasizes how insanely high
the stakes were. It really does. And I want to
ask, what stands out to you listening to this?
It's a great question to think about. Because
we often think of rules like equal state representation
as just procedural math. But you have to think
about how these structural rules can literally
dictate the fate of millions of lives. Yeah.
This mathematical rule pushed an entire nation
towards civil war. It's heavy. And it changes
the way you look at the institution. Definitely.
Moving forward, post -Civil War, from 1865 to
1945, we move from the Gilded Age power brokers
to the era of direct democracy. Which was a massive
transition. Because right after the Civil War,
senators were still not elected by the people.
They were chosen by state legislatures. Which
meant wealthy financiers and party bosses essentially
ran the chamber. People like Nelson Aldrich.
The Millionaire's Club. Exactly. But even in
that super restrictive era, we see some incredible
trailblazers like Hiram Revels. The first African
-American senator. Right. In 1870. And his seating
wasn't easy. He had to survive a 48 to 8 vote
just to take a seat because members formally
objected. And he got in. He did. And he was followed
by Blanche Bruce. Plus, in 1907, Charles Curtis
became the first Native American senator. Some
really significant firsts during a very elite
time. But here's where it gets really interesting.
The 17th Amendment? Yes, 1913. The 17th Amendment
fundamentally changes everything. It mandated
the direct popular election of senators. If we
connect this to the bigger picture, being accountable
to actual voters suddenly changed the entire
face of the Senate. They actually had to campaign.
Right. And because of that... The demographics
started to shift. You get the first woman elected,
Hattie Carraway, in 1932. And Dennis Chavez in
1935, the first Latino elected to a full term.
The democratization of the chamber was really
underway. But while who was in the chamber changed,
the rules of debate were still wild. Let's talk
about the filibuster. The famous filibuster.
It was actually rarely used until World War I.
There was this small group of senators who completely
blocked a bill to arm U .S. merchant ships. President
Woodrow Wilson was furious about that. Livid.
He called them a little group of willful men.
And that public fury led directly to the 1917
creation of the cloture rule, a way to actually
end debate. Which originally required a massive
two -thirds vote to pull off. Right. So moving
into our third section here, the modern Senate,
we're looking at... 1945 to the present, independence,
the Cold War, and civil rights. The modern era
really shows the Senate flexing its institutional
muscles. Oh, absolutely. They weren't afraid
to stand up to massively popular presidents.
Like in 1937, FDR tried to push his court packing
plan. And he was at the height of his popularity.
But the Senate flat out rejected it. They protected
their institutional norms. And you see that global
focus shift, too, right after World War II. Managing
the Cold War. Exactly. They ratified NATO, approved
the Marshall Plan. They became heavily focused
on global foreign policy. But domestically, things
got very dark in the 1950s. The McCarthy era.
Yeah. Senator Joe McCarthy leading these massive
anti -communist investigations. He used his committee
power to make these sweeping accusations, ruining
lives across government in Hollywood. But ultimately,
the Senate policed its own. In 1954, they formally
censured him in a 67 to 22 vote. Which effectively
ended his influence. And right around that same
time, you have the rise of Lyndon B. Johnson.
LBJ. The master of the Senate. He practically
invented the modern majority leader rule. He
used it to just completely dominate the chamber.
He used every trick in the book to push through
the 1957 Civil Rights Act. And the rules kept
evolving. In 1975, they lowered that cloture
rule threshold from two thirds down to three
fifths. Making it slightly easier to break a
filibuster, though it's still a huge hurdle today.
Definitely. Now, looking at the modern era, it
is just a joy to run through the rapid expansion
of representation we've seen. It really accelerates
here. Hiram Fong became the first Asian -American
senator in 1959. Edward W. Brooke in 1966. Carol
Moseley Braun became the first African -American
woman elected in 1992. Tammy Baldwin, the first
openly gay senator in 2012. Catherine Cortez
Masto, the first Latina in 2017. The momentum
is incredible. And even just looking at 2020.
It's a completely different chamber than the
one in 1789. And we should give a nod to the
non -elected trailblazers, too. People like Paulette
DeSalle, the first female page, and Kathy Alvarez,
the first female legislative clerk. They broke
massive barriers behind the scenes. Okay, so
we wrap up. I have to mention this fun fact from
the text. 17 U .S. presidents used the Senate
as a stepping stone. That's a huge number. Right.
Right. Truman, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Obama, Biden.
The list goes on. It's the ultimate proving ground
for a national profile. So what does this all
mean? We started with a secretive elite club
of men chosen by state legislatures in a locked
room. And we tracked it all the way to a transparent,
directly elected body. A body that still grapples
with immense power, constant filibusters, and
trying to represent a highly diverse nation.
At the end of the day, the Senate was designed
by the founders to force compromise. To slow
things down. Exactly. To slow down the passions
of the day for better or worse. For better or
worse. And I want to leave you, the listener,
with a final thought to mull over. Go for it.
The Senate was originally built to be isolated
from popular opinion. They were chosen by state
legislatures, yet they gave equal voting power
to every single state. Right. But now the 17th
Amendment has subjected senators to direct democracy.
Yet the massive population disparities between
modern states remain equally represented. That's
a huge tension. So does the current Senate function
as the constitutional framers intended? Or has
it mutated into a fundamentally different institution
that is just trapped inside its original 1787
architecture? Wow. That is an incredibly provocative
thought to end on, a mutated institution trapped
in its original architecture. Well, thank you
for joining us on this deep dive. We hope you
feel a little more equipped to understand the
history echoing through the halls of the Capitol
today. Keep learning and we'll catch you next
time.