Welcome back. We're just so glad you could join
us today. Yeah, really glad to be here with you.
Because, well, when you think of a thrilling
edge -of -your -seat read, a massive data -heavy
Wikipedia table probably isn't the first thing
that jumps to mind, right? No, definitely not.
Usually people run the other way. Exactly. But
for you, our favorite learner, we've got something
special today. We really do. We're looking at
a document that... You know, on the surface,
it's just rows and columns. It's the complete
list of United States senators from New York.
And it goes all the way back. All the way back
to the very first Congress in 1789, right up
to the current delegation today. It's just a
remarkable piece of documentation. And while
it might masquerade as this dry administrative
record, tracking these dates, the names, the
footnotes. The footnotes are wild. They really
are. It reveals a deeply human ledger. I mean,
it is a chronicle of political evolution, fierce
ambition, sudden tragedies, and really the fundamental
mechanics of how power is transferred in this
country. OK, let's unpack this. But before we
jump into the timeline. I think we need to establish
the ground rules for our deep dive today. Definitely.
A crucial disclaimer here. Right. Because this
is a history of politicians, which means we are
inevitably going to be talking about political
parties. You can't avoid it. You can't. Yeah.
The source text mentions Democrats, Republicans,
conservatives, Whigs, and a slew of other factions
that, frankly. Don't even exist anymore. Completely
gone. So we want to explicitly remind you of
our golden rule for this show. We are absolutely
not taking any sides here. None at all. We are
simply acting as your impartial guides to the
historical data provided in this text. Exactly.
We are analyzing the mechanics of the system
and the historical trajectory completely neutral.
Just following the data. Right. And we'll be
tracing this timeline chronologically, starting
with the surprisingly chaotic early days of the
Senate. Very chaotic. Then watching the bizarre
evolution of political party labels, examining
the intense vulnerabilities and deadlocks that
left the office completely vacant. Which is fascinating.
It really is. And finally arriving at the highly
structured modern day delegation we see now.
We'll start right at the beginning. 1789. Let's
do it. Because the very first thing that. jumps
off the page when you look at this early era
is a shocking turnover rate. It's jarring. It
really is. When we think of U .S. senators today,
we usually think of individuals who spent decades
in Washington, right? Yeah. Building influence,
seniority. Exactly. Yeah. But from 1789 through
the mid -1800s, this delegation was essentially
a revolving door. A revolving door is the perfect
way to describe it. The sheer volume of the word
resigned. in the electoral history column is
just staggering. It paints a picture of a vastly
different political landscape. Right. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, it reveals something
fundamental about how early American government
was viewed. How so? Well, today, a seat in the
U .S. Senate is widely considered the pinnacle
of a political career. Sure. But this pattern
of departure shows that in the early republic,
the Senate was frequently treated as a mere stepping
stone. See, I'd actually push back on the idea
that they saw. as just a stepping stone to something
higher. Okay. Why is that? When you look at the
specific jobs they were leaving the Senate to
take, it almost feels like the Senate was viewed
as a lesser, almost temporary gig. Interesting.
Give me an example from the text. Okay. I'm looking
at John Sloss Hobart. Right. Elected in early
1798. Exactly. He serves for literally a few
months and then resigns. To do what? To become
a federal judge. Okay. A lifetime appointment.
That makes some sense. Sure. But then you have
Rufus King. He's elected in 1789, re -elected,
and then he just resigns to become the U .S.
minister to Great Britain. Oh, right. And John
Armstrong Jr. does the exact same thing a few
years later to become the U .S. minister to France.
Right. But those diplomatic posts were incredibly
vital at the time. You think so? Absolutely.
Arguably more critical to the survival of the
young nation than casting a vote in a developing
legislative body. That's a fair point. But your
point about it being a lesser gig becomes even
more apparent when you look at the domestic appointments
in the data. Oh, you're talking about the port.
Yes. That's the one that really caught my eye.
James Watson. Right. He gets elected to the Senate
in August of 1798. Okay. By March of 1800, he
resigns. And his reason. It's right there in
the footnotes. He leaves to become the naval
officer of the Port of New York. It sounds crazy
today. It does. You are leaving the United States
Senate to go manage a port. Why would anyone
make that trade today? Well, they wouldn't. But
in 1800, managing the Port of New York meant
you were sitting at the absolute epicenter of
American commerce. And the federal revenue, I
assume. Exactly. Tariffs and customs were the
lifeblood of the early economy. Wow. So that
position likely offered far more immediate, tangible
power and perhaps personal financial stability
than sitting in a nascent federal legislature.
That was still trying to figure out its own procedural
rules. Right. And a swampy, half -built capital
city. It really highlights a time when federal
legislative power was highly decentralized. And
the real influence was often kept at the local
ports and state capitals. Yes. That state -level
gravity is incredibly obvious when you look at
the gubernatorial data in the table. The governors.
Yeah. Martin Van Buren. Right. William L. Marcy.
Silas Wright Jr. Yeah. The data shows... All
of them resigned their U .S. Senate seats to
become the governor of New York. They willingly
gave up a federal position to go run their home
state. Which tells us that executive power at
the state level was simply viewed as more significant.
Or at least more immediately impactful on the
daily lives of citizens. Exactly. You had to
give up your Senate seat to go be governor, and
they gladly made that trade. Because the federal
government was a remote concept for many. Right.
The state was where the real action was. So if
the job itself was considered that fluid, it
makes sense that the political factions trying
to control it were just as unstable. Oh, absolutely.
The data shows that the early party labels were
completely chaotic. Highly experimental. Look
at the first two senators, Philip Schuyler and
Aaron Burr. Right. They aren't listed as Republicans
or Democrats. They are listed as prey administration
and anti -administration. It's a purely binary
system. Right. You were defined entirely by whether
you supported the current executive government
or opposed it. There wasn't even a pretense of
a sprawling multi -issue party platform yet.
No, it was just, are you with the president or
against him? And as you scroll down the decades
in this table, you watch the terminology morph
in real time. You see the federalist label emerge.
Right. Then Democratic, Republican. Yeah. By
the late 1820s and 1830s, the data introduces
the Jacksonian label. Yes. For senators like
Charles E. Dudley and Nathaniel P. Tallmadge.
They literally branded their political affiliation
after a single prominent figure, Andrew Jackson.
It feels less like a modern political party and
more like a massive personality cult acting as
a governing coalition. It perfectly illustrates
the experimental nature of American political
identity during that era. They were constantly
recalibrating how to group themselves structurally
to maintain power. Definitely. But here's where
it gets really interesting, though. OK. It's
one thing for party platforms to evolve over
generations. It's another thing entirely for
a sitting senator to change parties right in
the middle of their career. Oh, the party switchers.
Yes. The footnotes in this table expose some
serious midstream political maneuvering. Give
the listener an example. Take William H. Seward,
for example. He is reelected in 1855 as a member
of the Whig Party. Right. But a footnote casually
mentions he became a Republican shortly thereafter.
Just swapped. He just swapped his entire political
identity while holding the seat. That kind of
fluidity points to a broader trend. When a major
political coalition like the Whigs begins to
collapse, the politicians don't necessarily leave
with it. Right. They simply rebrand to survive
in the new ecosystem. Revive in advance. Exactly.
And we shouldn't assume that kind of volatility
was confined to the 19th century. Oh, definitely
not. Look at James L. Buckley's run in the 1970s.
That is a wild timeline. It is. He is elected
in 1970 as a member of the Conservative Party.
OK. Six years later. The text notes he changes
parties to become a Republican. Right. And then
he ultimately loses his reelection bid running
under the Liberal Party banner. So conservative
to Republican to liberal. All within a single
decade. It's a staggering individual trajectory.
It really is. But it reflects the deeply fractured,
complex political machine of New York. A politician
like Buckley was navigating shifting alliances,
trying to find the exact right lever to pull
to stay in office. Speaking of levers of power.
Yeah. I want to draw your attention back to the
1800s to a highly specific footnote regarding
Edwin D. Morgan in 1875. Oh, the caucus vote.
breakdown. Yes. This might be my favorite data
point in the entire document. It is incredibly
revealing. Walk us through it. So the source
material cites a Rochester newspaper from January
1875. Right. And it details the exact breakdown
of the Republican caucus vote to nominate their
candidate for the Senate. The tally reads Morgan
40, Dix 13, Wheeler 2, Fenton 2, Blank 5. The
five blank votes. Yes. That is such a cinematic
detail. Think about what that represents in the
context of the era. Before the 17th Amendment
established the popular election of senators,
these seats were chosen by state legislature.
Right. The voters weren't directly picking these
senators. Exactly. So this footnote captures
the intense backroom brokering process of that
system. 40 votes for Morgan, 13 for Dix, a handful
for others. But those five blank votes are the
most fascinating part of the data. Why cast a
blank ballot in a room where everyone is openly
tallying influence? It's pure leverage. Really?
Oh, yeah. A blank ballot in a smoke -filled room
is a profound political statement. Like what?
It might represent whole mouths waiting for a
specific patronage promise. Oh, holding out for
a better deal. Right. It might be cowardice politicians
unwilling to publicly alienate a powerful faction
by committing to a name. That makes sense. Or
it could be a deliberate stall tactic to force
a brokered convention. What this tiny footnote
exposes is that early senators weren't accountable
to millions of voters. They were accountable
to a few dozen men in a room holding blank pieces
of paper. Exactly. Which completely explains
the high turnover rate we talked about earlier.
How so? If your entire job depends on keeping
a fragile coalition of 60 local politicians happy,
the moment that coalition fractures, you're out.
Yeah, you lose the backing. And the data shows
us exactly what happens when those backroom deals
completely break down. The system stalls entirely.
Right. You look at the columns for the early
1800s and you start seeing this chilling phrase.
Legislature failed to elect. Yes, it happens
in 1813. It happens again in 1825. What's fascinating
here is the sheer duration of the consequences.
Right. Look at 1819. In 1819, the table shows
a vacancy stretching from March 4th all the way
to January 25th of 1820. That is nearly a full
year where one of New York's two seats in the
United States Senate was simply left empty. Just
completely vacant because the state legislature
couldn't cut a deal. It's mind boggling today.
It highlights a massive Democratic deficit in
the early republic's design. The system was incredibly
fragile. Right. If the state level politicians
deadlocked, if those guys with the blank ballots
refused to cave, the state simply lost half of
its representation in the upper chamber of the
federal government. The mechanics of democracy
didn't just bend, they broke. They absolutely
broke. And political gridlock wasn't the only
thing leaving these seats empty. No, not at all.
As we move into the 20th century, the document
chronicles some profound human tragedies that
threw the entire delegation into chaos. Yeah,
the mid -century transition. The timeline from
1949 is almost difficult to track because of
how fast the seat changes hands. The transition
of power during that specific window was incredibly
turbulent. I'm looking at the data for Robert
F. Wagner. Okay. He serves for... over two decades,
starting in 1927. A long, stable run. Right.
But in June of 1949, he resigns due to ill health,
and the table indicates he passes away shortly
after. Creating a sudden vacancy. Suddenly, you
have a massive power vacuum. To fill it, John
Foster Dulles is appointed in July of 1949. Okay.
But Dulles only holds the seat for a few months
before facing a special election to finish the
term. Which he loses. He loses that election
to Herbert H. Lehman, who takes the seat in November
1949. What exactly is happening to the political
stability here? Well, think about it. In a span
of just five months, from June to November 1949,
a single, highly influential Senate seat was
occupied by three completely different individuals.
Wagner, then Dulles, then Lehman. Right. And
consider the broader historical context of 1949.
The world is navigating the immediate aftermath
of World War II. The Cold War is freezing into
place. Global stakes are unimaginably high. And
one of the most important legislative seats in
the country is playing musical chairs. Exactly.
You see a similar, deeply tragic upheaval in
the 1960s. The Kennedy seat. Yes. Robert F. Kennedy
is elected in 1964. But his term ends abruptly
on June 6, 1968, marked by the single word in
the electoral history column, died. Following
his assassination, the seat is marked vacant
for three months, a silent gap in the data representing
a national trauma. It's heavy to see it just
listed as a data point. It is. In September 1968,
Charles Goodell is appointed to finish Kennedy's
term. Right. But Goodell eventually loses the
election for a full term to James Buckley. The
same Buckley, who would later run under three
different party labels. The very same. Put yourself
in the shoes of a New York voter during those
periods. Right. For you. The learner listening
to this, imagine that context. The person you
elected is suddenly gone. The governor appoints
a replacement you had no immediate say in. Then
months later, there's a special election and
someone entirely new takes the seat. It must
have felt incredibly disenfranchising, even if
the system was functioning exactly as designed
for a crisis. It's the ultimate whiplash. It
really reminds us that no matter how structured
a political system appears on paper, it is always
vulnerable to sudden uncontrollable human events.
Yeah. A single tragedy rewrites the entire ledger,
forcing millions of people to adapt to a reality
they didn't vote for. But as we keep scrolling
down this massive table moving past the turbulence
of the 60s and 70s, the visual rhythm of the
document fundamentally changes. It really smooths
out. We enter the 1980s and the chaos seems to
evaporate. Completely. The revolving doors slam
shut and we enter an era of intense stability.
The contrast with the 1700s couldn't be sharper.
Right. We transition from politicians resigning
after six months to run a port to individuals
who treat the Senate as their ultimate career
destination. Holding these seats for decades.
Decades. The data for Daniel Patrick Moynihan
shows him serving from 1977 all the way to 2001.
24 years. Aldamato serves from 1981 to 1999.
Decades of continuous service. It's a completely
different era of Senate mechanics. The power
has clearly shifted from the state level back
to the federal level. And this modern stability
brings us to the mechanical structure of the
current Senate. The classes. Right. The table
divides the senators into classes. Specifically...
New York holds a Class 1 seat and a Class 3 seat.
Let's focus on the strategic impact of that.
Sure. We know the Senate is divided into three
classes so that only about a third of the chamber
is up for election every two years. Right, to
prevent total turnover. But what does it actually
mean for a state to hold Class 1 and Class 3?
It dictates the entire rhythm of the state's
political infrastructure. How so? Because New
York holds class one and class three seats, their
delegation was effectively split during the 2022
and 2024 cycles. This means this single state's
political machine has to gear up for massive
multi -million dollar Senate campaigns almost
back to back. Let's trace the current delegation
data. The class three seat was recently contested
in 2022. Right. That seat is held by Chuck Schumer.
And according to the text, his next election
is set for 2028. Chuck Schumer's data profile
is really the epitome of the modern era's stability.
Definitely. He was elected in 1998, serving continuously
since 1999. Furthermore, the text specifically
notes he has been serving as the Senate Democratic
leader since 2017. He is an institutional fixture
in a way that would have been unimaginable to
the politicians of the 1790s. They wouldn't even
comprehend it. And then there's the class one
seat. recently contested in 2024, with its next
election in 2030. The Gillibrand seat. Right,
currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand. But the
path to Gillibrand, sitting in that seat today,
is its own fascinating chain of events. It is.
Triggered by a very high -profile resignation
that echoes the sudden changes of the past, but
handles them with modern precision. The Hillary
Clinton ripple effect. Yes. If you look at the
bottom of the table, Hillary Clinton is elected
to the Senate in 2000. Okay. She's reelected
in 2006, but she doesn't finish that second term.
Right. In January 2009, she resigns to become
U .S. Secretary of State. This creates a sudden
vacancy, much like the ones we saw in the early
1800s when politicians left for diplomatic posts.
Right, like Rufus King going to Great Britain.
Exactly. Yeah. But notice how differently the
modern system absorbs the shock. Oh, it's night
and day. There is no year -long deadlock. There
is a brief vacancy of just five days. From January
21 to January 26, 2009. Five days. Kirsten Gillibrand
is swiftly appointed to continue Clinton's term.
Gillibrand then wins a special election in 2010
to finish out that term. And the data shows her
winning reelection ever since, holding the seat
to this day. One high -level executive appointment
ripples out, creates a five -day gap, and ultimately
installs a new senator who ends up holding the
position for over a decade. It is the butterfly
effect, perfectly captured in the columns of
a Wikipedia table. It's incredible. So what does
this all mean? That's the big question. When
we zoom out from all these dates, the shifting
party labels, the backroom caucuses and the modern
campaigns. What is the big takeaway for you,
our listener? If we synthesize everything we've
analyzed today, it is clear that the single document
tracing names from Philip Schuyler in 1789 down
to Chuck Schumer today acts as a perfect mirror
for the nation's broader structural shifts. We
began by looking at a decentralized, weak federal
system where the Senate was a temporary gig for
men who would rather govern a state or manage
a local port. We watched the chaotic, experimental
birth of new political identities. We saw the
absolute vulnerabilities of a system prone to
legislative deadlocks and tragic, sudden changes.
And we observed how pre -popular election mechanics
meant a few men with blank ballots could stall
the democratic process entirely. Exactly. And
finally, we saw the evolution into the highly
structured, long -tenured powerhouse delegation
that defines the modern era. The history of the
country's Centralization of power is quite literally
written in the turnover rates of these two seats.
It's amazing how much profound human drama and
systemic evolution is hidden in plain sight inside
a data table. It truly is. But before we go,
this analysis raises an important question. Something
we haven't touched on yet, but that the text
directly provokes. Let's hear it. We spent a
lot of time analyzing those early 19th century
entries where the data simply says legislature
failed to elect, leaving major Senate seats entirely
vacant for months, sometimes nearly a year due
to procedural gridlock. Right. Those massive
gaps in representation that disenfranchise the
entire state. Precisely. So we leave you with
this to ponder. In today's era of intense, hyper
-polarized political gridlock, could we ever
see a return to those early days? Wow. The modern
system feels stable now, but if certain procedural
fail -safes were to break down, say a governor
and a state legislature completely deadlocking
over appointment rules during a contested cycle,
could we once again see a scenario where a state's
major Senate seat sits completely empty for an
extended period, just as it did in 1819? That
is a chilling thought to end on, but a fascinating
one to explore. Definitely something to think
about. Thank you so much for joining us on this
journey through the ledger of history. We love
doing this for you, the learner. Please keep
bringing us these incredible forces and we will
see you on the next deep dive. Thank you for
listening. Keep exploring.