Who did members of the early United States Senate represent? Many scholarly and popular political accounts of the Antebellum era assume that senators were exclusively representatives of the state governments because pre-reform senators were chosen by state legislatures. However, The Less Responsive Chamber? examines senators’ relationship with three potential targets of representation—the state governments, the state legislature, and the electorate of the state.
Through both empirical analyses and detailed case studies, the book demonstrates that senators cared about the public and did not strictly view their representational role as one of being faithful agents to state governments. While senators’ floor speeches, circulars, and correspondences frequently referenced the state electorate as their primary constituency, they were often directed to represent a variety of interests. Further, senators were aware of and responded to public opinion as well as intra-state political dynamics. By documenting how the interests of political parties, states, and the public influenced the Senate’s behavior during the early years of the United States, this book offers insight into a period whose fraught politics continue to impact our lives today.