A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-88), by John Adams
“A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America is a three volume work by John Adams published in 1787–1788. The work was written while Adams was serving as the American ambassador in London. In Britain and in previous postings in France and the Netherlands Adams had confronted several criticisms of the government systems used by the American states. Adams started the work prior to the writing of the Constitution of the United States and the work is not a defense of that document, but rather of the various state constitutions that were in place in 1787.”
The Virginia Plan (1787), by James Madison
“Introduced to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, James Madison’s Virginia Plan outlined a strong national government with three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The plan called for a legislature divided into two bodies (the Senate and the House of Representatives) with proportional representation. That is, each state’s representation in Congress would be based on its population. The alternative to the Virginia Plan, William Paterson’s New Jersey Plan, intended to give states equal representation in a one-bodied legislature. Adopted on July 16, 1787, the “Connecticut Compromise” utilized both forms of representation, providing proportional representation in the House and equal representation in the Senate.”
The Federalist Papers: No. 62 (1788), by “Publius” James Madison
“Federalist No. 62 is an essay by James Madison, the sixty-second of The Federalist Papers. It was published on February 27, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all The Federalist papers were published. This is the first of two essays by Madison detailing, and seeking to justify, the organization of the United States Senate. It is titled "The Senate". Five key considerations are brought up in the introductory paragraph, of which only three and a part of the fourth are discussed in Federalist No. 62. Madison's thoughts on this subject are completed in Federalist No. 63: The qualifications of senators (thirty years of age or older/citizen for nine years),the appointment of Senators by the state legislatures – later changed to direct popular vote by the 17th amendment in 1913, the equality of representation in the Senate, and the number of senators.”
The Constitution of the United States, Article. I. Section. 3., The National Archives
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America… Article. I. Section. 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote…”
A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States, by Thomas Jefferson
“A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801, is the first American book on parliamentary procedure. As Vice President of the United States, Jefferson served as the Senate's presiding officer from 1797 to 1801. Throughout these four years, Jefferson worked on various texts and, in early 1800, started to assemble them into a single manuscript for the Senate's use. In December 1800 he delivered his manuscript to printer Samuel Harrison Smith, who delivered the final product to Jefferson on 27 February 1801. Later, the House of Representatives also adopted the Manual for use in its chamber. Jefferson's Manual was based on notes Jefferson took while studying parliamentary procedure at the College of William and Mary.A second edition with added material by Jefferson was printed in 1812. The Manual is arranged in fifty-three categories from (1) The Importance of Adhering to Rules to (53) Impeachment. Each section includes the appropriate rules and practices of the British Parliament along with the applicable texts from the U.S. Constitution and the thirty-two Senate rules that existed in 1801.”
The Filibuster in the United States Senate
“A filibuster is a tactic employed in the United States Senate to prevent a measure from being brought to a vote. The most common form of filibuster occurs when one or more senators attempt to delay or block a vote on a bill by extending debate on the measure. The Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish, and on any topic they choose, unless "three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn" (currently 60 out of 100) vote to bring the debate to a close by invoking cloture under Senate Rule XXII. The ability to block a measure through extended debate was a side effect of an 1806 rule change, and was infrequently used during much of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1970, the Senate adopted a "two-track" procedure to prevent filibusters from stopping all other Senate business. The minority then felt politically safer in threatening filibusters more often, which became normalized over time to the point that 60 votes are now required to end debate on nearly every controversial legislative item. Efforts to limit the practice include laws that explicitly limit the time for Senate debate, notably the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that created the budget reconciliation process. Changes in 2013 and 2017 now require only a simple majority to invoke cloture on nominations, although most legislation still requires 60 votes. At times, the "nuclear option" has been proposed to eliminate the 60 vote threshold for certain matters before the Senate. The nuclear option is a parliamentary procedure that allows the Senate to override one of its standing rules, including the 60-vote rule to close debate, by a simple majority (51+ votes or 50 votes with the Vice President casting the tie-breaking vote), rather than the two-thirds supermajority normally required to amend the rules. One or more senators may still occasionally hold the floor for an extended period, sometimes without the advance knowledge of the Senate leadership. However, these "filibusters" usually result only in brief delays and do not determine outcomes, since the Senate's ability to act ultimately depends upon whether there are sufficient votes to invoke cloture and proceed to a final vote on passage.”
Thomas H. Benton (American Statesmen Series), by Theodore Roosevelt
“Senator Thomas Hart Benton became a force in the United States Senate under Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. His is most noted for his encouragement of western settlers; his abolitionist stance that eventually cost him his seat; and his strong hard money position that he and President Jackson used to end the National Bank.”
The Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Union: Selected Documents, by Herman Belz (Editor)
“The debates between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina gave fateful utterance to the differing understandings of the nature of the American Union that had come to predominate in the North and the South by 1830. To Webster, the Union was the indivisible expression of one nation of people. To Hayne, the Union was the voluntary compact among sovereign states. The Webster-Hayne Debate consists of speeches delivered in the United States Senate in January of 1830.”
The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, by Merrill D. Peterson
“Enormously powerful, intensely ambitious, the very personifications of their respective regions--Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun were widely seen as the foremost statesmen of their age. In the decades preceding the Civil War, they dominated American congressional politics as no other figures did, and there was scarcely a national issue or debate in which they took no part. Now Merrill D. Peterson, one of our most gifted historians, brilliantly re-creates the lives and times of these great men in this monumental collective biography.”
John C Calhoun: A Biography, by Irving H. Bartlett
“John C. Calhoun was a rare figure in American history: a lifelong politician who was also a profound political philosopher. Vice president under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, he was a dominant presence in the U.S. Senate. Now comes a major new biography from the author of Daniel Webster.”
Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time, by Robert V. Remini
“In this monumental new biography, Robert V. Remini gives us a full life of Webster from his birth, early schooling, and rapid rise as a lawyer and politician in New Hampshire to his equally successful career in Massachusetts where he moved in 1816. Remini treats both the man and his time as they tangle in issues such as westward expansion, growth of democracy, market revolution, slavery and abolitionism, the National Bank, and tariff issues. Webster's famous speeches are fully discussed as are his relations with the other two of the "great triumvirate," Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Throughout, Remini pays close attention to Webster's personal life?perhaps more than Webster would have liked?his relationships with family and friends, and his murky financial dealings with men of wealth and influence.”
Henry Clay: The Essential American, by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler
“He was the Great Compromiser, a canny and colorful legislator whose life mirrors the story of America from its founding until the eve of the Civil War. Speaker of the House, senator, secretary of state, five-time presidential candidate, and idol to the young Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay is captured in full at last in this rich and sweeping biography. David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler present Clay in his early years as a precocious, witty, and optimistic Virginia farm boy who at the age of twenty transformed himself into an attorney. The authors reveal Clay’s tumultuous career in Washington, including his participation in the deadlocked election of 1824 that haunted him for the rest of his career, and shine new light on Clay’s marriage to plain, wealthy Lucretia Hart, a union that lasted fifty-three years and produced eleven children. Featuring an inimitable supporting cast including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay is beautifully written and replete with fresh anecdotes and insights. Horse trader and risk taker, arm twister and joke teller, Henry Clay was the consummate politician who gave ground, made deals, and changed the lives of millions.”
America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union, by Fergus M. Bordewich
“The spellbinding story behind the longest debate in US Senate history: the Compromise of 1850, which brought together Senate luminaries on the eve of the Civil War in a desperate effort to save the Union. The Mexican War introduced vast new territories into the United States, among them California and the present-day Southwest. When gold was discovered in California in the great Gold Rush of 1849, the population swelled, and settlers petitioned for admission to the Union. But the U.S. Senate was precariously balanced with fifteen free states and fifteen slave states. Up to then states had been admitted in pairs, one free and one slave, to preserve that tenuous balance in the Senate. Would California be free or slave? So began a paralyzing crisis in American government, and the longest debate in Senate history. Fergus Bordewich tells the epic story of the Compromise of 1850 with skill and vigor, bringing to life two generations of senators who dominated the great debate. Luminaries such as John Calhoun, Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay—who tried unsuccessfully to cobble together a compromise that would allow for California’s admission and simultaneously put an end to the nation’s agony over slavery—were nearing the end of their long careers. Rising stars such as Jefferson Davis, William Seward, and Stephen Douglas—who ultimately succeeded where Clay failed—would shape the country’s politics as slavery gradually fractured the nation. The Compromise saved the Union from collapse, but it did so at a great cost. The gulf between North and South over slavery widened with the strengthened Fugitive Slave Law that was part of the complex Compromise. In America’s Great Debate Fergus Bordewich takes us back to a time when compromise was imperative, when men swayed one another in Congress with the power of their ideas and their rhetoric, when partisans on each side reached across the aisle to preserve the Union from tragedy.”
Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, by Robert V. Remini
“Among the nineteenth-century Americans, few commanded the reverence and respect accorded to Henry Clay of Kentucky. As orator and as Speaker of the House for longer than any man in the century, he wielded great power, a compelling presence in Congress who helped preserve the Union in the antebellum period. Remini portrays both the statesman and the private man, a man whose family life was painfully torn and who burned with ambition for the office he could not reach, the presidency.”
Stephen A. Douglas, by Robert Walter Johannsen
“Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians. For the quarter-century before 1860 Stephen A. Douglas was a dominant figure on the American political scene, far out shadowing Abraham Lincoln. This is Robert Johannsen's authoritative biography.”
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text, by Abraham Lincoln & Stephen A. Douglas, Harold Holzer (Editor)
“The seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas held during the Illinois senatorial race of 1858 are among the most important statements in American political history, dramatic struggles over the issues that would tear apart the nation in the Civil War: the virtues of a republic and the evils of slavery. In this acclaimed book, Holzer brings us as close as possible to what Lincoln and Douglas actually said, Using transcripts of Lincoln's speeches as recorded by the pro-Douglas newspaper, and vice-versa, he offers the most reliable, unedited record available of the debates. Also included are background on the sites, crowd comments, and a new introduction.”
Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, by David Donald
“In this brilliant biography a Pulitzer Prize winning national bestseller David Herbert Donald, Harvard professor emeritus, traces Sumner's life as the nation careens toward civil war. In a period when senators often exercised more influence than presidents, Senator Charles Sumner was one of the most powerful forces in the American government and remains one of the most controversial figures in American history. His uncompromising moral standards made him a lightning rod in an era fraught with conflict. Sumner's fight to end slavery made him a hero in the North and stirred outrage in the South. In what has been called the first blow of the Civil War, he was physically attacked by a colleague on the Senate floor. Unwavering and arrogant, Sumner refused to abandon the moral high ground, even if doing so meant the onslaught of the nation's most destructive war. He used his office and influence to transform the United States during the most contentious and violent period in the nation's history. Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War presents a remarkably different view of our bloodiest war through an insightful reevaluation of the man who stood at its center.”
The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster: With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style, by Edwin P. Whipple (editor) and by Daniel Webster (author)
““Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.” “Man is a special being, and if left to himself, in an isolated condition, would be one of the weakest creatures; but associated with his kind, he works wonders.” “It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now and independence forever.” Daniel Webster (18 January 1782 – 25 October 1852) was a United States Senator and Secretary of State. Famed for his ability as an orator, Webster was one of the most important figures in the Second Party System from the 1820s to the 1850s. Here is a compendium of selected famous speeches and orations of Daniel Webster, to illustrate his genius and character as a lawyer, statesman, Senator, negotiator, patriot, and citizen. An introductory essay describes and explains the man as a master of English style.”
The Caning: The Assault That Drove America to Civil War, by Stephen Puleo
“Early in the afternoon of May 22, 1856, ardent pro-slavery Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina strode into the United States Senate Chamber in Washington, D.C., and began beating renowned anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner with a gold-topped walking cane. Brooks struck again and again—more than thirty times across Sumner’s head, face, and shoulders—until his cane splintered into pieces and the helpless Massachusetts senator, having nearly wrenched his desk from its fixed base, lay unconscious and covered in blood. It was a retaliatory attack. Forty-eight hours earlier, Sumner had concluded a speech on the Senate floor that had spanned two days, during which he vilified Southern slave owners for violence occurring in Kansas, called Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois a “noise-some, squat, and nameless animal,” and famously charged Brooks’s second cousin, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, as having “a mistress” who ugly to others, is always lovely to him. . . . I mean, the harlot, Slavery.” Brooks not only shattered his cane during the beating, but also destroyed any pretense of civility between North and South.”
The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation, by Brenda Wineapple
“When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and Vice-President Andrew Johnson became “the Accidental President,” it was a dangerous time in America. Congress was divided over how the Union should be reunited: when and how the secessionist South should regain full status, whether former Confederates should be punished, and when and whether black men should be given the vote. Devastated by war and resorting to violence, many white Southerners hoped to restore a pre–Civil War society, if without slavery, and the pugnacious Andrew Johnson seemed to share their goals. With the unchecked power of executive orders, Johnson ignored Congress, pardoned rebel leaders, promoted white supremacy, opposed civil rights, and called Reconstruction unnecessary. It fell to Congress to stop the American president who acted like a king. With profound insights and making use of extensive research, Brenda Wineapple dramatically evokes this pivotal period in American history, when the country was rocked by the first-ever impeachment of a sitting American president. And she brings to vivid life the extraordinary characters who brought that impeachment forward: the willful Johnson and his retinue of advocates—including complicated men like Secretary of State William Seward—as well as the equally complicated visionaries committed to justice and equality for all, like Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, Frederick Douglass, and Ulysses S. Grant. Theirs was a last-ditch, patriotic, and Constitutional effort to render the goals of the Civil War into reality and to make the Union free, fair, and whole.”
Classic Senate Speeches, United States Senate
“In the 19th century, major speeches by well-known senators drew large crowds into the Senate Chamber. Sometimes stretching over two or three days, these speeches expressed national aspirations, framed important debates, and were often controversial. Although rhetorical styles have changed, debate on a crucial national issue in today's Senate can still stimulate an impassioned and closely reasoned speech designed to sway listeners and attract votes on legislation. This collection includes speeches of substantial historical significance marked by moments of high drama.”
The Road to Mass Democracy: Original Intent and the Seventeenth Amendment, by C. H. Hoebeke
“Until 1913 and passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, US senators were elected by state legislatures, not directly by the people. Progressive Era reformers urged this revision in answer to the corruption of state "machines" under the dominance of party bosses. They also believed that direct elections would make the Senate more responsive to popular concerns regarding the concentrations of business, capital, and labor that in the industrial era gave rise to a growing sense of individual voicelessness. Popular control over the higher affairs of government was thought to be possible, since the spread of information and communications technology was seen as rendering indirect representation through state legislators unnecessary. However sincerely such reasons were advanced, C. H. Hoebeke contends, none of them accorded with the original intent of the Constitution's framers. The driving force behind the Seventeenth Amendment was the furtherance of democracy?exactly what the founders were trying to prevent in placing the Senate out of direct popular reach.”
The Senate and The League of Nations, by Henry Cabot Lodge
“This is a great primary resource for WWI. It contains the account of Henry Cabot Lodge, one of the leading opponents of the League of Nations, and explains his reasons for opposing entry into the organization. Includes minutes from meetings with the president and other senators.”
Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer, by Nancy C. Unger
“Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette (1855-1925) was one of the most significant leaders of American progressivism. Nancy Unger integrates previously unknown details from La Follette's personal life with important events from his storied political career, revealing a complex man who was a compelling mixture of failure and accomplishment, tragedy and triumph. Serving as U.S. representative from 1885 to 1891, governor of Wisconsin from 1901 to 1906, and senator from Wisconsin from 1906 to his death in 1925, La Follette earned the nickname "Fighting Bob" through his uncompromising efforts to reform both politics and society, especially by championing the rights of the poor, workers, women, and minorities. Based on La Follette family letters, diaries, and other papers, this biography covers the personal events that shaped the public man. In particular, Unger explores La Follette's relationship with his remarkable wife, feminist Belle Case La Follette, and with his sons, both of whom succeeded him in politics. The La Follette who emerges from this retelling is an imperfect yet appealing man who deserves to be remembered as one of the United States' most devoted and effective politicians.”
Arthur Vandenberg: The Man in the Middle of the American Century, by Hendrik Meijer
“The idea that a Senator—Republican or Democrat—would put the greater good of the country ahead of party seems nearly impossible to imagine in our current climate of gridlock and divisiveness. But this hasn’t always been the case. Arthur H. Vandenberg (1884–1951), Republican from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was the model of a consensus builder, and the coalitions he spearheaded continue to form the foundation of American foreign and domestic policy today. Edward R. Murrow called him “the central pivot of the entire era,” yet, despite his significance, Vandenberg has never received the full public attention he is due—until now. With this authoritative biography, Hendrik Meijer reveals how Vandenberg built and nurtured the bipartisan consensus that created the American Century. Originally the editor and publisher of the Grand Rapids Herald, Vandenberg was appointed and later elected to the Senate in 1928, where he became an outspoken opponent of the New Deal and a leader among the isolationists who resisted FDR’s efforts to aid European allies at the onset of World War II. But Vandenberg soon recognized the need for unity at the dawn of a new world order; and as a Republican leader, he worked closely with Democratic administrations to build the strong bipartisan consensus that established the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and NATO. Vandenberg, as Meijer reveals, was instrumental in organizing Congressional support for these monumental twentieth-century foreign policy decisions. Vandenberg’s life and career offer powerful lessons for today, and Meijer has given us a story that suggests an antidote to our current democratic challenges. After reading this poignant biography, many will ask: Where is the Vandenberg of today?”
Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft, by James T. Patterson
“The book focuses on the life and political career of Robert A Taft (1889-1953) of Ohio, one of the most powerful - and unluckiest - men ever to sit in the U.S. Senate. In the late 1950's a Senate committee named Taft as one of the five greatest Senators in history.”
Everett Dirksen and His Presidents: How a Senate Giant Shaped American Politics, by Byron C. Hulsey
“He was as recognizable by his mellifluous voice as by his rumpled appearance. Everett McKinley Dirksen was one of the most colorful American politicians of the twentieth century and was considered by some the most powerful man in Congress. Now Byron Hulsey takes a new look at the senator from Illinois to show how his interactions with the White House made him a pivotal figure in American politics during the Cold War era. Hulsey traces Dirksen's relationships with four presidents to show how the senator shifted from being a major Republican critic of Truman to an ardent Republican supporter of LBJ. Dirksen learned "suprapartisan politics" from Eisenhower and became Ike's most trusted confidant on Capitol Hill; then as Senate Minority Leader he played a key role in furthering the ambitious goals of the Johnson administration. Hulsey analyzes the reasons for Dirksen's dramatic policy reversals, telling how the senator who in 1950 warned of the dangers of a leviathan executive came to embrace the power of the presidential office to provide for the social welfare, contain the spread of communism, and guarantee civil rights.”
Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, by Larry Tye
“In the long history of American demagogues, from Huey Long to Donald Trump, never has one man caused so much damage in such a short time as Senator Joseph McCarthy. We still use “McCarthyism” to stand for outrageous charges of guilt by association, a weapon of polarizing slander. From 1950 to 1954, McCarthy destroyed many careers and even entire lives, whipping the nation into a frenzy of paranoia, accusation, loyalty oaths, and terror. His chaotic, meteoric rise is a gripping and terrifying object lesson for us all. Yet, his equally sudden fall from fame offers hope that, given the rope, most American demagogues eventually hang themselves. Only now, through best-selling author Larry Tye’s look at the senator’s records, can the full story be told.”
Politics of Conscience: A Biography of Margaret Chase Smith, by Patricia Ward Wallace
“Margaret Chase Smith was the most influential woman in the history of American politics. Her goal was to be a United States senator, not a woman senator, and she succeeded by overcoming gender, not by championing it. Smith began her political career as Maine's daughter and demonstrated nationally the New England virtues of honesty, hard work, frugality, and reticence. She became America's heroine when she courageously confronted Senator Joe McCarthy at the height of his power with her Declaration of Conscience speech. In her statement she championed the American right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, and to practice free speech. Associating herself with the politics of conscience, Smith won three more terms in the Senate and sat on the powerful Armed Services, Appropriations, Space, Government Operations, and Intelligence committees. Altogether, she was in Congress 32 years and by the time her career ended she had established an enduring prototype for female and minority politicians.”
Master Of The Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, by Robert A. Caro
“Master of the Senate, Book Three of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, carries Johnson’s story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate. At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done. It was during these years that all Johnson’s experience—from his Texas Hill Country boyhood to his passionate representation in Congress of his hardscrabble constituents to his tireless construction of a political machine—came to fruition. Caro introduces the story with a dramatic account of the Senate itself: how Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun had made it the center of governmental energy, the forum in which the great issues of the country were thrashed out. And how, by the time Johnson arrived, it had dwindled into a body that merely responded to executive initiatives, all but impervious to the forces of change. Caro anatomizes the genius for political strategy and tactics by which, in an institution that had made the seniority system all-powerful for a century and more, Johnson became Majority Leader after only a single term-the youngest and greatest Senate Leader in our history; how he manipulated the Senate’s hallowed rules and customs and the weaknesses and strengths of his colleagues to change the “unchangeable” Senate from a loose confederation of sovereign senators to a whirring legislative machine under his own iron-fisted control.”
JFK in the Senate: Pathway to the Presidency, by John T. Shaw
“Before John F. Kennedy became a legendary young president, he was the junior senator from Massachusetts. The Senate was where JFK's presidential ambitions were born and first realized. In the first book to deal exclusively with JFK's Senate years, author John T. Shaw looks at how the young senator was able to catapult himself on the national stage.”
Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution, by Lee Edwards
“The most comprehensive biography of Barry Goldwater ever written is back by popular demand with a new foreword by Phyllis Schlafly and an updated introduction by the author. Lee Edwards renders a penetrating account of the icon who put the conservative movement on the national stage. Replete with previously unpublished details of his life, Goldwater established itself as the definitive study of the political maverick who made a revolution.”
The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer, by Chris Myers Asch
“The epic struggle for black equality in the twentieth century, told through the deeply intertwined life histories of the staunch segregationist and his sharecropper nemesis. Sunflower County, Mississippi, is a land of seeming contradictions. It boasts some of the world's richest soil, yet has produced widespread poverty that lingers to this day. It stood at the epicenter of the civil rights movement, yet still suffers from racial inequality. It has been on the forefront of globalization, yet continues to stagnate economically. The Senator and the Sharecropper explores these paradoxes, telling the story of two larger-than-life personalities who epitomized the county's extremes: the senator, James O. Eastland, a wealthy white cotton planter who was one of the most powerful segregationists in the U.S. Senate, and the sharecropper, Fannie Lou Hamer, who grew up desperately poor just a few miles from the Eastland plantation and rose to become the spiritual leader of the Mississippi freedom struggle. Their intertwined histories-set against a backdrop of Sunflower County's rise and fall as a center of cotton agriculture-show how this isolated county weathered revolutionary changes in seemingly distant realms, from the global economy to the Cold War to national politics.”
Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon, by Larry Tye
“Bare-knuckle operative, cynical White House insider, romantic visionary—Robert F. Kennedy was all of these things at one time or another, and each of these aspects of his personality emerges in the pages of this powerful and perceptive biography. History remembers RFK as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedy’s enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that began with his service as counsel to the red-baiting senator Joseph McCarthy. In Bobby Kennedy, Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to capture the full arc of his subject’s life. Tye draws on unpublished memoirs, unreleased government files, and fifty-eight boxes of papers that had been under lock and key for forty years. He conducted hundreds of interviews with RFK intimates, many of whom have never spoken publicly, including Bobby’s widow, Ethel, and his sister, Jean. Tye’s determination to sift through the tangle of often contradictory opinions means that Bobby Kennedy will stand as the definitive biography about the most complex and controversial member of the Kennedy family.”
Bridging the Divide: My Life, by Edward Brooke
“President Lyndon Johnson never understood it. Neither did President Richard Nixon. How could a black man, a Republican no less, be elected to the United States Senate from liberal, Democratic Massachusetts-a state with an African American population of only 2 percent? The mystery of Senator Edward Brooke's meteoric rise from Boston lawyer to Massachusetts attorney general to the first popularly elected African American U.S. senator with some of the highest favorable ratings of any Massachusetts politician confounded many of the best political minds of the day. After winning a name for himself as the first black man to be elected a state's attorney general, as a crime fighter, and as the organizer of the Boston Strangler Task Force, this articulate and charismatic man burst on the national scene in 1966 when he ran for the Senate. In two terms in the Senate during some of the most racially tormented years of the twentieth century, Brooke, through tact, personality, charm, and determination, became a highly regarded member of "the most exclusive club in the world." The only African-American senator ever to be elected to a second term, Brooke established a reputation for independent thinking and challenged the powerbrokers and presidents of the day in defense of the poor and disenfranchised.”
The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis, by Ira Shapiro
“Journalists have called the U.S. Senate an empty chamber; politicians have lamented that the institution is broken—yet the Senate was once capable of greatness. Senators of the 1960s and 1970s overcame southern opposition to civil rights, passed Great Society legislation, and took the lead in opposing the Vietnam War and holding Richard Nixon accountable for the abuses of Watergate. The Last Great Senate is a vivid portrait of the statesmen who helped steer America during the crisis years of the late 1970s, transcending partisanship and overcoming procedural roadblocks that have all but strangled the Senate since their departure.”
The Senate 1789-1989 Addresses on the History of the United States Senate (4 volumes), by Sen. Robert C. Byrd
“The most ambitious history of the U.S. Senate ever written. Robert Carlyle Byrd (born Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr.; November 20, 1917 – June 28, 2010) was a United States Senator from West Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd served as a U.S. Representative from 1953 until 1959 and as a U.S. Senator from 1959 to 2010. He was the longest-serving U.S. Senator and, at the time of his death, the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Congress.”
The Senate of the Roman Republic: Addresses on the History of Roman Constitutionalism, by Sen. Robert C. Byrd and the Senate Historical Office
“Provides a series of fourteen addresses delivered in 1993 before the Senate by Senator Robert C. Byrd. Discusses the constitutional history of separated and shared powers as shaped in the republic and empire of ancient Rome. These lectures are also in opposition to the proposed line-item veto concept. The introduction states that Senator Byrd delivered these speeches entirely from memory and without notes.”
The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton, by Peter Baker
“With unprecedented access to all the players -- major and minor -- Washington Post reporter Peter Baker reconstructs the compelling drama that gripped the nation for six critical months: the impeachment and trial of William Jefferson Clinton. The Breach vividly depicts the mind-boggling political and legal events as they unfolded, a day-by-day and sometimes hour-by-hour account beginning August 17, 1998, the night of the president's grand-jury testimony and his disastrous speech to the nation, through the House impeachment hearings and the Senate trial, ending on February 12, 1999, the day of his acquittal. Using 350 original interviews, confidential investigation files, diaries, and tape recordings, Baker goes behind the scenes and packs the book with newsworthy revelations -- the infighting among the president's advisers, the pressure among Democrats to call for Clinton's resignation, the secret back-channel negotiations between the White House and Congress, a tour of the War Room set up by Tom DeLay to force Clinton out of office, the agonizing of various members of Congress, the anxiety of lawmakers who feared the exposure of their own sex lives, and Hillary Clinton's learning that her husband would admit his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The Breach is contemporary history at its best -- shocking, revealing, and consequential. It is a tale of how Washington became lost in "the breach" of its own partisan impulses. All of this, and much more, makes The Breach one of the most important and illuminating volumes of history and contemporary politics of our generation.”
The American Senate: An Insider’s History, by Neil MacNeil and Richard A. Baker
“The United States Senate has fallen on hard times. Once known as the greatest deliberative body in the world, it now has a reputation as a partisan, dysfunctional chamber. What happened to the house that forged American history's great compromises? In this groundbreaking work, a distinguished journalist and an eminent historian provide an insider's history of the United States Senate. Richard A. Baker, historian emeritus of the Senate, and Neil MacNeil, former chief congressional correspondent for Time magazine, integrate nearly a century of combined experience on Capitol Hill with deep research and state-of-the-art scholarship. They explore the Senate's historical evolution with one eye on persistent structural pressures and the other on recent transformations. Here, for example, are the Senate's struggles with the presidency—from George Washington's first, disastrous visit to the chamber on August 22, 1789, through now-forgotten conflicts with Presidents Garfield and Cleveland, to current war powers disputes. The authors also explore the Senate's potent investigative power, and show how it began with an inquiry into John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. It took flight with committees on the conduct of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and World War II; and it gained a high profile with Joseph McCarthy's rampage against communism, Estes Kefauver's organized-crime hearings (the first to be broadcast), and its Watergate investigation. Within the book are surprises as well. For example, the office of majority leader first acquired real power in 1952--not with Lyndon Johnson, but with Republican Robert Taft. Johnson accelerated the trend, tampering with the sacred principle of seniority in order to control issues such as committee assignments. Rampant filibustering, the authors find, was the ironic result of the passage of 1960s civil rights legislation. No longer stigmatized as a white-supremacist tool, its use became routine, especially as the Senate became more partisan in the 1970s. Thoughtful and incisive, The American Senate: An Insider's History transforms our understanding of Congress's upper house.”
