>> each week, american history tv's american artifacts visits museums and historic places. up next we travel to philadelphia's independence national historical park, to learn about congress hall, the meeting place for the u.s.

house and senate between 1790 and 1800. our guide is park ranger matthew ifill. >> we are standing in the old house of representatives, what we call congress hall. originally it was billed as a town courthouse for philadelphia, from worst of its history that's exactly what it was. but in the use of the city of washington d.c. is being willed -- built, philadelphia serves as the temporary u.s. capital. this room serves for the house of representatives, the second floor of the building they will get him out it, was we the united states senate. the house of representatives, each representative at that point in our history represented 30,000 people. we had a population, who first census of about three and three quarters million. we had 106 members in the house, who would sit in this room. and eventually from 16 say -- states. mr. philadelphia as the u.s. capital, we are talking about a new constitution, and adding

new states to the original 13. also, the bill of rights, would become part of our constitution while philadelphia was the capital. in fact, secretary of state thomas jefferson would formally announced the amendments to the constitution, by basically coming to congress, here, in this building. in officially announcing that we have changed our constitution, which of course, to billet writes is a huge part of our history. and will be in the future, a continuing talking point in political life. but, it's also the amendment process itself. we are proving that that part of the constitution works, that we can update and make changes to that constitution, without having to start completely over from the beginning. but really, for these doping, to alerts degree it's creating the american political system. the two party system that we know, today, is going to begin here. and it's going to begin with

issues, much as you would expect. early issues that we face as the united states would be debt and spending arguments and debates in this building. it's not any different, except for the details, as to what we do today in washington, d.c.. we are good about that from the revolutionary war. early government, alexander hamilton treasury secretary wanted all the debt of the state to come through the federal government, and then to use that depth paying it off to build credit for the young united states. not everybody agreed with his plans. so you start seeing division, and then foreign policy questions would rise. written in friends, go to war -- britain and france could warn the 17 nineties, and a lot of americans would feel like we owed france, they helped us in our warm, we still don't like the british vermont. but for george washington, the first president, the notion of neutrality was preferable. we don't really have any money. we didn't really have a navy, at all. our army was not much to speak

of, so we certainly weren't in a position to go and fight a war. and certainly not in europe, we would have probably been fighting our neighbors in british canada, those days. so he is going to present with his cabinet approval, a neutrality proclamation, which starts, again, dividing us into this question of are we doing more to help friends? now in the same notion of keeping us out of war, george washington will send john jay, who was at that time our first chief justice of the supreme court, sent him to britain to negotiate a new treaty with the british. again, with the idea of keeping us out of this european war, and settling some of those questions of border and ocean rights and such. we were arguing those with the british. john j had been on the team that negotiated the peace treaty, so he seems like a good candidate for washington to. send the treaty that he brought back becomes very

controversial. really one of the tipping point in creating these two parties, as sort of leading to what we know today. the treaty is basically starts becoming publicly attacked in the press. the pressed which would become the democratic republican party, party of men like thomas jefferson and james madison, they will start vilifying this treaty. now what's interesting is that nobody has actually read. it hasn't been published, yet. but it's going to be hillary eat in the press to the point where a lot of people hate this treaty, without knowing anything about it. the federalist side, the john adams in the hamilton's, is in favor of the treaty. they are in favor of building the young economy of the united states, staying out of the war, trading with all sides and not being limited by an alliance to france or something like this. so we are really seeing this treaty become kind of a symbolic head point between these two sides.

and the senate approves the treaty. no, according to the constitution, the senate approves a treaties in their down. now the problem is the house of representatives, this is our first treaty ever, now the representatives basically says we want a chance to discuss this treaty as well. so, they demand of washington to see all the papers and so on. he says no, the senate approves it, you guys don't have anything to do with it. so at the house essential is going to do, is they said well maybe what we will try to do is take away the funding. we won't pay for this treaty. anything that has been paid for we just want when the money. therefore, the treaty will effectually die, at this point in time. so that's not necessarily a new strategy, that you see with things in washington, d.c., today. so the big fight in the house of representatives in this room is whether or not to pay for this treaty. and there's days of debates. and on the last day, there was

a big crowd in our public balcony, you had men like vice president john adams, supreme court justices sitting in the balcony. and this is an area where we love our speeches, long political speeches, deep, infused with rhetoric. and the best speaker of the time is a man named fisher aims. he is a federalist, he is definitely wanting this treaty to survive. but he has has been ill, he hasn't said anything, and of course this last day everyone is waiting to see if he's going to make a statement about it. and he does, he stands up and he sort of against by saying well if my strengths can hold out i would like to see a few words on the subject. he proceeds to speak for over an hour, i think it's about 55 pages in the congressional record history speech. he collapses at the end it is, seat but he talked about the last war that we fought with the british. and if people remembered all the devastation, and do we really want to do this again? fighting another war for years? apparently, some of the men had

tears in their eyes. and when he finally finishes, supreme court justice james era delta, turns to adams and says my god is in that main great. and item says, yes indeed, he is. so the treaty will end up passing by just a couple of votes. at one point, there is a committee of the whole vote. the head of the committee of the whole, was our first speaker of the house, and he breaks the tide. he is ostensibly on the democratic republican, the jeffersonian side, so he should be against the treaty. but he is convinced that maybe not going to war is a good idea. so hands up voting to passed a bill, for the funding of the treaty, and he is vilified. he is vilified that he voted for this treaty against his side, to the point where he loses his seat in the next election to congress. but in the next short term, he was stabbed on the sidewalk in philadelphia, by his

brother-in-law. he survived. i am sure the family gatherings became awkward for a little while. it tells us how high the political tensions can be no early days. and yet, at the same time, we are also proving that new constitution, despite the sort of difficulties, works. because probably the best day in this room's history, in a lot of ways, is the day john adams is inaugurating the front, by the speaker of the house platform. he will still be on that platform, with thomas jefferson, also at the front of the room, outgoing president george washington. this is a big deal. changing presidents for us today is a fairly normal thing. we have big parades and parties, and it's a big thing. but this was a really important day, because this is where we are proving that this system, where we the voters elect our leaders, and we change them when we vote, we are proving that system works. because the john adams election is a lot of firsts. it's different time we will not

have george washington as our president. george washington is the only man to be unanimously elected president. which he was twice. he did not particularly run for office. i do one of his first, when he didn't even want a second term. he was dropped into it. guys on both sides talked him into another four years. he doesn't really run, he is unanimously reelected. at the end of that second term, people try to talk commit to a third, but he's not having it. he just wants to retire, at this point in time. it's somebody else this turn. so he will step aside for john adams. no, we don't know if this works. we've never done this before. with never actually changed our president. so will the people accept this? we don't know. the other thing to remember is john adams was contested in his election. he actually had to fight a battle against his opponent, who was joe thomas jefferson. now these two have been friends, obviously they wrote the declaration of independence together. but now, opposite sides of the

fence, they don't talk to each other. so the election is very ugly, it's very nasty, it's very close. sort of for us today, a normal presidential election. john adams winds by three electoral votes. so only slightly more than half. we've never had a president who got only have the votes, we've never had a president who had to really fight for an election. and of course, the other problem in those early days was that if you came in, second you are vice president, which means a new president is one party, and the vice president is the other party. just pick any modern election, like put the two opponents together for four years as the executive, and you can see how neither of them will be particularly happy. so john adams and thomas efforts and -- jefferson are not happy to be in the front of them together. this is a full house that night, the balcony, their seats, you have most of the government here. a lot of curiosity, but you can also figure about half of them in this room are not very happy to see john adams standing up there. the other half of them in the room are not very happy --

happy to see thomas jefferson standing there. and generally speaking, no one is happy that george washington is leaving us, at this time. so john adams would kind of look around the room and see a lot of people who were not happy. he would see people with almost tears in their eyes, that washington was leaving them. and he kind of would later say that as he looked, around he only saw one person who particularly looked happy, which was of course george washington. the look on his face that john adams you are fairly, and i am fairly out. so now let's find out who's a happier on this day. but washington would quietly go to private life. i think very happily withdraw from the scene. adams himself would be inaugurated. he would have a difficult presidency, because now we're seeing the throws of political fighting going on. but it happened peacefully, we proved that the constitution works. and we proved that we could continue in times of difficulty like this, that we could continue forward with the system in place.

in 1800, they would leave this building and move to the current capital of washington, d.c.. adams and jefferson would have another difficult election, at that time. this time jefferson winning, and he would be the first president inaugurated in the new capital of washington, d.c.. but this -- these years of philadelphia are setting the tone for the rest of our early history, and all the way up to today. >> so the room itself, will start out as a courthouse. so this would've been a courtroom. but around the time this building is finished construction, it's actually being built during the constitutional convention. so when they are finished construction, it's around the time the philadelphia offers up to the u.s. government. i think philadelphia's secret hope is that if they are really, nicely will stay here, and not go down to the city along the potomac. so they go to the new courthouse building, and they actually end up spending it a little bit more, to make more room for congress. we think the setup looks like

this, we actually have a seat in charge, from one session of congress. it shows the design of the desks, and all. we don't have any of the desks that have survived. we are fortunate that we do have some of the chairs, today. unfortunately, we only have about 30 of them between the two houses of congress. and most of them, we don't know necessarily which house they were in. so today, all over original chairs are on the senate. now for this, room as far as original items goes, the chair on the platform for the speaker of the house is an original. we actually have three chairs exactly like that, we don't necessarily know which was which, but we have one today that we assume was for the speaker of the house, one for the vice president, though it's president of the senate, and one for the chiefs to justice of the supreme court. again, we do not know which one is which. when we can finally say is that so many important sat in the chair, for the speaker of the house, whether it was him not. but as far as this room went,

in the early 1800s, when the federal government moved out it went to become a courthouse. again, this was divided into two rooms, for a long number of years. they put a hallway down the middle, so they could have two courtrooms, instead of one very large room. about the time of the first world war, the city government have left this block and move to our current city hall in philadelphia. and the city's recognizing the historic value of these buildings, they have some rough -- restoration work done, and they kind of want to turn into a museum space. so if you have visited this place in the years around the first world war, in the 1920s, you would've seen the building, or the room rather, resort back to the big single room, that it would've been. but it would have just been a room filled with old stuff, kind of the old-fashioned sort of museum. after world war ii, when the national park service comes in to take over the historic buildings here, again, the goal is to try to get back to how

the looked in those important days. so i would try to study how did they have this eating set up? again, we have one charge that we have been able to find. one of the members drew, showing who is sitting, where at least for one snapshot of a saying -- session of congress. we have enough sketches to show the platform for the speaker of the house. we have enough original furniture that we can sort of matchup things that worry he think we're here or there. unfortunately, a lot of the items that were here, if the city needed, them like chairs, desks, not so much so i didn't save, things that the government might have owned. for example a library of congress started in this building. they started buying books for congress, here in philadelphia. it wasn't the library of congress, as we know today, but it did begin here. in a lot of things that went to washington, d.c., are burned when washington is burned, in the war of 1812. we lose a lot of those early things. so that's one of the challenges, with a building like this. it's you don't necessarily have

all the things, but you try to make do the best you can, to give people that sense when they come in to see what it looked like, when men like james madison or young andrew jackson was sitting in this room. as a member of the house of representatives. >> we're in the senate chamber here in philadelphia, the room as you can see is quite a bit more grant in the house of representatives would have been. there's a couple of reasons for that. our roots as a nation go back to when we were british, of course. the british have a parliament with two houses, an upper house the house of lords, the lower house, the house of commons. and there's definitely parallels with our congress, today. the house of representatives is very similarly set up to the house of commons. and then the senate, they would be left to be the house of lords, but obviously we are gonna have dukes and hurls. no noble titles like that.

but, we have states, and every state is equal in the senate. so the states kind of take the place of our house of lords, in the senate chambers. so the british, often using that green color government, the colonies would use, it and then into the american government. but the bread would be kind of that house of lords kind of color, so you're gonna see right in that early senate, here in philadelphia. and definitely has that kind of look to it that seems a bit on the higher end. now the interesting thing about the senate, is they are created with a bit more power. the power is tied to the president, the house of representatives does not have this power. treaties in the united states are with the advice and consent of the senate, approved by the advising council in the senate. so the senate has to approve the treaties, the house does not. the senate does. and, so there is one power. also, anytime the president makes an appointment to his cabinet ambassador, supreme

court of course, those folks would have to come in front of the senate and be approved by the senate, or rejected. and so, here in philadelphia, we have our very first treaty approved by the senate. which is the jay treaty, and that led to the big fight in the house of representatives over whether or not to pay for it. but over that same issue, we have the first rejection, of a presidential nominee, by the senate. john roth luggage, who is actually a sign earliest constitution, actually one of the players in creating that constitution, it's one of washington's first choices for the original six justices on the supreme court. he actually accepts, but then resigns the post without ever really having served on the supreme court. he will later become the chief justice in south carolina supreme court, when john j, who was the first united states supreme court justice resigned. his elected governor of new york, he leaves the post of

chief justice. it leaves an empty, washington will eventually put this one from south carolina. he will come back to philadelphia, this time, and actually service chief justice. however, he is appointed during a recess in congress. so technically the senate hasn't confirmed, him but he actually serves a session of the court, as chief justice. leads through cases. when the senate comes, back later that year, to return to session, they then take up the question of approving john roth luggage. now, george washington's never had anyone rejected that he's appointed, so this has never happened in our history, while john rutledge has a couple of things against. in one, some people think he's kind of crazy. he's had some things he said sometimes in the years of the 1790, so he's got a bit of a kind of reputation among some people. but also, where he's going to get into trouble, is he made some very pointed comments about that jay treaty, that was negotiated by his predecessors.

he was a very critical in some speeches. and they tended to be a bit sort of rambling speeches. he was very critical, some of the things he said about their senate hip -- itself. which, of course, senators read the news papers and they would read but the south carolina supreme court chief justice had to say about them. and when he actually came in front of them, they would remember these sorts of things, and then they would decide that perhaps this guy is not the best choice to be the chief justice of the supreme court. so even though he could actually run the court for a little while, he was kind of send back back home. so the very first rejection of a presidential nominee. so again, you are in philadelphia, you are seeing the constitution in a lot of different directions, being explored in use for the first time. and of course you go through history newly other occurrences where this happens. now, the one other power supreme court, of the senate, rather, that's not gonna get exercise here in philadelphia is the power of impeaching.

if the president is impeached, the house would vote to have him in -- an impeachment, the senate would be basically the jury, in one is essentially a trial to decide whether or not the president should be removed from office. so again, a look at the powers of the senate and you see these things that they can do, that tie them to the president, and a lot of ways. and therefore giving them a little bit of extra advantage, over house of representatives. plus, there are smaller body of, men only to representative superstate. you're representing from -- an entire state, which means if you're from a big state, you represent an awful lot of people. finally, the other thing about the senate, that makes it a big unique, if you get the longer term, the longest elected term in the united states was a six-year term. but early on, senators were not even elected, senators are appointed on the basis of the constitution, originally. senators are appointed by their

state legislatures. so senators do not have to run for office. so as a result, senators can philadelphia, met in private. they did not meet in public. the house of representatives always did. the house was open to the public, the senate was not. now, the senate starts getting into the run controversial, bills like the g treaty. one of the early senators that it said by pennsylvania, a man probably most famous for being longtime secretary of treasury. he is of the democratic republic insight. so the federalists side of the early senate, basically looking at the strict rules would say that all aboard gallant, it's swiss, he hasn't lived in the united states for enough years to serve in the senate. so the senate actually voted him out, he is later elected to the house of representatives by pennsylvania. but he is rejected from the senate. so naturally, people in

pennsylvania know why their senator has been kicked out of the senate. so you start getting this growing public feeling, that we want to see what's going on in the senate, when they meet here in philadelphia. and, add to that, the press, obviously, it wants to know what's going on because they've got guys sitting the balcony watching the house. they want to have guys sitting up you're watching the senate, because that's news. finally, i am sure of it, that the house of representatives is sitting downstairs meeting in public going you know what are the guys upstairs made by -- private when we have to sit in front of people? so i'm sure there is pressure coming from many directions. finally, after five years of meeting behind closed, doors to senate relives who believe this mobile can start to meet in public as well. it's one of the long-standing traditions. but again, when you go back to our earliest days, this is where you are seeing that they don't have everything set in stone. they have a constitution that is only four pages long, these men have to figure out what their job is all about based on

a few paragraphs that say do these -- duties and powers they have. george washington essentially invents the job of president, here in philadelphia. again, just going on some paragraphs in the constitution. figuring out okay what does that mean that i do every day? so for example, when he wants to negotiate a treaty with various indian tribes, what he will do, for the first time is gonna do something like, this is he will actually come into the senate and sit down and say, well i'm supposed to do treaties with your advising and consent. so i want you advice and consent on these issues. i want to discuss. innocent goes, wait a minute, what are really interesting doug talking about that with you in the room. why don't you give us some stuff and we'll talk about it and give it to you later? so that is about when the president comes and goes from the senate. since then there is a bit more strict separation that we used to. now, for a washington, he's not a guy who likes tons of public

accolade. he doesn't like to give a lot of speeches, if you can avoid it he will do an address to congress, over here. they don't call it the state of the union yet. but his address to congress, which he writes with his cabinet. he will come to the senate, for his inauguration, for his second term, as president. he keeps it low key. he doesn't do the bigger event that we saw downstairs in the house of representatives, with john adams. which was a much bigger deal. washington was just going in a second term, basically continuing, office going back to work. because he didn't really want the big public ceremony to take place. but that is something that will change with adam's inauguration, and then of course when you move down to washington, and you start having inaugurations at the new capital building. so that would be a change. so again, we're growing into with the united states is today. now if you look around this, room a lot of the guys dead side here in the, senate or in the architect of our constitution. because senators being chosen by other states, a lot of the

guys and that appear were packed on writing that constitution, which would be then send by their states to philadelphia. one of those is not james mattis, and he runs into the prominent junior, that patrick henry is one of the great powers and virginia. henry is not a big fan of madison. and his big role in the constitution. so, essentially, even though we call him the father of the constitution, the obvious plum of getting a seat in the senate doesn't happen for james madison. he has to suffered through being elected and running for office, and becoming a member of the house. as for election of senators, that is actually very recent phenomenon in our history. that would be the 17th amendment. so 1930, when we start electing our senators, so just over a century ago. so all the men prior to that, just have to court their state legislator. so you think of the lincoln douglas debates of his senate, they are not actually debating for people to vote for them, they're debating for people to

vote for people for the state government to vote for them. so it's a very complicated system. which is why when you get into that 20th century populism, people are saying you know it, we want to be able to vote for our expenditures. we vote for pretty much everyone else in government, why not the senate. so that's one of the things that changes. but again, we have to kind of grow into how some of these things work. but the remarkable thing, when you go back to these years in philadelphia, is other than that, almost everything does operate pretty well the same way. we are pretty much using this system designed in independence hall, that they kind of take into this building and use and continue on when they move to washington, in 1800. now as you look at this room, unlike downstairs in the house of representatives, the second floor of the building with the senate is a lot more original, as far as the things in a building go. we had the sitting for 32 senators. we started with just 26, representing 13 --

13 states, and as each new state, vermont, kentucky, tennessee, will come in to the union, they will add two new senators. all the way until 32. when they lead for washington, 32 senators would go, the room would turn into a courtroom. eventually, actually, it was the united states federal district court room, in the 19th century. i don't necessarily need the stuff that's here. so desks kind of go away, we don't know what happened to them. these are sort of our best guests. but chairs you always need. so when the mid 1800s, when people start actually thinking about american history, like we do so much of today, they started saying will we need to collect things for independence hall. and somebody, says we have a bunch of these chairs, couple thousand years. and at some point so many starts to think maybe they wear the chairs for the confidential congress? so they stuck them in the room. but they were the chairs for the federal congress.

when you the, way he shares were splayed independence hall for a long time. fortunately, when we actually are restoring congress, all the old u.s. capital, to look at it would've, we had 29 original chairs, some of them were on the house, based on simple proportion. but a couple of them had different colors of polls, theresa wheel to figure out the senate had a different color than the house. you said well let's just put them all in the senate chambers. so will will fill the senate chamber, with 29 of the 32 chairs, being original, either for the house of senate. but the regional, nonetheless. the eagle on the ceiling, were not 100 percent sure the date on that, the one thing i can tell me is that the there are 15 stars bob. it so it's somewhere after the 15th state. we don't know exactly when, we may never know exactly when that was painted. but it is sort of an artistic rendering of the seal of the united states. the seal was another thing

created here in philadelphia, actually, by the communal congress in the independent, in 1782. it's something that worked on throughout the revolutionary war. they kept changing a little bit here in a little bit there, until they finally worked out the final version of the seal. we have a carpet on the floor. it is a reproduction of the original carpet. the original carpet, more than likely went to washington when they moved. but whatever happened to its, it is long gone, we don't know what happened to the original senate carpet. but he was made specifically for the room here. and there was actually enough written description of exactly what it was, that it enabled us to sort of recreate the carpet. but it would also feature the seal of the united states, but it would've been encircled by the original states seals. sort of set up as a chain, which was a pretty common motif at the time. training the states, together to create this bigger thing, that is the united states of ours. so a lot of those interesting symbols, whether from the state themselves, or the united

states. again, they have the roof here in philadelphia. the one original desk we still have a secretary's desk, and then the vice president would sit in the back of the room. and that is another interesting part of the story. the vice president, when we're gonna start with john adams, and then he will be succeeded by thomas jefferson. they would actually be here a good bit of the time, probably a lot more so than the vice president would be today. today the vice president can literally sit in the senate, any day they want. but early, aren't they made it pretty clear to john adams they didn't really want him talking, so he could just say aaron run the meetings. which left him very disappointed, he's diverse per certainly not the last vice president to complain about the limitations of that job. he is allowed to vote only to break ties. which, again that carries through the years. so if there is a, tie the vote of the vice president that was a tie breaker. so any big day with a big vote the vice president will be there. other than, that the vice president, john adams would

find himself stuck in philadelphia, running a bunch of meetings with a bunch of guys who wouldn't let him talk, and he would find it very decides. finding and of, course for thomas jefferson, when he is vice president, his opponent is the president. so he doesn't necessarily even agree with a lot of the policies that he has to be sort of your part of the executive over. so it was a very difficult situation, which is why it leads to creating the system where we are going to elect president and vice president, a little bit more carefully. because rather than the electoral college voting for two men, the guy who gets the most votes being president, is the guy who gets the second most, throws for a greater system where it was a candidate for president and one for vice president, making it much more clear. and that is the 12th amendment. and the real impetus to that is not the adams election, of 1796, but the jefferson election of 1800. which is when they are backing up and moving to washington, d.c.. so there is no one election day in those days. but they pretty much will start meaning in the new capital, in the summer of 1800. they are leaving philadelphia that summer.

and in the midst of this reelecting, adams versus jefferson. the two sides have learned a lesson. they said we will both run to guys, but you can't specify which is which. so in jefferson wins the election, technically he ties his own vice president of candidate, erin burnett. who had been a candidate from new york. and of course, burr and jefferson, are being tied. so the constitution goes to the house of representatives. the first to we do in our new capital, it's basically the house of representatives has to elect a new president. and i have to vote more than 30 times before the tie can be broken. so again, now you're saying, we have learned our lesson with these past two elections, let's fix it so that the 12th amendment comes along to strengthen out their way of electing president. but again, you look back to these early days, and they are managing to find out what those -- what works and why doesn't much. and they found out much of what the constitution does. and today we're able to look at a room that is much smaller than the senate today, but the senate there's who sat there, pretty much do the same things

as the senators in washington did. weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv programs as a previous what's available every weekend on c-span 3. today's veterans day. we begin with military historian, patrick, o'donnell on his book via notes which chronicles the creation of two of the unknown soldier, and the experiences of the eight decorated world war i veterans who served as body bearers. that starts at 8 pm eastern. enjoy american history tv this week and every weekend on c-span 3.

you are watching american history tv, every weekend on c-span 3, explore our nations past. c-span 3. credit by americas cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. up next on american history tv, military historian patrick o'donnell discusses his book the unknowns. he chronicles the story of the men who were selected to escort for the unknown soldier in world war i. military records in the national archives document not only command decisions in military operations, but also the actions of individuals, a number of the records testified to the great sacrifice in combat. the national segment terry in illinois, virginia, is the resting place of more than four dozen people including nearly