Wayne County, NC - Heritage Series Reprinted with permission of the Mount Olive Tribune and cannot be reproduced without permission. The First And 100th Congress "Our Heritage" By Claude Moore No date shown The 100th Congress began its session on January 6th, 1987 & it was different in many ways from the First Congress which convened on March 4, 1789. During the American Revolution & under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress was a one-house body. Under the new Constitution, it provided for two houses, the U.S. Senate & the House of Representatives. The senators were elected by the state legislators & the members of the House of Representatives were elected by popular vote from districts based on population. The 17th Amendment to the Constitution provided that U.S. senators were to be elected by popular vote. The numerial designation of a Congress applied to a two-year period. The First Congress had the responsiblility of installing the first president & creating the Supreme Court. It also received the ratification of the U.S. Constitution by North Carolina in November 1789 & of Rhode Island in March 1790. President Washington had been inaugurated in New York in April, 1789. In the First Congress in the House of Representatives, 36 percent of the members were farmers or planters, 17 percent were merchants, five percent were ministers & five percent were officeholders. In the 100th Congress, five percent were engaged in some form of agriculture, 33 percent in business or banking, nine percent in education, five percent in journalism, 42 percent were lawyers, 22 percent in public service & six percent other. In the U.S. Senate of the First Congress, 48 percent were planters or large landholders, 38 percent were lawyers & 14 percent were merchants. In the U.S. Senate of the 100th Congress, five percent were from agriculture, 28 percent from business & banking, 12 percent from education, eight percent from journalism, 62 percent from law, 20 percent from public service & politics & seven percent from other occupations. The average age in the First Congress for senators was 46.1 & the average for the representatives was 43.5. For the 100th Congress, the average age of senators was 54.4 & for representatives was 50.7. The First Congress was all white. In the 100th Congress, all senators are white & in the U.S. House of Representatives, 92 percent are white, five percent are black & three percent Hispanic. The First Congress was all male. In the 100th Congress, there is one female in the U.S. Senate & in the House of Representatives, 95 percent are male & five percent female. Women were given the right to vote after the passage of the 19th Amendment of the Constitution & in North Carolina, women voted for the first time in the election of 1920. In the First Congress in the House of Representatives, 48 percent were college graduates, three percent had attended college & 49 percent had not attended college. In the U.S. Senate, 56 percent were college graduates, three percent had attended college & 41 percent had not attended college. In the 100th Congress in the House of Representatives, 61 percent have graduate degrees, 28 percent are college graduates & 11 percent have not attended college. In the U.S. Senate, 79 percent have graduate degrees, 15 percent are college graduates & six percent have not attended college. There were 65 members of the House of Representatives in the First Congress & 26 senators. In the 100th Congress, there were 435 members of the House of Representatives. This number was fixed by an act of Congress in 1910. There are now 100 members of the U.S. Senate. The First Congress had one standing committee & enacted 117 laws & the 99th Congress enacted 664 laws & had 31 standing committees. The salary of the members of the First Congress was six dollars a day plus travel. The salary for members of both houses of the 100th Congress is $77,000. The cost of the 100th Congress for the two-years ending September 30, 1987 will be $3.3 billion. There are 11,064 staff members for the House & 7,200 for the Senate. This is the beginning of the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution & with a more than ever enlightened electorate more & more attention will be given to the workings of our national government under the Constitution. ============================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. 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