Whereas: Stories from the People’s House
To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Office of the House Historian is launching a series of essays, blogs, and new content as part of the nation’s America250 celebration. Among the many topics our staff will explore in 2026 will be the Continental and Confederation Congresses as well as the lawmakers who steered the young country through the Revolution. The office will also examine how the Declaration and the Revolutionary period shaped the earliest federal Congresses as well as how later generations of legislators marked the memory of the Declaration and the leaders who authored its ideals.
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America250, Announcements
Madison, who is widely credited as the architect of America’s system of direct House elections, openly wondered if the new government would succeed given that the states seemed to struggle to elect their lawmakers. Although the House’s system of direct elections is long familiar to Americans living in the twenty-first century, the practice was brand new for many eighteenth-century Americans—including Madison.
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Members of Congress, Presidents, Superlatives, Elections, America250, Pre-Federal Congresses
As part of a new America250 exhibit, the Office of the Historian has assembled 76 facts organized across a dozen categories about the Continental and Confederation Congresses and their Delegates. Each tidbit provides fascinating insight into life in Revolutionary-era America.
One hundred years after the Declaration of Independence announced to the world a new experiment in democratic governance, the Centennial celebration gave America the opportunity to highlight what South Carolina Representative Richard Harvey Cain called “our common brotherhood.”
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