Four documents from the diary that is the only window into the closed Senate of the First Congress. The titles controversy. Adams at the chair. The running conflict. The last entry. All attributed to Maclay as his documented account, written from memory, by the chamber's leading Anti-Federalist.
William Maclay arrived in New York City in April 1789 to take his seat as one of Pennsylvania's first two senators. He drew a two-year term in the initial lot, the shorter of the two terms Pennsylvania senators would serve. He was fifty-three years old, a country lawyer and judge from the Susquehanna Valley, deeply suspicious of concentrated power, of eastern financial interests, and of the men he now found himself seated among.
Within weeks he had begun keeping a diary. He wrote in the evenings, from memory and rough notes, recording what he had observed during the day's session. He would keep the diary for all three sessions of the First Congress, producing the only surviving eyewitness account of the United States Senate during the years it met in closed session. It is a primary source of irreplaceable value. It is also the account of a man who disagreed with nearly everything the Senate did. Both facts are held simultaneously throughout this episode.
The first major controversy of the First Senate, before any legislation was considered, was the question of titles. How should the President and Vice President be addressed? The matter was referred to a joint House-Senate committee. John Adams, presiding over the Senate as Vice President, expressed strong views: he believed the republic required elevated titles to command respect from the great powers of Europe. He suggested "His Most Benign Highness" for Washington. The Senate committee recommended "His Highness the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties."
Maclay led the Senate opposition. His diary documents the debate in detail, his own arguments, his observations of Adams, his frustration with the Federalist majority. The House of Representatives refused to consider any title beyond "Mr. President." The joint committee's recommendation died. Washington was addressed as Mr. President. Maclay recorded the outcome with satisfaction.
I cannot think the epithet of Honourable is quite enough, for us too. What in the name of sense should we do with "the Protector of the Liberties"? Our liberties are from God and Nature, not from Generals and Armies.
John Adams presided over the Senate as Vice President. Maclay watched him do it every day. The two men disagreed on virtually everything: the titles question, the Judiciary Act, the location of the capital, the financial program, the bank, the conduct of debate, and the proper role of the Vice President in Senate proceedings. Adams occasionally attempted to guide debate from the chair, behavior Maclay found constitutionally improper and personally obnoxious.
The diary documents these conflicts in detail, Adams's facial expressions, his interventions from the chair, his opinions expressed at dinner tables and in committee rooms. Maclay was not a neutral observer. He was Adams's most consistent opponent in the chamber. His account of Adams is vivid, specific, and hostile. It is also the only surviving contemporaneous account of Adams's conduct as presiding officer of the First Senate. These facts coexist in the record.
Mr. Adams rose in his chair, and for a length of time harangued us from thence. This is a manifest breach of order. He is not a member of the Senate, and his interference is an irregularity.
Maclay's two-year term expired in 1791. The Pennsylvania legislature, which elected senators under the original Constitution, chose not to return him. His Anti-Federalist positions, his opposition to Hamilton's financial program, and his combative manner in the chamber had made him enemies in the state's political establishment. He returned to Pennsylvania and never held national office again.
The diary stopped with his term. For the remainder of the First Senate and all of the Second and Third, the only accounts of Senate floor proceedings were the Annals of Congress, reconstructed from newspaper accounts by reporters who were not in the room. Maclay's diary is the only document that put anyone inside that room while it was closed. It was not published until 1880, in an abridged edition. The full text appeared in 1890. It is at the Library of Congress in the original and available in full text as a PDF at the address below.