The United States Senate met in secret for its first six years. No verbatim record of Congressional debate exists before 1873. This series works from what actually survives, and is clear about what each source is.
Behind Closed Doors
1789 – 1795
Six years · Eight months
William Maclay · PA · 1789–1791
The vote records are facts. The Journals document what was decided. The Annals of Congress reconstruct what was argued, paraphrased from newspaper accounts, compiled forty-five years after the fact. One senator kept a diary. His name was William Maclay. He wrote it from memory each evening. His diary is the only account of the Senate floor during the years it met in secret. This series uses all three, and is explicit about which is which.
No verbatim transcript of a Congressional debate exists before 1873. This episode establishes the three-tier sourcing framework: official records, reconstructed debate, and the one diary that is the only window into the closed Senate.
The Senate's first piece of legislation structured the entire federal court system. Vote: 14 to 6. The only floor account comes from the bill's leading opponent. This episode applies the sourcing framework to the act that built the courts.
Madison proposed 19. The House passed 17. The Senate deliberated in secret, left no debate record, and revised to 12. States ratified 10. The Senate stripped Madison's amendment applying the Bill of Rights to state governments. It took 130 years to restore it.
Jefferson said it was unconstitutional. Hamilton said the Necessary and Proper Clause implied the power. Washington signed it. The Senate debated in closed session and left no floor record. The argument Hamilton and Jefferson made in 1791 became the law of the United States in McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819.
Washington submitted the Jay Treaty for secret deliberation. The Senate voted 20 to 10, exactly the minimum two-thirds. A senator leaked it to a newspaper. Jay was burned in effigy. Hamilton was stoned. Washington signed it anyway. The vote is in the Senate Executive Journal.
The Senate voted four times to keep its doors shut before opening them on December 9, 1795. Six years and eight months of closed sessions. Every major action of the first three Congresses taken behind those doors.
William Maclay kept the only surviving eyewitness account of the closed Senate. He wrote it from memory each evening. He disagreed with nearly everything the Senate did. He clashed with Adams constantly. He lost his seat in 1791. The diary stopped. The full text is at the Library of Congress.