Foreword

Each day that the Senate was in session during the One Hundredth Congress, Senator Bob Dole took the floor to remind us of some individual or event connected with that date in the Senate’s two-hundred-year history. His series of "Bicentennial Minutes" contained anecdotes and delightful vignettes about the origins of certain Senate practices, and dramatic occurrences in our past. Taken together, these brief essays outlined two centuries of development of the United States Senate and the role that this premier legislative body has played in our nation’s history.

Believing that Senator Dole’s "Minutes" deserved a wider audience than those who heard him deliver them, or read them in the Congressional Record, the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Senate sought congressional authorization to collect and publish his remarks in book form. This was accomplished through a special concurrent resolution, adopted in the closing days of the One Hundredth Congress.

Reorganized in chronological format, Senator Dole’s "Minutes" have become the Historical Almanac of the United States Senate. Here, we learn not only about such famous senators as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, but also about such lesser known, but still important, figures as Hiram Revels, the first black senator, and James Shields, who served, at various times, as a senator from three different states. We find useful information about such powerful senators of the past century as Iowa’s William B. Allison and Maryland’s Arthur Pue Gorman. We enjoy profiles of Senate doorkeepers, sergeants at arms, pages, and the ever-watchful inhabitants of the Senate press galleries.

I commend Senator Dole for his lively panorama of the Senate’s history. It was a superb undertaking on behalf of the Senate’s bicentennial, one worthy of the attention of all senators and citizens.

Robert C. Byrd