Essay On George Washington's Consolidation Of Power

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George Washington said to use measures to avoid the political problems that plagued political parties. Nonetheless less two parties became the two major parties in politics at the time. They were the Federalist Party founded in 1789 and led by American founding father Alexander Hamilton and the Democratic-Republican Party was founded in 1791 led by founding father and third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Washington’s warning about political parties didn’t last very long and ended up hurting congress into being able to run the country effectively. Throughout the early part of the 19th century, the membership of the House of Representatives was very unpredictable and explosive. Very few individuals wanted or sought to make a career of holding to the position of political office and this caused the power of the congress to decrease. The committees that are powerful now were very weak during this time and so the speaker of the house has gained a considerable amount of power to be able to appoint what committees were needed. After a period of feeble presidents, when Thomas Jefferson was elected as president in 1801, he commanded the government to be forceful. This lead to congress and the house to start becoming more dominated by the executive branch. The split between the politics parties resonated to a strong speakership until the civil war approached. One of the first speakers of the houses that turned the position into the powerhouse that it is now is Henry Clay, a senator from Kentucky and the 9th speaker of the house from March 4th, 1811 to March 4th, 1825. He won the seat of the speaker in his first term of being a senator and subsequently won the position in 3 consecutive elections. Clay was known to have a great voice for speaking and even Abraham Lincoln commented on his speeches as “The reporters forgot their vocation, dropped their pens, and sat enchanted from the be going to quite the close. The speech now lives only in the memory of a few old men, the enthusiasm with which they cherish their recollection of it is absolutely astonishing.” His resounding effect of being able to control large crowds helps his image as one that can preside as the Speaker of the House of Representatives as something more than it was. He used this position, in the beginning, to turn it into the powerhouse, not for the public prestige but to be able to get the united states into war with the war of 1812. …show more content…
He was successful and the United States went to war with the United Kingdom until 1815 were Clay traveled to Britain and signed the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war. Clay is known to even use his power to influence the decision of the house of representatives in the 1824 election. Clay ran in the election however it ended up in a 4-way election with no candidate winning the electoral college. Clay used the position of the speaker to convince the house of representative to vote for John Quincy Adams instead of Andrew Jackson who won the plurality of the electoral votes. This further made divided the two commanding political parties and diverted them from being able to run the country. Congress was fractured and many times it was hard to gain the majority for any candidate. In the years of 1855 and 1859, the voting contest for the speaker lasted for more than 2 months. With the unhinged and fragmented government, the speaker’s tenure lasted very short and often didn’t get anything done due to the tenure. From the years of 1839 to 1863 there was a total of 11 speakers which averages to less than 2 years’ occupancy. This started to fade away towards the end of the 19th century due to power forceful speakers. During this time, the position of Chairman of the Committee on Rules was the most powerful position the speaker had. It was reorganized in 1880, to give the speaker more power and the subsequent speakers took this to power. Some powerful speakers of the house were James G. Blaine, Thomas Brackett Reed, Joseph Gurney Cannon, Samuel J. Randall, John Griffin Carlisle, and Charles F. Crisp. This

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