January 24, 2007
The State of the Union II Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 06:15 PM EST On the subject of the State of the Union address, John Steele Gordon writes approvingly of George Bush’s most recent speech (which I did not watch, as I am in England) and adds, “Having watched more State of the Union speeches than I might wish (I remember watching President Eisenhower in 1958), there is one aspect of these speeches that has annoyed me for nearly 50 years, and I wonder if I’m the only one who is annoyed by it. When the President arrives, the sergeant at arms walks down the aisle, stops, and says, ‘Mr. [or last night, Madame] Speaker! The President of the United States!’ The President then enters the House Chamber, and everyone rises to their feet and greets him with tumultuous applause as he makes his way to the rostrum.” And so on, and so on. Like many viewers, Mr. Gordon is impatient with the constant standing and sitting, applauding and cheering, and endless string of redundant introductions. A slight and not particularly important correction: Until 1995, when the GOP took control of the Congress for the first time in 40 years, it was the doorkeeper who announced the President. The Republicans abolished this office and streamlined many of the functions of the other House officers, including the clerk, the chaplain, and the sergeant at arms. Officers of the House are elected by the representatives (which is to say, they are selected by the majority leadership), have lifetime floor privileges (just like members), and are paid a salary equal to that of congressmen. Some, like Edward McPherson, were former members themselves. McPherson served as a Republican representative from Pennsylvania from 1859 to 1863, lost his seat in the 1862 off-year elections (in part a backlash against the Lincoln administration’s failure to win a swift victory against the Confederacy), and went on to serve several stints as clerk. Generally, House officers fulfill a combination of administrative and ceremonial functions, but on occasion their work matters a great deal. At the opening of each new Congress, the clerk presides over the House until a speaker is elected. In December 1865, when the Thirty-ninth Congress convened, McPherson refused to call the names of several dozen congressmen-elect from the recently defeated Southern states. McPherson was acting at the behest of his political patron, Thaddeus Stevens, a congressman from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was the de facto majority leader. Though President Andrew Johnson had unilaterally readmitted several former Confederate states to the Union, Stevens and his Republican colleagues were determined to wrest meaningful concessions from the vanquished rebels, including a commitment to the rule of law, agreement to basic civil rights for black freedmen, and the exclusion of former high-ranking Confederate military and civilian officials from the political process. Over the hoots and hollers of Democratic congressmen, McPherson held his ground and excluded the Southern pretenders from the swearing-in ceremony.
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