Article One of the United States Constitution established a Congress with two chambers. The House, also known as the lower chamber, was designed to represent the people, while the Senate, also known as the upper chamber, started off as a more exclusive body meant to represent the states. The Senate spent its early years deciding how it would operate and how closely it should connect with the public.
James Madison, who is often referred to as the Father of the Constitution, explained one of the most important differences between Representatives and Senators in Federalist No. 62:
“The qualifications proposed for senators, as distinguished from those of representatives, consist in a more advanced age and a longer period of citizenship. . . . The propriety of these distinctions, is explained by the nature of the senatorial trust; which, requiring greater extent of information and stability of character, requires, at the same time, that the senator should have reached a period of life most likely to supply these advantages. . . .”
Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Senators gained significant power, but concerns about corruption led to major changes in the upper chamber. Among those reforms was the Seventeenth Amendment, which gave voters the power to choose their senators directly.
The Senate today is very different from the one created by the Founding Fathers. In addition to the direct election of senators, the filibuster – which developed from the Senate’s tradition of unlimited debate - has become an increasingly important tool for delaying or blocking legislation. Unlike the House, the Senate has only 100 members, with two senators representing each state for six-year terms.
