"Congress's Loneliest Job": Establishing the U.S. House Resident Commissioners

• In Event: Legacies of Spanish-American War: Political, Governmental, and Constitutional

Abstract

The Treaty of Paris ceded new territories to the United States, and with them came uncertainty about congressional representation. The Northwest Ordinance had created a system of territorial delegates to the U.S. House but these positions were meant for areas that might eventually gain statehood. In this paper we examine why and how Congress created new offices—resident commissioners—to address representation for Puerto Rico and the Philippines and emphasize that these territories were not expected to attain statehood. We specifically investigate three related dynamics: the origins of and debate over the “resident commissioner” idea; how the new resident commissioners acclimatized into the House of Representatives; and relations between the resident commissioners and the other territorial delegates. Issues of race and trade drove debate over the new congressional positions, while the first resident commissioners were more akin to ambassadors or lobbyists who interacted with the executive branch as much or more than with other legislators. The early resident commissioners’ experiences established a foundation for how later U.S. territories and the federal district are represented in Congress even as today's resident commissioners and delegates have more legislative privileges.

Author

• Jonathan Lewallen, University of Tampa