The first U.S. Congress, comprising the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, held its initial meeting on March 4, 1789, at Federal Hall in New York City.
But because of bad weather and travel problems on that date 235 years ago, that gathering did not achieve a quorum for a full month, after which the group quickly undertook the important business of confirming George Washington as the first president of the United States.
That first Congress, which ran until March 4, 1791, “was arguably the most important of all the [U.S.] Congresses that have met,” says the National Constitution Center, a Philadelphia-based educational nonprofit. Notably, the first Congress approved the submission of the Bill of Rights to the states for ratification, passed a Judiciary Act that set up court systems, defined Cabinet departments, and saw the Compromise of 1790 between James Madison and Alexander Hamilton that moved the capital to Washington, forging a framework that is still in place today.
By the term’s end, federal legislators were no longer meeting in New York, but at Congress Hall in Philadelphia. And the March opening date was replaced in 1793 with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution’s “First Monday in December” start date.
On November 17, 1800, Congress finally moved from Philadelphia to Washington, convening in the newly completed north wing of the unfinished Capitol building. More than a century later — in 1933 — lawmakers modernized the congressional schedule by ratifying the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, establishing January 3 as the start of the term.