Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas; 91.4 x 71.1 x 2.5cm (36 x 28 x 1 in). National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian), Washington, DC.

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas; 49 7/8 x 39 3/4 in. (126.4 x 101 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas. Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection, Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent, Philadelphia, PA.

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas. Independence National Historical Park, Portrait Collection (Second Bank of the United States), Philadelphia, PA.

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas; height: 124.46 cm (49 in), width: 99.06 cm (39 in). Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas. The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD.

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas; 50 x 40-1/2 in. Private collection.

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas; 36 13/16 x 32 1/16 inches (93.5 x 81.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA.

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas; 86 1/2" x 56 3/4". Maryland State Art Collection, Annapolis, MD.

by Charles Willson Peale (1741—1827)

Oil on canvas. Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA.

The First Congress faced a unique challenge, and those congressmen and senators who gathered in New York in the spring of 1789 were awed by what lay ahead of them. Not only would members of the Congress have to pass some promised amendments to the new Constitution, but they would have to fill out the bare framework of a government that the Philadelphia Convention had created, including the organization of the executive and judicial departments. Some therefore saw the First Congress as something in the nature of a second constitutional convention.

Gordon S. Wood
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009)