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.
John Trumbull (1756—1843)
Oil on wood; 9.8 x 7.6 cm (3 7/8 x 3 in). Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.
Oil on canvas. 76.83 x 61.28 cm • 30 1/4 x 24 1/8 in. Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.
Oil on canvas; 96.5 x 121.9 cm (38 x 48 in). Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.
Oil on wood; 14 x 11.1 cm (5 1/2 x 4 3/8 in.) Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.
Oil on canvas; 9 3/4 x 50in. (101 x 127cm). Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, CT.
Oil on canvas; 30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm). Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, MA.
Oil on canvas; 36 x 28 in. (91.4 x 71.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.
Oil on canvas. City Hall Portrait Collection, New York, NY.
Oil on canvas; 30.125 in. x 20.125 in. (76.517 cm. x 51.117 cm.). Winterthur Museum, Wintherthur, DE.
Oil on canvas; 235 x 160 cm (92 1/2 x 63 in.) Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009)