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Senate Moments...

First Senate Convenes, March 4, 1789

March 4, 1789, eight conscientious senators overcame difficult late winter travel conditions to reach the nation's temporary capital in New York City. Eleven states had by then ratified the Constitution. Out of the twenty-two eligible senators, the Senate needed twelve present to achieve a quorum to conduct business.

At the appointed hour for the new government to begin, the eight senators-elect climbed the stairs of New York's old city hall. Hoping to convince Congress to make New York the nation's permanent capital, city leaders had recently named that building Federal Hall (pictured) and tripled its size. When the eight senators reached their elegant chamber on the building's top story, the Senate literally became the "Upper House."

All eight were men of distinction in government and politics. Most had served in their state legislatures and the Continental Congress. Six were framers of the Constitution.

New Hampshire's John Langdon would become the Senate's first president pro tempore. Connecticut sent William Samuel Johnson and Oliver Ellsworth. As a senator, Johnson would continue in his other job--president of Columbia University. Oliver Ellsworth was best known for his proposal at the Constitutional Convention creating the Senate as a body that represented the states equally--the so-called Connecticut Compromise.

Pennsylvania sent William Maclay, who would keep the only detailed record of what happened behind the Senate's closed doors during the precedent-setting First Congress. His Pennsylvania colleague was Robert Morris. One of the nation's wealthiest men, Morris had helped to finance the American Revolution and signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Without a quorum, the eight senators wrote to their missing colleagues "earnest[ly] requesting that you will be so obliging as to attend as soon as possible." Two weeks passed before William Paterson ambled over from New Jersey and Richard Bassett arrived from Delaware. This left the Senate two members short of a quorum, as the House of Representatives waited impatiently on the floor below. Finally, on April 6, the necessary twelfth member arrived. The Senate then turned to its first order of business--certifying the election of George Washington--five weeks after his presidential term had officially begun.

This delay created the first opportunity in American history for those critical of the Senate's slower pace to charge that its manner of doing business threatened a constitutional crisis. It would not be the last such opportunity.

One-Fourth of Earth Species
Could Vanish by 2050

Using several models that project habitat changes, migration capabilities of various species, and related extinctions in 25 "hotspots," scientists predict that a quarter of the world's plant and vertebrate animal species would face extinction by 2050.

A report detailing the projections was released today.
Biodiversity hotspots are some of the richest and most threatened biological pools on Earth. They contain 44 percent of plant and 35 percent of the Earth's vertebrate species on only 1.4 percent of the Earth's land. Each hotspot contains its own set of unique species.

"Climate change is rapidly becoming the most serious threats to the planet's biodiversity," said Jay Malcolm, an assistant forestry professor at the University of Toronto. "This study provides even stronger scientific evidence that global warming will result in catastrophic species loss across the planet."

In the most dramatic of the scenarios, for which carbon dioxide levels grow to double that of today's levels, the models forecasted a potential loss of 56,000 plant species and 3,700 vertebrate species in the hotspots.

Such a climate scenario could become a reality in only 50 years, the study estimates.

"These species lose their last options if we allow climate change to continue unchecked," said Lara Hansen, chief climate scientist at the global conservation group World Wildlife Fund. "Keeping the natural wealth of this planet means we must avoid dangerous climate change - and that means we have got to reduce carbon dioxide emissions."

The study found that certain hotspots were especially sensitive to climate change with extinctions sometimes exceeding 2,000 plant species per hotspot. These include the Caribbean, the Tropical Andes, Cape Floristic region of South Africa, Southwest Australia, the Atlantic forests of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina.

The results are detailed in the journal Conservation Biology.

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