instruction of senators

Because state legislatures originally elected senators, they believed they held the power to instruct those senators how to vote. During the 1790s and 1800s several state legislatures sent formal instructions to their senators. Senators generally ignored these instructions, and a few denounced them as unconstitutional.

Sources

• Roy Swanstom, The United States Senate, 1789–1801: A Dissertation on the First Fourteen Years of the Upper House (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1989)