5th CONGRESS- in General

SENATE: 20 Federalists, 11 Republicans, 1 Law and Order
HOUSE: 59 Federalists, 47 Republicans
the 3rd Administration of JOHN ADAMS controlled both houses in the 5th Congress.

By the start of the 5th Congress (which coincided with the Inauguration of John Adams as President on 4 March 1797), two Major Political Parties had emerged from among the strong supporters of the policies of outgoing President George Washington and those who had pretty much been opposed to those policies, respectively. Those who had supported the policies of the Washington Administration became known as Federalists because they supported a strong national government as a counterweight to the States; those who had been in Opposition became known as Republicans because they felt that defending the sovereignty of the States against encroachments by the Federal Government was a truer essence of the federal republic known as the United States of America; however, the Federalists, feeling that their contrary vision of what a federal republic should be was the more "republican" in spirit, derisively referred to the Republicans as "democrats" (a term which, at the time, had the connotations of the mob rule associated with the then-still very recent Reign of Terror following the French Revolution of 1789). It is true that many Republicans of this era came to see identification with the concept of Democracy as something of a badge of honor and one often sees the term Democratic-Republicans applied to this Party in historical literature (this usage also useful in creating a lineal relationship between these early Republicans and the Democrats of today); however, most political observers, instead, refer to the Republicans of this era as the "old", or "Jeffersonian", Republicans as a better, and- in their opinion- more accurate, method of distinguishing them from the Republicans of today. TheGreenPapers.com has decided to follow this latter practice and, thus, refer to the Jeffersonian party as the Republicans.

Although the latest date- as mandated by the U.S. Constitution in Article I, Section 4, clause 2- for the convening of the "long" session of the 5th Congress was 4 December 1797, this Congress actually convened its "long" session on 13 November 1797.
[For further information about the types of and dates for sessions of Congress, please see our website's page containing an Explanation of the types of Sessions of Congress as well as the associated table re: the Sessions of the Congress of the United States ]

5th CONGRESS- United States SENATE

The Senate of the 5th Congress included 1 Senator not elected to that body as a member of either of the two Major Parties, as follows:

• 1 Law & Order-
• Senator Theodore Foster of RHODE ISLAND (Class 1)

Andrew Jackson, a Republican, was elected by the General Assembly of the State of TENNESSEE to the Class 1 seat (term: 4 March 1797 to 3 March 1803) from that State on 26 September 1797, before the end of the odd-numbered year in which the 5th Congress took office [this being 1797]. Senator Jackson, therefore, is counted among the 11 Republicans elected to the Senate of the 5th Congress, notwithstanding the existence of a vacancy at the start of that Congress [4 March 1797] due to a failure of that State's legislature to elect.

5th CONGRESS- HOUSE of Representatives