History of the United States Senate

The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress, the legislative branch of the federal government. The U.S. Senate is considered the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Like its counterpart, the Senate was established by the United States Constitution and convened for its first meeting on March 4, 1789, at Federal Hall in New York City. The history of the institution begins at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, in James Madison's Virginia Plan, which proposed a bicameral national legislature, and in the controversial Connecticut Compromise, a 5-4 vote that gave small-population states disproportionate power in the Senate.