In 1788 it was arranged that the US-Constitution was to take effect on March 4th, 1789 - the day of the first session of Congress. Does anyone know the time of that session?
Regards,
LL

Hi Lunlumo,

There is a bit of debate when the Federal Constitution came into effect. According to Nicholas Campion the new Union constitution was approved by the Congress of Confederation on the 17th of September 1787 at 4.00pm. However, it still had to be ratified by a majority of 9 of the 13 states. When New Hampshire ratified on the 21st of June 1788 the new constitution was approved by enough states to proceed. All that had to be agreed was the date it would take effect. On the 2nd July 1788 the Congress of Confederation accepted the new constitution and on 13th September 1788 it was arranged for the new Federal Government to begin on the 4th of March 1789.

I go along with the view that the Federal USA came into legal existence at 00:00 hours on the 4th of March 1789. This was before Washington DC was built so the Federal capital was still Philadelphia at this point. I regard this as one of the few if not the only reliably timed chart for the USA.

If you are relying on the proceedings of the new Federal Congress for a time you may have a real problem. There was a procedural difficulty on the first day of the sitting of the Congress as there was not enough Congressmen present to form a quorum. I seem to recall the necessary quorum was not achieved for some time. There was something about this on the old Rodden Astro-Databank discussions but unfortunately that bit of the site seems to have all gone with the transfer over to Astro.com

Mark

Thanks a lot, Mark,

Indeed, this is most certainly a chart of major importance.

Sun conj Saturn in Pisces reflects the combination of conservative thought and Liberalism, a combination which is so tyoical for The US, I think.

Let me add that the first session of Congress took place in N.Y., later they went to Philadelphia before finally moving to Washington DC.
Did you notice the transits on the day of J.F. Kennedy's death?
Pluto tr. conj. MC, Saturn tr. conj. Pluto.



LL

Lunlumo wrote:

Let me add that the first session of Congress took place in N.Y., later they went to Philadelphia before finally moving to Washington DC.

Thanks very much for pointing that out. I wasn't aware of this. Wikipedia has the details of the 1st US Congress. The first location for the Federal Congress was Union Hall, in New York City. I had always wondered why George Washington was inaugurated at Union Hall, in New York rather than Philadelphia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_United_States_Congress

I was also incorrect that the Congress achieved a quorum soon after the 4th of March. The effective dates for taking up powers were several weeks later:

April 1, 1789: House of Representatives first achieved a quorum and elected its officers
April 6, 1789: Senate first achieved a quorum and elected its officers
April 30, 1789: George Washington was inaugurated at Federal Hall in New York City

I had heard that Robert Zoller located charts for the USA from New York. This has been justified due to New York's place as the business/financial centre of the nation. However, it was also the original birthplace of the first legislature and Presidency of the modern federal USA.

Mark

Indeed, this is most certainly a chart of major importance.

Sun conj Saturn in Pisces reflects the combination of conservative thought and Liberalism, a combination which is so tyoical for The US, I think.

I will never understand why American astrologers have given so little emphasis to this chart. Rather than argue and debate this speculative time against that rectification why not use the only elected and precisely timed chart for the birth of the modern USA? As far as I am concerned it sums up a lot about the American nation and most certainly its government.

The Gemini Moon, sums up well the communicative nature of the USA in world affairs. This plus the the strong Aquarian focus emphasize the US commitment to the ideals of democracy and libertarianism. Jupiter exalted in Cancer is Lord 2 and placed in the 9th house (whole sign) emphasizing both American wealth from trade with the world and the US role as an importer and exporter of religious ideas. The strong sentimental and nostalgic attitude of the US is reflected in the heavy water emphasis.

This chart reflects extremely well all the signicant events in US history concerning the federal government. Just try it and see! For example September 11th, Lincoln and Kennedy assasinations, Oklahoma city Bombing, burning of Washington (1814) etc.

I can only agree.
Charts based on the coming into effect of constitutions are always reliable.
And so is this one.
It is often forgotten - even by US-astrolgers - that the act of declaration of independence on 4th July, 1776 (or possibly or even probably on 2nd July!) actually just meant the separation from Britain - it did not create the USA. A lot was open to discussion in the years following: what kind of union? How much autonomy for the individual states ? Etc. - All that took shape much later.
You were mentioning Sept. 11, 2001 - . It was then that the sec.-progressive AC had reached Mars - und this conjunction is still present - see the military actions the US have been involved in ever since. It is gradually approaching Uranus while Neptune presently is conj. IC, the conj. with Sun will be exact around 2014.

There is a lot to be found here - and there can be no doubt about the significance of that chart.

LL

Hi Lunlumo,

I have been using this chart for a while and and I am a strong supporter of it. The other one I like is the chart for April 30, 1789 when George Washington was inaugurated as the first US President. I describe this as the 'US Presidential chart'. That is less clear cut on timing though. However, I have also used the the Sibly chart and the chart for the first Continental Congress too.

When time allows I think I will open a thread devoted to the Federal USA chart to demonstrate its resonance with American history. There are definitely astrological themes that keep repeating in major events.

Mark

By convention, Congress convenes at 10:00 am on the first day, not that people aren't working in their offices long before that, but that is when they convene (according to my great uncle who was once a doorman for Congress while he attended Georgetown) and I would suspect that it would be a good chart. it gives people time to do a little business and get the last minute gossip or data before the start of the day. On a first day especially I would be shocked if they met before then. Way too much pomp and circumstance to attend to.


Granny

Maybe we oughtn't to expect a single mundane chart to comprise anything and everything. As far as I can see the Sibley chart expresses a lot of what one may call the US-American myth ("Progress"). US-aspirations: AC Sagittarius! - "Land of hope and glory". But we all know that this covers only a part of the story, a part of US-identity. E.g. "hopes" were shattered in 1957: the "Sputnik-shock: Sat. tr conj AC (Sibley), or in 1986, the following Saturn conj. AC: the Challenger catastrophe.
"Congress-chart" - or, preferably: the Constitution chart seems to be closely linked to US-politics, with both its aspirations and its failures.
Anyway, I'll have a closer look at that "Congress chart" - it is without any doubt closely linked to US-politics.
Looking forward to Mark's forthcoming thread,

LL

"Congress-chart" - or, preferably: the Constitution chart seems to be closely linked to US-politics, with both its aspirations and its failures.
Anyway, I'll have a closer look at that "Congress chart" - it is without any doubt closely linked to US-politics.

Hi Lunlumo,

You maybe have a point that the chart for 04/03/1789 at 00:00 should be referred to as the 'Federal Constitution chart' to differentiate it from other federal USA charts such as those for the Presidency or the first sitting of Congress. However, I am not sure when the 'Congress chart' should be timed for. Should we go on when it first sat or when it became quorate and elected its officers? On the latter basis there needs to be totally different charts for the House of Reprentatives and Senate as they achieved a quorate status on different dates in 1789.

As noted above House of Representatives first achieved a quorum and elected its officers on April 1, 1789, while the Senate first achieved a quorum and elected its officers on April 6, 1789.

The linkage between the charts for the Republican and Democrat parties and the Federal Constitution chart is quite striking.

Mark

The problem with posting dates as 04/03/1789 is that some places translate that as April 3, 1789, it is one of the reasons I've gone to always writing dates 4 Mar 1789, to avoid confusion. Just taking a moment to whine.

Granny

ps, did I miss a comment, I dont recall seeing date for the beginning of the democratic party, i see how you can easily make one for the Republican party, considering it is a young one, but Democratic party could well be argued to predate the Continental Congress, that one I'd like to see.

Granny_Skot wrote:

The problem with posting dates as 04/03/1789 is that some places translate that as April 3, 1789, it is one of the reasons I've gone to always writing dates 4 Mar 1789, to avoid confusion. Just taking a moment to whine.

I think if you read the thread there was no issue as the full date were already given more than once. See the very first post by Lunlumo and my subsequent mention of full the date in bold. Still, I concede I sometimes forget the eccentricities of American date recording. For example, 9/11 etc doesn't make much sense this side of the pond.

Granny_Skot wrote:

ps, did I miss a comment, I dont recall seeing date for the beginning of the democratic party, i see how you can easily make one for the Republican party, considering it is a young one, but Democratic party could well be argued to predate the Continental Congress, that one I'd like to see.

I got my chart data for both parties from Michael O'Reilly's website.

http://www.neptunecafe.com/democrats.html

http://www.neptunecafe.com/GOP.html

You seem to have your history a bit mixed up on the Democratic party. It didn't exist prior to the revolution or even during the confederal period. Thus one cannot really discuss a formal Democratic party until after the Federal constitution of the USA was created in 1789. It was formed in the early 1790's. If anything you might argue it properly developed later rather than earlier than this time due to various splits and transformations it subsequently went through.

One could certainly dispute O'Reilly's idea that the modern Democratic party is the same as the Democratic-Republican party formed in 1792. Arguably the modern Democratic Party was formed in the 1830s from former factions of the Democratic-Republican Party, which had largely collapsed by 1824. It was built by Martin Van Buren who rallied a cadre of politicians in every state behind the 1812 war hero Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.

In the election of 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected president, narrowly defeating Andrew Jackson. Although both were Democratic-Republicans, Adams's political philosophy was closer to that of the Federalists, and during his term in office the party split into two main factions. When Jackson ran for president in 1828, he ran as a Democrat?and won easily. Adams's wing of the party became known as the National Republicans, many of whom later formed the Whig party.

The Jacksonians held their first national convention as the "Republican Party" in 1832. By the mid-1830s, they referred to themselves as the "Democratic Party," but also as "Democratic Republicans." The name "Democratic Party" has only been official since 1844.

Leaders of the Democratic Party have traced their party's lineage to Jefferson and his Republican Party. Martin Van Buren wrote that the party's name had changed from Republican to Democratic and that Jefferson was the founder of the party. In 1991 the Democratic Party-controlled United States Senate passed "A bill to establish a commission to commemorate the bicentennial of the establishment of the Democratic Party of the United States," thus endorsing the view the party was founded by Jefferson (as opposed to Jackson).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic ... ed_States)

Regarding the forming of the Democratic-Republican party :
From Wikipedia:

The Democratic Party evolved from Anti-Federalist factions that opposed the fiscal policies of Alexander Hamilton in the early 1790s. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized these factions into the Democratic-Republican Party. The party favored states' rights and strict adherence to the Constitution; it opposed a national bank and wealthy, moneyed interests. The Democratic-Republican Party ascended to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the party's chief rival, the Federalist Party disbanded. Democratic-Republicans split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe, and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the Democratic Party. Along with the Whig Party, the Democratic Party was the chief party in the United States until the Civil War. The Whigs were a commercial party, and usually less popular, if better financed. The Whigs divided over the slavery issue after the Mexican?American War and faded away. In the 1850s, under the stress of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, anti-slavery Democrats left the party. Joining with former members of existing or dwindling parties, the Republican Party emerged

Mark