House Resolution proposing the direct election of U.S. senators, February 14, 1826

National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives

This 1826 proposal by Representative Henry Randolph Storrs of New York to have the people of each state directly elect their senators was the first of nearly 300 resolutions that would be introduced in Congress before 1912. Beginning in 1893, the House adopted such an amendment five times, and each time the measure failed to gain the floor in the Senate.