Laying Out the Rules: Jefferson’s “Manual of Parliamentary Practice”

When Thomas Jefferson foresaw that the election of 1796 would likely cast him as vice president under John Adams, one of his concerns was a lack of rules. A chief duty of the vice president was to preside over the Senate, and the few governing rules established to that point left much to the discretion of the presiding officer. Jefferson wrote: "It is now so long since I have acted in the legislative line that I am entirely rusty in the Parliamentary rules of procedure." Even before taking office, he began research that would result four years later in A Manual of Parliamentary Practice. However, Jefferson's efforts to establish procedural rules for the Senate extended beyond his feeling that he was out of practice. Prior to the dissolution of their friendship in partisan turmoil, Jefferson had written to John Adams: "This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded on principles of honesty, not of mere force."