Jefferson's Manual

Jefferson's Manual

Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801, is the first American book on parliamentary procedure. As Vice President of the United States, Jefferson served as the Senate's presiding officer from 1797 to 1801. Throughout these four years, Jefferson worked on various texts and, in early 1801, started to assemble them into a single manuscript for the Senate's use. In 1801 he decided to have the manuscript printed.

The manual is arranged in fifty-three categories from (1) The Importance of Rules to (53) Impeachment. Each section includes the appropriate rules and practices of the British Parliament along with the applicable texts from the U.S. Constitution and the thirty-two Senate rules that existed in 1801.