This chart, titled “A Schedule of the Compensation of the Senate of the United States at their Third Session from the First Day of January 1791 to the Fourth of March,” shows the balance due to each Senator during the first Congress. Senators were paid a stipend of $6 per day served in Congress, plus $6 for every 20 miles traveled to the “seat of government.”
During the June 2, 1787, session of the Constitutional Convention, the Convention had agreed that the people’s representatives would be paid — but the exact amount would be determined by the first Congress. Some members of the Constitutional Convention, such as Pennsylvania delegate Gouverneur Morris and John Langdon of New Hampshire, had voiced practical concern over the rate of pay. They argued that states at a great distance from the capital would bear an added burden in travel expenses for their representatives and senators.
