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25th United States Congress

1837-1839 U.S. Congress

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ4632330
Source-derived summary

The 25th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1837, to March 4, 1839, during the first two years of Martin Van Buren's presidency.

The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the 1830 United States census. Both houses of congress had a Democratic majority.

Major events

March 4, 1837: Martin Van Buren became President of the United States

May 10, 1837: Panic of 1837

January 6, 1838: First public demonstration of Samuel Morse's telegraph

May 26, 1838: Trail of Tears: The Cherokee removal began

Major legislation

[data missing]

The Treasury Notes Act of 1837

The Militia Volunteer Act of 1839

Territories organized

June 12, 1838: Iowa Territory was formed from the Wisconsin Territory.

Party summary

The count below identifies party affiliations at the beginning of the first session of this congress. Changes resulting from subsequent replacements are shown below in the "Changes in membership" section.

Senate

House of Representatives

Leadership

Senate

President: Richard Mentor Johnson (D)

President pro tempore: William R. King (D)

House of Representatives

Speaker: James K. Polk (D)

Members

This list is arranged by chamber, then by state. Senators are listed by class, and representatives by district.

Skip to House of Representatives, below

Senate

Senators were elected by the state legislatures every two years, with one-third beginning new six-year terms with each Congress.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “25th United States Congress” is 1837-1839 U.S. Congress. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through 25th, United and States, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1837, 1839, 1830, 1838—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, 25th, United and States is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1837-1839 U.S. Congress” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4632330. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1837, 1839, 1830 and 1838.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 25th United States Congress” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.