Sign in the Maryland State House reading, “No Lobbyists Beyond This Point.”
19 September 2022
In present-day political parlance, a lobby is an interest group that actively petitions legislators in a systematic and organized fashion to support its policies and to lobby is to engage in such activity. The word comes from the idea that such petitioners would gather in the antechamber, or lobby, of the legislative hall in order to speak to the legislators.
That architectural sense of lobby comes from the medieval Latin lobia or lobium, meaning a gallery or portico. We see it in English by 1563, when it appears in Thomas Becon’s The Reliques of Rome, a Protestant tract that outlined the corruption, real or imagined, in the Roman Catholic Church. The following quotation is from a section on anchorites, or recluses who resided in chambers built into the walls of churches, living a life of prayer and meditation, and relying on alms for their maintenance:
Our Recluses as persons onelye borne to consume the frutes of the erth, liue idlely of the labour of other mens handes. Iudith, when tyme required, came oute of her closet to do good vnto other. Our Recluses neuer come out of their lobbeis sincke or swimme the people
And there is this from 1596, from Michael Drayton’s Mortimeriados, a poem about the baronial revolt against King Edward II in 1321–22. This passage relates the death of two of the rebellious barons:
His trustie Neuill, and young Turrington,
Courting the Ladies, frolick voyd of feare,
Staying delights whilst time away doth runne,
What rare Emprezas hee and he did beare,
Thus in the Lobby whilst they sporting weare:
Assayld on sudaine by this hellish trayne,
Both in the entrance miserably slayne.
We see the word lobby applied to the antechamber of the English parliament at Westminster by 1692. From John Rushworth’s Historical Collections of Private Passages of State, relating events of 1640:
On Monday April 13 [1640], the Parliament opened at Westminster. Now because we desire to keep strictly to point of Time, let Military preparations be post-poned till the end of this Parliament, which was dissolved the fifth of May following.
But before the Parliament opened, a Proclamation was made before the Lord Steward in the Lobby as followeth.
But it is in the American context that we see lobby applied to the people who would gather in such an antechamber to buttonhole the politicians. The following quotation is from an account of the congressional debate on a proposal to remove the seat of government from Washington, DC to Philadelphia that occurred on 2 February 1808. (In 1808, the US capital was a collection of ramshackle buildings in the midst of a swamp. No one particularly enjoyed being there.) The writer is attempting to capture the words of Matthew Lyon, a Democratic-Republican from Kentucky. As we shall see from the next quotation, it is not an exact transcript of Lyon’s words, but the summary of his speech, written in the first person, that dates from 11 February 1808:
We have heard it said that if we move to Philadelphia we shall have a commanding lobby; we shall learn the sentiments of the population! The only inducement which influenced me to be a little satisfied at moving to Philadelphia, was, because Congress were almost overawed by the population of the city; measures were dictated by that city. I had rather move into a wilderness; I do not want to go among these people; I have seen too much of them. I have seen the time when members of this House could not walk the streets in safety. I have seen the time when men with cockades in their hats would say “there goes one of the d——d minority.” I can never forget the insults I received in Philadelphia whilst in the minority.
Evidently it was a thing in the early nineteenth century to put summaries of speeches in the first person, as if it were the speech itself. A differently worded summary of Lyon’s 2 February 1808 speech appears in the Washington Federalist of 20 February:
I have, sir, heard talk of a lobby influence, for which we ought to go to Philadelphia.—I can tell the gentlemen who wish to leave this place for the sake of the influence the merchants of a great city would have over our deliberations, I shall be the last man to be influenced by such considerations. I wish we had more mercantile experience—more mercantile experience in this house—but I want it should come in at the front door. I want to have an influence for the benefit of the whole nation, not for the benefit of a single city.
To digress a bit, in 1798 Matthew Lyon, while serving as a representative from Vermont, spit in another representative's face, resulting in a brawl on the House floor. Also, Lyon is the only member of Congress to have been elected while serving time in prison. In October 1798, he was imprisoned for violating the Alien and Sedition Acts for publishing criticism of President John Adams, and he was re-elected to his seat the following month. Now, back to the main story…
The verb to lobby is in use by 1820, when it appears in an article about the Missouri Compromise over whether newly admitted states should allow slavery or not. From the New Hampshire Sentinel of 1 April 1820:
Other letters from Washington affirm, that members of the Senate, when the compromise question was to be taken to the House, were not only “lobbying about the Representatives’ Chamber," but were active in endeavoring to intimidate certain weak representatives by insulting threats to dissolve the Union, and openly declaring, that unless the compromise were acceded to, they would immediately dissolve the Senate and go home.
And we get the noun lobbyist by 25 August 1842 in an article in the Daily Cincinnati Enquirer:
The whigs of Brooklyn have held a meeting, and appointed a committee of lobbyists to proceed forthwith to Washington to persuade Congress to give up the land distribution, in order to secure protection.
And there is this interesting piece about the success of women lobbyists that appeared in Washington, DC’s Daily Globe on 30 January 1857:
In classifying the lobby members of Congress the female representatives of the “third house” occupy no unimportant position. Indeed, I may say that one experienced female lobbyist is equal in point of influence to any three schemers of the other sex with whom I am acquainted. Every session draws to Washington a number of these feminine birds of passage, as well as prey, and you will find their names at Willard’s, Brown’s, the National, or wherever members most do congregate; and not a great measure comes before Congress that they do not have an important, if not a conspicuous “finger in the pie.”
Besides showing that feminism was alive and well in the nineteenth century, this last quotation hints at the etymythology that surrounds the word lobby. According to the myth, the word comes from the practice of petitioners buttonholing legislators in the lobby of noted Washington hotels, in the stories it is usually the Willard Hotel. The myth also often dates to the practice to the Grant administration (1869–77). But as we have seen the word predates that administration as well as all three hotels mentioned in the quotation. Willard’s Hotel dates to 1847, although hotels had been on that site since 1816. The National Hotel was founded in 1827 and Brown’s Indian Queen Hotel in 1820, all after the political sense of lobby had been established.
Sources:
Becon, Thomas. The Reliques of Rome. London: John Day, 1563, fol. 53r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Blaise, Albert. Lexicon Latinitatis medii aeui. Turnhout: Brepols, 1975, s.v. lobia (lobium). Brepols: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
“Debate. On the Proposition for the Removal of the Seat of Government to Philadelphia” (2 February 1808). Universal Gazette (Washington, DC), 11 February 1808, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Drayton, Michael. Mortimeriados. The Lamentable Ciuell Warres of Edward the Second and the Barrons. London: James Roberts for Humphry Lownes, 1596, sig. R. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
“Female Lobby Members.” The Daily Globe (Washington, DC), 30 January 1857, 3. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. lobby, n., lobbyist, n., lobby, v.
Rushworth, John. Historical Collections of Private Passages of State, vol. 3 of 8. London: Thomas Newcomb for George Thomason, 1692, 1104. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
“Slavery.” New Hampshire Sentinel (Keene), 1 April 1820, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Symptoms of Dissolution.” Daily Cincinnati Enquirer (Ohio), 25 August 1842, 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
“Tuesday, Feb. 2, Debate” (1808). Washington Federalist (Georgetown, DC), 20 February 1808, 3. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Image credits:
“No Lobbyists Beyond This Point.” Daniel Huizinga, 2014. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
“Congressional Pugilists,” unknown artist, 1798, Library of Congress. Public domain image.