From Tennessee—John Rhea, and Jesse Wharton.
The Assistant Clerk of the House announced 117 members and one delegate to be present, being a majority of the whole number. He then inquired if it were the pleasure of the House to proceed to the appointment of a Speaker, which being determined in the affirmative, the members proceeded to ballot for that officer, Messrs. Cutts, Helms, and John Campbell, being named tellers.
The tellers, after examining the votes, reported that 117 were received, and Joseph B. Varnum, a Representative from the State of Massachusetts, having fifty-nine of them, was declared to be duly elected.
The votes were given as follows, viz:
Joseph B. Varnum, 59; Charles Goldsborough, 17; Burwell Bassett, 17; Josiah Masters, 8; Thomas Blount, 7; John Dawson, 4; John Smilie, 2; Benjamin Tallmadge, 1; Timothy Pitkin, 1; and R. Nelson, 1.
The Speaker being conducted to the Chair, by Mr. Van Cortlandt and Mr. Alston, addressed the House as follows:
Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:
You will please to accept my most grateful acknowledgments for the honor which by your suffrages on this occasion you have conferred upon me. I am sensible of my own inability to perform the important duties you have been pleased to assign me, in the most desirable manner; but relying on your candor and readiness to afford me your aid, I accept the trust. And be assured, gentlemen, that it will be my assiduous endeavor to discharge the duties of the office faithfully and impartially; and in a manner which, in my opinion, shall be best calculated to meet your wishes and afford me the consolation of an approving conscience.
The oath to support the Constitution of the United States, as prescribed by the act, entitled “An act to regulate the time and manner of administering certain oaths,” was administered by Mr. Van Cortlandt, one of the Representatives for the State of New York, to the Speaker; and then the same oath, or affirmation, was administered by Mr. Speaker to all the members present.
George Poindexter, Esq., having also appeared as the delegate from the Mississippi Territory of the United States, the said oath was administered to him by the Speaker. The same oath, together with the oath of office prescribed by the said recited act, were also administered by Mr. Speaker to the Clerk.