Muhlenberg, Frederick Augustus Conrad b.January1, 1750;Trappe, Pennsylvania d.June 4, 1801; Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Son of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, he was a Pennsylvania-German politician, Lutheran clergyman, and the first Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Together with his two brothers, he was sent to Halle, Prussia, in April 1763, to be educated.
At the Franckesche Stiftungen he studied classical languages, history, and theology. He returned to Pennsylvania in 1770. On October 25, 1770, Muhlenberg was ordained a minister in the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Reading, Pennsylvania.From 1770 until 1773, Muhlenberg served as a circuit pastor in the Pennsylvania towns of Tulpehocken, Schaefferstown, Manheim, Warwick, White Oaks, and Lebanon. In 1773 he moved to the Swamp Church in New York City. While sympathetic to the Revolution, he refused to mix politics with religion. Muhlenberg moved his family to Philadelphia and then to New Hanover, Pennsylvania, after the British occupied New York City and Philadelphia in 1777.
By the late 1770s Muhlenberg felt drawn to politics and away from the ministry. He was appointed to the Continental Congress by the Pennsylvania Assembly in February 1779. In October 1779, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly as a constitutionalist. The assembly then reappointed him to the Congress. While he was ineligible to be reappointed to the Congress in 1780, he continued to be reelected to the Pennsylvania Assembly. From 1780 to 1783, Muhlenberg served as the Speaker of the assembly.
Although a radical constitutionalist, he began to realize that the United States needed a new government framework to replace the Articles of Confederation. Representing Philadelphia County, he presided over the Council of Censors, the body responsible for changing the state constitution, in 1783-1784. In November
and December 1787 Muhlenberg presided over the Pennsylvania convention called to ratify the new U.S.
Constitution. He urged quick ratification of the new framework, contributing Federalist articles to German- language newspapers until the ninth state ratified the Constitution in 1788.Muhlenberg was elected as a Federalist to the new U. S. House of Representatives in 1788, receiving the highest number of votes of any candidate in Pennsylvania. Accompanied by his brother John, he arrived at the seat of the federal government, New York City, in March 1789. On April 1, 1789, Frederick Muhlenberg was chosen to be Speaker of the House of Representatives by his colleagues in that body. He was elected because other House members believed that he had the political skills to keep the various regional interests in the House working together. As Speaker, Muhlenberg was unsuccessful in his attempt to have the permanent national capital located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
He was reelected to the House three times and elected to serve as Speaker again in the Third Congress in 1793—1795. Muhlenberg failed in two bids to be elected Pennsylvania governor in 1793 and 1796. In 1796 he cast the tie-breaking vote in the House on legislation appropriating money to implement the Jay Treaty. The treaty, negotiated by John Jay, was designed to settle differences with Great Britain that had lingered since the Revolution. One of the provisions authorized payment of a ransom for American sailors held by the British. Muhlenberg cast the deciding vote to approve appropriations to carry out the treaty. This vote cost him electoral support in Pennsylvania and he was defeated in the fall elections in 1796.
John David Rausch Jr.
See also Muhlenberg, Henry Melchior;
Muhlenberg, John Peter Gabriel
References and Further Reading
Seidensticker, Oswald. “Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, Speaker of the House of Representatives in the First Congress, 1789.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 12 (1889): 184—206.
Wallace, Paul A. W The Muhlenbergs of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1950.