Quill Project

Throughout the platform round icons are events relating to individuals and their right to have an opinion in particular debates:

Person joining a committee

Person leaving a committee

Person elected to a position

Roll-call

Parchment-coloured, square icons relate to the creation and amending of documents:

Create a new proposal

Create a new document that is a line-by-line revision of another document (noted by the pen icon in the corner)

Document amendment proposed

Document taken from another committee (note arrow in corner)

Amendment taken from another committee

Debate a proposal

Documents that have an explicit subtype can be displayed with a slightly different icon:

Legislative text

Formal Resolutions

A message to be sent elsewhere

A petition to be considered

Rules and Orders of Business

Diamond-shaped, purple icons relate to decisions taken:

Drop a proposal

Refer a proposal to another committee

Adopt a proposal

Other vote (continue debate)

Reject a proposal

Postpone a debate

Blue, hexagon-shaped icons relate to 'procedural' proposals that do not directly alter text but affect how a committee does its work (and are usually used only for transient things, such as a point of order.)

Procedural motion

Procedural motion with sub-decisions

Debate on a procedural motion

This page displays an overview of the events a person was involved in during a convention and the votes that he/she won or lost.

Select the relevant committee on the left. Along the top, the line of the selected committee's events will highlight those moments where an event is tagged with this person.

In the lower part of the page a list of the votes taken will allow you to see whether this person was on the winning or losing side (where it is known).

The Road to Civil War

James B. McKean

(August 5, 1821 — January 5, 1879) James Bedell McKean, (nephew of Samuel McKean), a Representative from New York; born in Bennington, Vt., August 5, 1821; moved to New York; pursued an academic course; taught in the district schools for several terms and was one of the professors in Jonesville Academy for some time; superintendent of the common schools in Half Moon in 1842; elected colonel of the One Hundred and Forty-fourth Regiment, New York Militia, in 1844; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1849 and commenced practice in Ballston Spa, N.Y.; moved to Saratoga Springs in 1851; county judge of Saratoga County 1854-1858; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1859-March 3, 1863); chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of State (Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses); during the Civil War organized the Seventy-seventh Regiment, New York Volunteers, in 1861 and served as colonel of the regiment until July 27, 1863, when he resigned his commission; appointed treaty commissioner to Honduras in 1865; appointed chief justice of the supreme court of Utah Territory by President Grant in 1870 and served until 1875; died in Salt Lake City, Utah, January 5, 1879; interment in Mount Olivet Cemetery. [Source: “Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 - Present,” available at https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/M000491]

Member of New York Delegation - The Road to Civil War [this display].

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Member of the following committees and involvement

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Voting details of

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