when was congress supposed to meet according to the original constitution
Article One of the United States Constitution Although this clause provides that the annual meeting was to be on the first Monday in December, the government established by the 1787 Constitution did not begin operations until March 4, 1789. As the 1st Congress held its initial meeting on March 4, that became the date on which new representatives and senators took office in subsequent years.[57] Therefore, every other year, although a new Congress was elected in November, it did not come into office until the following March, with a "lame duck" session convening in the interim. This practice was altered in 1933 following ratification of the Twentieth Amendment, which states (in Section 2) that, "The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the third day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day". This change virtually eliminated the necessity of there being a lame duck session of Congress.