When the Senate was created, there was no such thing as the filibuster. In fact, when the filibuster was created no one even knew they'd created the filibuster: They'd deleted a rule they thought was redundant — "the motion to move to the previous question" — and it was only a few decades later that they realized they'd deleted the only way the Senate had of shutting people up.
But that was okay. Because for most of American history senators used the filibuster extremely judiciously. That's all changed in recent years. The Senate had to spend more time breaking filibusters in 2009 and 2010 than in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s combined. The Senate has gone from a majority-rules institution to one where only a supermajority can govern — and supermajorites are exceedingly rare in American politics.
“Over the last 50 years, we have added a new veto point in American politics,” says Gregory Koger, author of Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate.