A Year With George Washington
On April 15, 1791, the cornerstone was laid by Commissioners Daniel Carroll and David Stuart for the new “Federal City” boundary. Washington was not present for the ceremonial event as he was in the midst of his Southern Tour of the United States, and some 150 miles to the south in Petersburg, but it was all-important in his mind. He had toiled for decades and suffered much to bring about this moment, and forces hostile to his dream were everywhere arrayed against him.
Many in Congress wanted the capital to be located in Philadelphia or to remain in New York, and they continually lobbied to keep it there. Washington wanted the work in the Federal City on the Potomac to begin apace so as to render it either difficult or impossible to locate it anywhere else.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison shared Washington’s vision of a national city and were very pleased to see a large portion of it on their native Virginia soil, but even they labored to frustrate Washington’s wishes by publicly advocating for a less grand, more agrarian approach to the design.
Washington shared some of their precepts, but he wanted the city’s architecture and environs to reflect the soaring ideals he more than any other fought and suffered to establish. His sentiments were more in keeping with the wording of the Commission’s stated vision;
“The city will express in the stile of our Architecture the sublime Sentiment of Liberty, the grandeur of conception, a Republican simplicity, and that true elegance of proportion.”
If George Washington had done nothing more than to bring about the Federal City, his legacy would be both laudable and secure, but this was merely his final act. The story of his life is so incredible that every chapter reveals a man of almost mythical accomplishments, each selflessly derived for the betterment of America and the world.
We are now in the 250th year of our Independence. Pray that his example begets 250 more.
