A Year With George Washington
January 22, 1791
We, the living, are inclined to believe that the tenor of debate at the founding of our nation was more civilized than ours is today. The truth is, America’s political climate was just as impassioned, frustrating, and absurd then as it is now.
The earliest Congresses in our nation’s history were full of examples of such antics. James Jackson of Georgia, known for his bombastic behavior and biblical allusions, shouted a threatening admonition at a group of onlookers in the house gallery who had come to observe the proceedings. Jackson demanded that the group be silent and reportedly pointed his gun at them to illustrate his seriousness. Not long after that, two congressmen, Matthew Lyon of Vermont and Roger Griswold of Connecticut, came to blows, one with a cane, the other with a fire poker. The violent scuffle began with Lyon’s errant tobacco spittle soiling Griswold’s clothes.
The fight over the permanent location of the nation’s capital was an especially bitter business, made the more electrically charged by those with competing interests.
Washington, like many others, was frustrated with the nagging truth that America had no permanent geographic symbol of its republican ideals. Washington instinctively believed that great spaces must serve us in the moment while simultaneously emboldening us to transcend the present. With few exceptions, every other major power in history had such a place. Washington had long harbored these feelings, holding them back to the early days of the Revolutionary War.
Having turned in his hero hat for that of the president, George Washington was ready to make the national space a reality. He was the only man in America who had earned enough admiration and trust to be given such broad authority as was needed to direct the creation of the nation’s capital.
Washington had done much behind the curtain to advance what was called the Residence Act, the bill that would provide for the permanent location of the nation’s capital. He wanted the national city to be more centrally located in the country and believed the Maryland/Virginia location to be best suited to that goal.
At his disposal were Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison as his leader in the House of Representatives. Jefferson, who had only taken his post a few months before, conceived of a plan to ensure Washington would get his wish.
Many of the northern states retained burdensome financial obligations from the war. Almost all of the southern states, excepting South Carolina, had paid off their debts.
The Jefferson compromise, which he had laid before Hamilton and Madison at his now famous dinner party, provided that the state debts would be assumed by the federal government in exchange for a more southerly site for the permanent capital. Though they knew it was going to be a difficult fight, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton each pledged to do their part to ensure the Revenue Acts passage.
After much political wrangling, the Residence Act, with Jefferson’s compromise, passed narrowly in both the House (32 to 29) and the Senate (14 to 12). Washington signed the bill into law on July 16, 1790.
Washington was given unbridled authority in the bill and took full advantage of the aforementioned, personally directing every detail of the process. The Act provided that the President choose three commissioners to plan and oversee the creation of the capital district.
Knowing of the infighting yet to come, Washington chose for his three commissioners people both capable and friendly to him; David Stuart, a member of the Virginia, House of Delegates; Thomas Johnson, former governor of Maryland and delegate to the Continental Congress, and attorney; and Daniel Carroll, former member of the Continental Congress, signer of the Articles of the Confederation, and delegate to the Constitutional Convention. All the commissioners served without pay.
Over the next eight years, Washington worked to bring about his vision. He took an active part in every aspect of the city planning, surveying, architectural design, artwork, etc., etc. His final act for America, for which he labored more than any other, was to leave a physical and permanent symbol of the American Ideal.
Washington had dreamed of a grand capital city to match this grand ideal ever since the fight for freedom had begun. Being born into a family whose males died young, he knew his end was near, as indeed it was. He only had eight more trips around the sun remaining.
How fortunate we are that he embodied the wisdom of the Roman poet, Caecilius Statius, “serit arbores, quae alteri saeclo prosint’
‘He plants trees, which will be of use to another age.”
