LOCATING THE CAPITAL.

By GAILLARD HUNT.

The two measures which aroused the most heated discussion in the First Congress under the Constitution provided, the one for the public credit, and the other for a permanent seat of the Federal Government. The former took the shape of a bill, which Alexander Hamilton had drawn up, funding the Federal debt and assuming the debts which the several States had contracted during the Revolutionary war. To the assumption of these debts, as they stood, there was soon developed a bitter antagonism. It was based upon two chief argumentsfirst, that it was an invasion of State prerogatives for the General Government to levy taxes to pay debts which the States separately had contracted, and, second, that it was unfair that those States whose debts were not embarrassing should be obliged to share the burdens of States whose debts were large.

Among the Representatives most strongly opposed to the measure were Alexander White and Richard Bland Lee, both of Virginia. The debt of their State had been reduced, was funded at 6 per cent, and the interest was being regularly paid. That Virginia should share in the larger obligations of less cautious States was, therefore, thought to be a manifest injustice. As the debate on the measure proceeded, it assumed a threatening tone. Lee said, that if the General Government assumed the State debts due to individuals, the measure would be so evidently partial that he dreaded the consequences, and White declared, "it would lessen the influence of the States; they would be reduced to a degree lower than they should be, while, at the same time, the General Government would be elevated on their ruin." The assumption bill was defeated April 12, 1790, in committee of the whole, by a vote of 31 to 29, H. Doc. 291-19

289

and in consequence the whole funding measure was in danger of total collapse. This condition of affairs was followed by the most violent excitement, and although Congress met from day to day the opposing factions could transact but little business together.

It was more important that the public credit should be provided for than that the capital should be located in any particular spot, for upon the former depended the financial standing of the new nation in the eyes of the world, while the latter was a measure of purely domestic concern. The two, however, had no connection with one another; yet, by a system, since come to be known as "logrolling," they became involved. The Eastern members of Congress desired the passage of the assumption bill, but had no hope, for geographical reasons, of obtaining the capital. The members from the Middle States, on the other hand, were determined, if possible, that the seat of the Federal Government should be permanently located either at Philadelphia or in that neighborhood. The two sections, therefore, effected a combination of their interests, and it was rendered only barely unsuccessful by the strenuous opposition of the South. But Virginia and Maryland conceived that they also had claims to the capital, and their respective legislatures had already taken steps to procure it.

On December 27, 1788, before Congress had come together, the general assembly of Virginia passed resolutions offering 10 miles square of any portion of the State for the new Federal city which the Constitution provided for, and White laid these resolutions before the national House of Representatives May 15, 1789. On the following day Seney, of Maryland, offered a similar act from the legislature of his State. Maryland and Virginia were not, however, in hostile rivalry in their efforts to obtain the Federal district. They contemplated its location on the banks of the Potomac, and calculated upon jointly profiting in consequence. On December 10, 1789, the general assembly of Virginia informed the general assembly of Maryland that it would advance $120,000 toward the erection of public buildings in the new Federal city, if it should be located on the Potomac, provided Maryland would advance three-fifths of that sum, and at the November session, 1790, the Maryland assembly appropriated $72,000 for the

purpose.

On December 3, 1789, the general assembly of Virginia

passed an act, reciting that the seat of the General Government should occupy a central location, "having regard as well to population, extent of territory, and a free navigation to the Atlantic Ocean, through the Chesapeake Bay, as to the most direct and ready communication with our fellow-citizens on the Western frontier." The banks of the Potomac, above tide water, it was added, seemed to combine all these considerations, and therefore a location of 10 miles square or less in that region was offered.

Lee had anticipated in Congress this action of the State by introducing, on September 3, a resolution "That a place, as nearly central as a convenient communication with the Atlantic Ocean and an easy access to the Western territory will permit, ought to be selected and established as the permanent seat of the Government of the United States." This was seconded by Daniel Carroll, of Maryland, and supported by Madison, who contended, in the face of much opposition, that the Potomac River region answered the requirements more satisfactorily than any other place. A little later, Lee offered another resolution, coming out in terms for the banks of the Potomac. It soon became evident, however, that the combination which was not strong enough to carry the assumption bill a few months later was strong enough at this time to defeat the bill locating the capital in the South, and the House decided that the capital should be located on the banks of the Susquehanna River. The bill was sent to the Senate September 22, and came back September 26, with the location changed to Germantown, Pa., and this was accepted by the House with an unimportant amendment, which threw the bill back for further action by the Senate. There other business interposed, and it died when it was upon the very verge of final adoption.

It was at this juncture that Jefferson gave his famous dinner party. He tells the story in his Anas:

As I was going to the President's one day, I met him [Hamilton] in the street. He walked me backward and forward before the President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the Legislature had been wrought, the disgust of those who were called the creditor States, the danger of the secession of their members and the separation of the States. He observed that the members of the Administration ought to act in concert; that though this question was not in my Department, yet a common duty should make it a common concern; that the President was the center on which all administrative questions ultimately rested, and that all of us should rally around him; and that, the

question having been lost by a small majority only, it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote, and the machine of Government, now suspended, might be again set into motion. I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject; not having yet informed myself of the system of finances adopted, I knew not how far this was a necessary sequence; that undoubtedly, if its rejection endangered a dissolution of our Union at this incipient stage, I should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences, to avert which all partial and temporary evils should be yielded. I proposed to him, however, to dine with me the next day, and I would invite another friend or two; bring them into conference together, and I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise which was to save the Union.

The discussion took place. I could take no part in it, but an exhortatory one, because I was a stranger to the circumstances which should govern it. But it was finally agreed that, whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of concord among the States was more important, and that therefore it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded, to effect which some members should change their votes. But it was observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them. There had before been propositions to fix the seat of Government either at Philadelphia or at Georgetown, on the Potomac, and it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure also. So two of the Potomac members (White and Lee, but White with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive) agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton undertook to carry the other point. In doing this the influence he had established over the Eastern members, with the agency of Robert Morris with those of the Middle States, effected his side of the engagement, and so the assumption was passed, and twenty millions of stock divided among favored States, and thrown in as pabulum to the stock-jobbing herd.

Hamilton performed his part of the bargain first. On July 9, 1790, by a vote of 32 yeas to 29 nays, the House passed the bill locating the capital on the banks of the Potomac River between the Eastern Branch and Conococheague Creek. It went through the Senate in due course, and was signed by the President a few days later.

The final outcome did not give general satisfaction. The East and the South were generally in opposition on most subjects, and this was no exception to the rule, and the Middle States were only partially placated by the fact that Congress would sit at Philadelphia for ten years after leaving New York. Moreover, it was known that there had been a bargain, and this fact was freely condemned. Whether or not it was an immoral