{"id":3625,"date":"2005-09-18T21:19:53","date_gmt":"2005-09-19T01:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3625"},"modified":"2022-10-09T19:43:17","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T23:43:17","slug":"today-in-history-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3625","title":{"rendered":"Today in history: Sept. 18, 1793"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not only is today my sister Jean Grania’s birthday (yes, she was named for the female pirate Gr\u00e1inne Ni Mhaille<\/a>, our most illustrious ancestor) – but today is also the day that George Washington laid the cornerstone for the US Capitol building in what was then just a broad marsh on the Potomac. Sept. 18, 1793.<\/p>\n

Choosing the site of our nation’s capital is a fascinating story in and of itself, involving political wheeling and dealing, major discord between North and South, and a secret dinner between foes Alexander Hamilton and James Madison – hosted by Thomas Jefferson at his residence in New York (57 Maiden Lane, if you’re really interested. I’m autistic. Okay, then. Moving on.) In 1790, Hamilton submitted to Congress his financial plan for recovering the economy, which generated a shitstorm of controversy. Of course it did, because it was authored by Alexander Hamilton – who, along with being my dead boyfriend<\/a>, was a man who probably never did an uncontroversial thing in his life. Southern congressmen, led by James Madison, blocked approval of Hamilton’s plan – basically because of one element of the whole thing: the part that said that the federal government should take on the debt of the states. This one piece of the plan was so controversial that it threatened to derail Hamilton’s entire plan. Total gridlock was the result. Hamilton threatened to resign (he was Secretary of the Treasury).<\/p>\n

In June, 1790 – in the middle of all of this – Hamilton and Jefferson (also a member of Washington’s cabinet) ran into each other on the sidewalk outside Washington’s residence in New York. The way Jefferson told it, Hamilton did not look like his normal shining self. He was haggard, distracted, upset. He unloaded on Jefferson his anger about the hold-up in Congress, and told him his feeling of utter defeat. Jefferson later wrote: “On considering the situation of things, I thought the first step towards some reconciliation of views would be to bring Mr. Madison and Colo. Hamilton to a friendly discussion of the subject.”<\/p>\n

He offered to host a private dinner at his residence – outside of the glaring light of political intigue, beyond the reach of the press – where the two warring gentlemen could come together and find some common ground. Typical politics. Jefferson, the man who always wanted to be above politics, was, in essence, the master wheeler-dealer. He was always behind the scenes, pulling the strings, and yet somehow pretending he wasn’t doing so. Fascinating. His accounts of his own behavior are often inaccurate – because of this dichotomy. It was like there was some deep-down paradox there, something even he couldn’t reconcile. This is, actually, not just evidence of being hypocritical – but evidence of being supremely human. All of us operate from our own set of assumptions about reality … and any account we give of our own actions tend to put us in the best light. Go to any happy hour, and you’ll overhear innumerable snippets of people sharing stories about how they got the best of so-and-so. We are always right. We are always justified. Some of our deepest motivations are blurred to our own sight. But that’s all right. That’s just being human. Welcome to the human race.<\/p>\n

Here is how Jefferson described that fateful meeting:<\/p>\n

They came. I opened the subject to them, acknowledged that my situation had not permitted me to understand it sufficiently but encouraged them to consider the thing altogether. They did so. It ended in Mr. Madison’s acquienscence in a proposition that the question should be again brought before the house by way of amendment from the Senate, that he would not vote for it, not entirely withdraw his opposition, yet he would not be strenuous, but leave it to its fate. It was observed, I forget by which of them, that as the pill would be a bitter one to the Southen states, something should be done to soothe them; and the removal of the seat of government to the Patowmac was a just measure, and would probably be a popular one with them, and would be a proper one to follow the assumption.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So simple, so seemingly casual, huh??<\/p>\n

Joseph Ellis, in his marvelous book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, devotes a chapter to this event. He writes:<\/p>\n

Jefferson brokered a political bargain of decidedly far-reaching significance: Madison agreed to permit the core provision of Hamilton’s fiscal program to pass; and in return Hamilton agreed to use his influence to assure that the permanent residence of the national capital would be on the Potomac River. If true, this story deserves to rank alongside the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 as one of the landmark accommodations in American politics. And, without much question, what we might call “The Compromise of 1790” would top the list as the most meaningful dinner party in American history.<\/p>\n

But is it true? The verdict of history, or at least the reigning judgment of most historians, is that the story is essentially<\/i> true. Hamilton and Madison did meet at Jefferson’s quarters in late June of 1790. On July 9 the House passed the Residence Bill, locating the permanent national capital on the Potomac after a ten-year residencde in Philadelphia, all this decided by a vote of 32 to 29. On July 26, the House passed the Assumption Bill [this was Hamilton’s bill about the federal government assuming the debts of the states<\/i>] by a nearly identical vote of 34 to 28, Madison voted against but, in keeping with Jefferson’s version of the bargain, not leading the opposition in his previously “strenuous” fashion. Moreover, several different political observers and newspaper editors of the day clearly believed that some kind of secret deal had been made to effect the switching of votes necessary to break the long-standing deadlock on both issues. A disgruntled New York editor, for example, was quite explicit: “The true reason of the removal of Congress from this city will be explained to the people in the course of a very few days. To the lasting disgrace of the majority in both houses it will be seen, that the Pennsylvania and Patowmack interests have been purchased with twenty one and one-half million dollars<\/i>,” which just happened to be the size of the assumed state debts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then – the other issue on the table – was where to place the capital. The decision, of couse, had huge political implications. Madison wrote: “The business of the seat of Government is become a labyrinth for which the votes printed furnish no clue, and which it is impossible in a letter to explain to you.” Any ultimate decision – Philadelpiha, New york, Annapolis, Trenton … whatever … would be seen as insult to SOMEone. If New York was chosen … would that give New England an unfair advantage over the southern states? And, etc. etc. Nothing was good, nothing could be agreed upon.<\/p>\n

Here’s another excerpt from Founding Brothers<\/i> about the Potomac, and what it all meant, and how important this decision was:<\/p>\n

Although it never seemed to be part of the conscious intnetion of either Jefferson or Madison at the time, the isolated location and de novo<\/i> character of the national capital had even deeper political implications. For at the start and for several decades thereafter, it remained a vast and nearly vacant plot of ground. Visitors in those early years who stopped to ask directions to the American capital were often astonished when told they were standing squarely in its center. Anyone apprehensive about the encroaching powers of the federal government must have felt a palpable sense of reassurance that the seat of power was virtually invisible. Or if, like Jefferson, one believed that cities were sores on the body politic, and agrarian values were the mainstay of American virtue, then Washington, D.C., must have seemed the perfect capital for the new republic, since it was really not a city at all. If the clustering together or consolidation of political power touched some primal nerve, conjuring up horrific scenes of courtiers in london or Paris plotting against the rights of ordinary citizens, again the American capital performed visual therapy by lacking courts, corridors, or many public buildings whatsoever. It symbolized the victory of diffusion over consoldiation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jefferson’s wheeling and dealing worked.<\/p>\n

Hamilton’s bill was passed, and the Potomac was settled on as the location of the new capital.<\/p>\n

On September 18,1793, President Washington laid the cornerstone of the US Capitol.<\/p>\n

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