Mission Impossible
In 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, specifying that a capital city should be built. Many representatives, beholden to regional interests, argued for the virtues of the established cities within their own states: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Annapolis, even Wilmington. Alexander Hamilton’s vociferous lobbying for New York led his critics to call the city “Hamiltonopolis” for a time. A total of 16 different places were put forward. Southern representatives were jealous of the commercially oriented North and refused to consent to their suggestions. Northern representatives, on the other hand, loathed the South for its underdeveloped infrastructure and agrarian backwardness. Though everyone eventually compromised and agreed on a site between Maryland and Virginia, the treasury was empty. Delegates decided that the city would have to be built without funds, and in a span of only 10 years. If finished, federal offices would move there from Philadelphia in 1800.In his “Washington: How Slaves, Idealists, and Scoundrels Created the Nation’s Capital,” Fergus Bordewich observes, “The prospects for success were dim indeed” due to dishonest financial maneuvering and political incompetence. It seemed impossible to complete surveying, land acquisition, city design, and building in a 10-year period with no money. Development and construction would cost an estimated $1 million, a huge sum in the late 18th century. How was it to be raised?
Fortunately, the person chosen to oversee the capital project was universally acknowledged to be the greatest man of his age. If George Washington couldn’t get it done, no one could—and many skeptics in the North hoped this would be the case. They expected that he would never even map out the territory, much less build anything. Congress’s intentionally vague instructions set him up to fail, and for most of the decade it seemed like he would.
In October 1790, Washington set out on horseback to survey the territory along the Potomac River, northwest of Georgetown. Though he had kept silent during the congressional debates, he himself had favored this location and knew the surrounding area intimately. Congress gave him the authority to choose the site. They also requested that he “accept grants of money” from whomever he could find to cover all the needed expenses. As he rode through each community to conduct inspections, he encountered many self-interested landowners ready to begin development, but no benevolent patrons. He knew that before he made his choice known, he would need to find other able men to execute the surveying, design, and construction.
One key aspect of Washington’s leadership ability was finding exactly the right people for the job. His ambition was to build a capital that would rival the major urban centers of Europe. Washington put Thomas Jefferson, the experienced designer of Monticello and the Richmond statehouse, in charge of managing the undertaking. For the job of architect, Washington chose Pierre L’Enfant, a Frenchman who had studied art in Paris before serving with him as an engineer during the American Revolution. After the war, L’Enfant designed buildings in New York and rebuilt the old city hall where Washington was sworn in as president. L’Enfant took up his new role with enthusiasm, sketching the landscape around Georgetown and studying plans of great European cities that Jefferson provided.
Sealing the Deal
In March 1791, Washington traveled to Suter’s Tavern in Georgetown. After meeting with the three district commissioners and surveyor that he appointed, L’Enfant presented him with pencil sketches of a grand city along the vacant four thousand acres Washington had selected just north of Mount Vernon. Washington then met with the landowners from Georgetown and Carrollsburg, men who had held their property for generations and felt entitled to it. Many of them had exhausted their soil from relentless tobacco planting and hoped that converting these fields into city lots would bring easy wealth. Each of these hardheaded investors wanted to make a deal that benefited his community at the expense of the other.Cyrus A. Ansary, author of “George Washington: Dealmaker-In-Chief,” paints a detailed verbal portrait of the president’s single-mindedness in navigating this delicate situation. First, Washington quelled their bickering by stressing cooperation over competition. Next, he showed them L’Enfant’s dream for the leading city of the first modern republic: the Capitol, or “People’s House,” upon the highest hill, connecting to the “President’s House” by a broad avenue, which met other diagonal avenues moving outward to intersect with circles and squares, the sites for parks and statues.
The landowners were awestruck. The geometrical street designs and neoclassical federal buildings conjured images of a strong, new Rome capable of growth. Washington took advantage of their wonder to pitch his request. Acreage from everyone present would be needed for the project, he said. The proprietors would give up half of their land within the designated area once it was divided into lots. Specific negotiations were made regarding timber, ground used for roads, and landowners’ buildings. Realizing that the land they retained would rise steeply in value, the proprietors “cheerfully” agreed to give over the lots needed for the city at no cost, knowing that the government would then sell them to raise the needed construction funds.
In one fell swoop, Washington had accomplished his major goals. He relinquished supervision to Jefferson but continued to monitor the city’s development as private interests clashed and problems continued to arise. After handing the presidential reins over to John Adams, who took no interest in the capital project, Washington took frequent trips to the site-in-progress from Mount Vernon to resolve disputes, encourage faster construction, select spots for government offices, and express his views on squares and parks. There were few points on which his advice was not sought. Keenly aware of the challenges he faced and the jealous factionalisms that threatened to tear the infant republic apart at every moment, it was ultimately Washington’s “messianic optimism about the future of America,” as Ansary memorably phrases it, that held everything together and ensured success. Without his direct oversight, even in the later stages, the project would have certainly foundered.
What to call the capital, now? People debated whether to name it after the discoverer of America or its savior. Some proposed “Washingtonople,” others “Washingtonopolis,” and still others “Columbian Federal City.” Although our first president died a year before the capital’s scheduled completion date, he learned that his commissioners settled on naming the city after him and calling the encompassing district Columbia. The finished result fulfilled Washington’s vision: to build a symbol of American prosperity.
