How did Washington, D.C. become our capital?
It is not widely understood how Washington, D.C. became our capital. What is Washington exactly? It isn’t a state or a city that is part of a state. It is the federal District of Columbia created as the result of a compromise between Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.
After the Revolutionary War, the United States was deeply in debt with much of the debt owed by the individual states. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton had a plan for the federal government to assume the states’ debt, but his plan was met with opposition from Jefferson and Madison among others. With Jefferson’s help, a deal was struck in which Madison, a Virginian and influential member of the House of Representatives, would support the Hamilton plan in exchange for fixing the capital in the South along the Potomac River. This would give the South more power and influence against what was a growing Northern economic supremacy. Both the Funding Act, allowing the federal government to assume the debts of the states, and the Residence Act, moving the capital from Philadelphia to a location along the Potomac River, passed into law in 1790. The result of a deal between some of our most influential Founding Fathers.
There are other interesting facts about Washington, D.C. Although he would never reside there, George Washington picked the final location of the capital that would honor his name and was deeply involved in the planning of the city. John Adams moved into the White House on November 1, 1801, during the last four months of his presidency. On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson became the first president to be inaugurated in Washington within the Senate chamber of the Capitol. Although still under construction, the Capitol held its first session of Congress on November 17, 1800. During the War of 1812, Dolly Madison, wife of James Madison, saved a full-length portrait of George Washington and an original copy of the Declaration of Independence before British troops burned the White House.
From its origins as swampy land along the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia, today Washington, D.C. is a city surrounded by six of the ten wealthiest counties in America. The city remains a must-visit for all Americans.