The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1869-03-12
Where lhe Capital or the UniOs,
Might Haze Been.

We don't know who wrote the follow
ing. He probably is an intelligent man,
Notwithstanding the light and unrespect-
full way in which he speaks of the vii
lage of Germantown:"1
The original sites proposed for the cap
ital of the Union were Germantown, Phil
adelphia, Havre de Grace and Baltimore.
Germantown, as many may not be aware,
IS hilltop village, seven or eight miles
interior from Philadelphia, founded by
Dunkers, Quakers, and Hard-shells of ev-
cry denomination. 1t was once actually
voted to be the site of the capital, and du-
ring the interval of a year before the re-
peal of the act, the staid population of
Germantown was violently convulsed.
The good old Quaker women grew refrac-
tory, and ordered new bonnets The old
Bunker wives expected each of their
daughters to marry member of Congress.
The young men stopped ploughing, and
expected to be department clerks. Ale
houses opened in wonderful excess, and
every Germantowner took to reading polit-
lcal papers. 1t was year of decadencc
and delirium tremens. The graveyards got
fat that year. They thought of giving up
the orthodox meeting house for a War De-
partment, and stopped the cannon ball
cracks in the old Chew mansion to fit up for
| Gen. Washington. Germantown has never
recovered from that blow. Ever since the
act of repeal the Friends meeting house
has been empty. Philadelphia has been
pertly described by james Parton as
I"Quakerism modified by Franklin
1t was the great city of the country when
the nation began, being at that time about
the size of Indianapolis at present. Wits
key was known to be good there, and hotel
room ample. No man could lose his way
home after political caucus by taking a
crooked street. So it had many friends to
vote it the permanent capital city. In the
Senate, when the matter was proposed in
1900, twenty-five voted for Philadelphia as
the capital, to thirty-nine against it-thc
same figures as those which lost German
town. And Philadelphia died hard. It
! felt that indignant sentiment of the boy
who was rejected for the captaincy of the
cornstalk military company "My mother
says I'm the biggest, and 1 ought to be
captain" Consider the present circum-
stances, if Germantown had become the
metropolitan city. We should have had
the Congressional debates printed only in
German. Every Senator would have had
his desk full of pretzels The Hole-in-the-
Wall would have run lager evcrlastingly.
The Speaker of the House must have
sat in the gallery, so that the debaters
could see to address him over their enor.
nous abdomens. Sausage would have
been ranked to all parts of the country,
and switzerkase by the ton charged to the
item of stationery. VIM. Penn and Gam
brinus would have been perched together
on the dome of the capitol. The journal
of Congress would have been dated First
day of the seventh month" All the Presi-
dents receptions would have been held in
drab coats, and General Grant would have
worn the uniform of a perpetual Saenger-
fest. What lot of public printing we
should have been spared ourselves
Havre de Grace, would have made one OF
the most beautiful sites in America for the
capital city. High blue ridges of wooded