Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1900-12-07

Washington.
Besides the public buildings in pro
cess OF construction, there were, Ma,
II, 1900, 100 brick and 253 fram,
houses in Washington, all save half ,
dozen Of them having been erecte,
after the year 1871.
1t is interesting to recall that befor,
the establishment of the permanen
capital at Washington no less thar
eight other cities were occupied a
seats of national legislation at on,
time or another after the heroes of n
threw off the English yoke. Phi.adel
phia, Baltimore, Lancaster and York
Pa; Princeton and Trenton, N. J.
Annapolis, Nd, and New York City
served in turn as the home of Con
gress, the visible center of governmen,
and the sanctuary of its laws. During
the revolution the sessions of the Con
tinental Congress had been held at thu
most convenient points permitted by
the exigencies of war, the temporary
capital-a sort of peripatetic and fu
gitive capital-being moved about
from time to time and from place tC
place as occasion demanded.
Under the old regime OF that Con
gress, and later under the articles OF
confederation, the same anxiety and
rivalry existed among the original
States for the honor of having Con.
gress sit within their respective Dor.
ders as were experienced after the
Constitution was adopted and before
the permanent capital was established.
In the old continental days the State
of New York had offered the town OF
Kingston as the abiding place of the
American government; Rhode Island
had rendered Newport; Maryland had
proposed her capital city, Annapolis,
and Virginia had profiered her ancient
capital. Williamsburg.
In October, 1888, while in session in
Philadelphia, Congress was grossly in.
suited by band of mutinous soldiery
from Lancaster county, whose pay was
in arrears, and hastily adjourned for
personal safety to Princeton, N. J.
This incident called attention more
pertinently than anything that had
happened before to the necessity of
providing a permanent capital where
the deliberations of Congress would
not suffer interference or disturbance
from mobs or other outside influences.
The subject was accordingly taken
up with vigor, and in 1884, while Con.
gress sat at Trenton, an ordinance
was passed authorizing three commits.
sioners to purchase ground and lay
out Federal town on the banks OF
the river Delaware, and to enter into
contracts for erecting ain an elegant
manner" the necessary government
buildings. Repeated attempts were
afterward made to repeal the ordi-
nance and substitute the river Poto-
mac for the Delaware, and the conse.
quence was that the commissioners
being in doubt as to the outcome, did
nothing.
For several years thereafter, and un.
til the adoption OF the Constitution in
Philadelphia in 1857, the delegations
from Massachusetts, New York, Vir.
ginia and Georgia strongly favored
locating the federal city at George.
town on the Potomac, while the dele.
cations from New Jersey, Pennsyl.
vania, Delaware and Maryland stiffiy
opposed this. Again nothing was
done, and when in 1889 the old fedora.
tion gave place to the "more perfect
union and the new government, with
Washington as President, got under
way, the plan that eventually resulted
in the cession of the present ten-miIe'
square District of Columbia by Mary.
land and Virginia was formulated and
submit tied to Congress. The Virgins
Legislature offered a tract ten miles
square in any part Of its territory that
Congress might choose and q bonus oil
$l2O,OO0 toward erecting public build
ings. The Maryland assembly second
ed the proposition and agreed to cedt
a supplemental tract and furnish $72,
600 toward the building fund.
Later on the choice narrowed down
between a point on the west bank o
the Susquehanna river in Pennsyl
vania-supposed then to be the center
of population, wealth and territory
and a point on the banks OF the PotO
mac, and bills in behalf of these propo
sitions were offered, exciting extreme
bitterness and sectional jealousy. The
Virginians were especially insistent
that the Potomac site be chosen, anG
when, on September 5, 1889, bill
passed the House of Representative.
to locate the permanent capital on the
Susquehanna, the Virginians took i,
so greatly to heart that James Madi
son, then representative in Congress
asserted, with heat, that if this actor
had been forseen by Virginia, thai
State would have refused to become 6
party to the Constitution. The bill
was subsequently amended in the Sen
ate by striking out the clause referring
to the Susquehanna and substituting
for it a provision naming Germantown
near Philadelphia, in case the State ol
PENNSYLVANIA or her citizens should