The Washington herald., 1921-08-07
How Capital Originated.


Vulnerable prophecies from the earliest times to
this good day concerning the downfall of the republic
According to these numerous Cassandras the said
downfall was to about from various causes
ranging all the way from malignant planetary nhu-
to negecting the improvement in navigation of
Podunk Creek. Perhaps widest of all forecasters,
however, those who predicted the overthrow Of
the Union in the first days at the hands Of irate
invading army from Kentucky.
The expression of this feeling is to be found in
many places but nowhere else, perhaps, complete
ly in the record Of debates in Congress when that
body considering the question of selecting per-
manent seat of government. The South in the per-
son of James Madison had introduced a resolution
that the capital be placed at Georgetown the Po
tomac and had given its for favoring that
particular spot OF creation the fact that the of
government should be placed somewhere in close
contact with the Western part Of the United States
then represented by Kentucky-as we'll as on some
river navigable the Atlantic Hereupon the North
soothsayes. led by the redoubtable Fisher Ames.
of Massachusetts,, gave voice to their dismay and
apprehension. To place the capital the Potomac
would assuredly bring about the downfall of the
Union it would be silent invitation to the Western
people to send army East Everyone knew that
the Kentuckians would inevitably join Spain in
short time and when that time came they would most
Certainly send army East to overthrow the sections
which they hated.
Their armies, the prophets went to say, would
the East. They would up the Ohio River to
Pittsburg thence up the Youghiougheny the head
waters of the Potomac and down that stream to the
coast There could be no doubt of their ability and
inclination to do this very thing. Kentucky fill
ing up with the unpublished of the earth," the
refuse OF the East, and actively hostile to the
Union and negotiating with Spain. AS proof of
this there many of traitors among the
Kentuckians like Wilkinson and Sebastian When
this invasion came, as come it was bound to do,
would it not be better to have the capital somewhere
else than in the very track of the hostile army? If
the capital placed the Potomac the Western
arimes could reach it easily down the banks of the
rivers and when they had seized it they would
have the entire government paralyzed and the coun-
try their mercy. The moral of it all that it
would be much better to place the capital some
where that the perncious Kentuckians would not
be able to get at it, say the Susquehanna.
Ames further predicted that them Kentuc-
kians started down the Potomac the Southern
States would join them and if Kentucky didn't cap
Washington. Virginia would. To all these alarms
Madison presented contemptuous denial There was
no more danger of IN invasion from Kentucky, he
intimated, than there from the planet Venus.
Kentucky was even then engaged in making
stution and would undoubtedly be law-abiding
member of the Union in two or three years.
THERE can be no doubt that the locating of the
capital largely hinged the relations with
Kentucky. In spite Of everything that Madison
could say, the House SHE'D at the Potomac and voted
to locate the of government the Susquehanna;
this the Senate refused to accept and the deadlock
resulted Every knows how Thomas Jefferson
and Alexander Hamilton got together their wine
cups and settled the affair
The surprising thing about all this talk of an
invasion from Kentucky is not that there such
talk but that it sincere. Most Eastern people of
the time expected nothing else than that the entire
West would go to Spain because Spain controlled
New Orleans, where the Western people had the only
market for their produce. Moreover, few people at
the time thought THAI the Union would long endure;
breath might blow it and they talked openly
and consanty-of wars and invasions and secessions
and dissoluons Of the Union in way that would be