Year: 1879

legislation from versailles Dack again 10
Paris was in pursuance Of the settled idea
of civilized nations that the political capi-
tai of country should be its most impor-
tant city. The French government retired
20 Versailles under the stress of great
public exigency; it returns to Paris as soon
as it is felt that the new form Of government
rests on stable basis. London is the seat
of British authority, as Edinburgh was OF
Scotch and Dublin of Irish authority SO long
as these countries had separate parliaments.
Berlin is the political capital of Germany,
Vienna of Austria, Constantinople OF Tur-
key, Copenhagen of Denmark, in accordance
with the general sense of fitness of civilized
nations. As soon as the political unity OF
Italy was restored by Victor Emmanuel the
seat of authority gravitated steadily toward
Rome. 1t was first transferred to Florence
and thence to Rome, even at the expense OF
great affront to the religious sentiment OF
the country in dispossessing the Pope OF
his temporal dominions.


This tendency to make the chief city Of
q nation the seat of its governm ent does not
result from political sentimentalism or a
mere pass ion Tor fclat and splendor; it rests
upon solid reasons. Every rejecting nation
is bound to recognize the possibility and to
guard against the danger Of invasion by o
foreign enemy. The chief temptations of
an invader are the plunder of wealthy city
and the prestige of capturing or putting to
flight the government of the invaded coun-
try. An elaborate and expensive system of
Qualifications is necessary for the protection
of each and it is more economical
to make the same defensive prepar-
alton suffice for the chief seat OF a
nations wealth and the seat of its authority.
Washington was captured by the British,
the government driven away and the public
thing may easily happen again in war
with great naval Power. But the COM
mercial metropolis of the country has al
ways been better protected by defensive
works. The great and costly forts which
frown defiance at the entrance to our har-
Dor, both through the Narrows and through
the Sound, render the capture of New York
a very remote and almost impossible con-
tingency in foreign war. The necessity for
protecting so vast an amount of property
as is accumulated here can never be
disregarded by the government, and the
same defensive measures would be equally
effectual for protecting the government it.
self Hence the economy and the safety of
having the seat Of nations authority in
the city which is the chief seat of its
wealth. One set of defensive works sufices
for the protection of both.


There are other considerations which,
although they do not quite rank in solid
Importance with the one just stated, have
separate cogency of their own. The men,
bers of O government should be in constant
intercourse with the highest intelligence Of
a nation, and this is always to be found in
the principal centre of wealth and social
cultivation. The most important of
the staple subjects of legislation are
revenue and finance, and these can be best
studied at the centre of business and ex-
changes. Moreover, government should be
civilizing influence, diffusing the highest
culture of the principal centre of refine
ment through the remote parts of the ma
ton. The members of the legislative body
and the higher administrative and judicial
officers bring their wives and daughters
with them to the national capital, and the
society with which they come in contact
should be such as would qualify them to be
missionaries Of social refinement in the
parts of the country where they reside.
Nothing tends more to level society upward
throughout the remoter provinces of o ma
ton than having the seat of government in
great metropolis instead of small pro-
vincial town.


So numerous are the objections to WASH
ington as the seat of the federal government
that it would be difficult to name them all,
even in the form of brief catalogue The
question of salubrity may, however, be Sc
lected for prominent mention. Washing
ton is among the least healthful of Ameri-
can cities. 1t is intensely hot in summer,
and the low, marshy lands on the Potomac
are breeding places of malaria. In years
when the session of Congress does not ex-
tend into the summer the President and
most important members of the adminis-
tration desert and take refuge in cooler and
more salubrious regions. But every second
year the sessions of Congress extend far
into the summer, endangering the health
OF members and detaining executive officers
in the heat and malaria. Even in the alter
nate years there is a liability to the same
deadly exposure. We have just barely
escaped an extra session extending through
the dog days. In the off years when Con-
gress adjourns on the 4th of March and
there happens to be no extra session the
President and Cabinet officers are able to
escape, but the under secretaries and the
thousands Of clerks must remain on duty in
the most unhealthy city of the continent
in the same latitude. In view OF the
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