200year dream. And but it will go fast because im going to concentrate on what happened once the dream was realized. In 1607 john smith entered the sevenmile wide mouth of the Potomac River and headed north. Whether he got this far north we are actually not certain but the People Living here called the place petomek. It translates as a place to which something is brought, a trading place, a place to which tribute is brought. It was a beautiful area in which the tide water from the ocean stopped. The river narrowed and as you know north of georgetown its very different river. But here where georgetown was to rise there was a huge tidal marsh. And this is the origin of the swamp myth. Washington, d. C. Was not built in the swamp. It is an insult to George Washington to think that he would locate the capital of the United States in the swamp. Its a very well drained area of ancient Potomac River terraces. Think of the cathedrals coming down the columbia road where the river sat for many years down to Dupont Circle to the area of the white house where it sits now. If there was a torrential rain storm in the 18th or 19th century logs and dead cattle would flow down the creeks. In the 17th century the family proprietors of maryland begun to provide speculative land grants in the area. So there were places here, plantations, if you will, although they were not settled at the time named rome, new troy widows might, all of those were encompassed in what became the federal city. Settlement took place at the end of the 17th century and through the 18th century so that by 1749 when georgetown was founded and soon became the largest tobacco exporting port in maryland there were many plantations tobacco plantations. In fact, by the 1770s the land had pretty much been exhausted from the tobacco. The slave economy very prominent catholic community. It was the root of the ferry that crossed from virginia to georgetown and on up to ballmer and philadelphia, new york. The revolutionary war was not fought here. It was fought elsewhere in the United States. The revolutionary war lasted 7 1 2 years but the revolution was much longer. Because im sure that most of you are americans you know very little about the revolution. Thats because we deny that we had one. It was actually a 30to40year event. The location of the capital is very much a metaphor for what happened constitutionally during that revolution as i will point out. More property was appropriated, taken by the state in the United States during that revolution and more people fled than fled france during the french revolution. This was like all revolutions pretty much a minority event probably a third people john adams estimated supported it. It had an ideology republicanism. The belief that a people were capable of governing themselves and that they didnt need a king or some strong executive figure. Secondly, there was something called the westward course of empire. There was a belief in the 18th century that empire, the concept, had a life of its own and that since the time of the fertile crescent in egypt it had been progressively traveling westward greece, rome in the 18th century. There was a competition between england, france and spain over which would be the great new empire and which empire which country would control the new world. Americans thought that americans shouldnt control it. And american revolutionaries were very familiar with the concept and in fact they thought continentally most of them, many of them rather the pacific was going to be part of the United States. We were going to go across the continent in time. 1783 the war came to an end. And suddenly there were 13 of englands 32 colonies that were no longer british. The people had strong prejudices against people in other colonies. Indeed governor morris who drafted the United States constitution and owned the south bronx, his fathers will provided any amount of money necessary to educate anywhere in the world except for the colony of connecticut where the people hide behind god but really are abrisionest criminals. He didnt use the word criminals. If there was that kind of prejudice between the bronx and connecticut you can imagine the attitude new englanders had towards southerners and southerners had towards new england. What held United States together after 1783 . It is very fragile believe me. A National Debt 25 million. A common language. And the pride in having defeated the Strongest Military and especially naval power in the world. Well were going to govern this country. We had a constitution. It was called the articles of confederation. It made the states supreme over the federal government. It was ratified in 1781. It granted the United States of America Power over foreign affairs, war and a post office. That was it. If congress wanted money which it needed it had to recwisition it from the states. So every Year Congress would adopt a budget and tell each state how much their share would be. Often the money never arrived. So congress had no power over commerce, no power of revenue. No taxation and certainly no power to create, as it would later, a 100square mile Federal Territory over which the United States congress had exclusive jurisdiction. In 1783 congress consisted of the 13 states each delegation can have as many members up to seven as it could pay for but only one vote. It took seven votes to do anything and nine votes to do anything that cost money. Consequently didnt get too much done. So immediately there were attempts to amend it, to strengthen it and give congress the power to have a tariff impost duty. Like all revolutions when the articles of confederation were first written everybodys on the same side of things. And so they put in a provision in the articles that in order to amend the articles it took the unanimous vote of all 13 states. Never happened. Very quickly the Patriot Party divided into two camps, those who believed in strong states and the dominance of the states and those who increasingly saw the necessity of a stronger federal union if indeed the United States was going to survive. In early june 1783 while it was sitting in philadelphia where congress had sat since 1774 except on two occasions when it fled to baltimore and then to lancaster and york in order to avoid the british army, on june 4 congress invited the states to submit proposals for a place within their boundaries that might be the seat of federal government. The offers came very quickly. There is going to be eventually more than 50 places between new port news and Norfolk Virginia that were either mentioned in the newspapers as possibilities or actually offered by State Governments. The offers that came in in the summer of 1783 were very limited in size and jurisdiction. One mile square over which congress would have limited jurisdiction. But with places like princeton and new bruns wick and newark and indianapolis each offer tried to top the previous offer so that by the end of the summer they were talking about 36 square miles. Congress was not in philadelphia when the decision was made. Congress informed the states in june please make your offers. We are going to make a decision the first week of october. Congress was not in philadelphia because of an event probably the most destructive event in washington, d. C. History. On the 21st of june a saturday soldiers of the Continental Army bearing their arms marched on what we call independence hall, the Pennsylvania State house where the assembly of pennsylvania met, the Supreme Executive Council of pennsylvania. And to give you an idea of the relative unimportance of congress of the United States met in the Pennsylvania State house. But the soldiers were not stupid. What they wanted was to demand their back pay and various other promises that had been made to them but they knew that congress had no revenue. There was no point in confronting congress. It was the states that had the revenue so they chose a saturday because Congress Never met on a saturday but the executive council of pennsylvania did. They surrounded the state house and Alexander Hamilton who was chairman of the Congressional Committee to deal with this mutiny that had been going on now for five days got the president of congress to call a special session and the Congress Went into the building because hamilton and congress wanted it to appear that this was a demonstration against the United States of america. This was the horror of republics, military rising against civilian control. And that the appeal to the American People seeing this would come to the defense of congress. So congress, even though it did not get a quarm, congress was not surrounded by these troops, sent a representative up and asked the president or governor if you will of pennsylvania the great John Dickenson to call up the philadelphia militia to drive the continental soldiers away from the building. Dickenson looked at the congressman who had come up and said are you nuts . Do you think that militia of philadelphia is going to take up arms against the men that won independence . Thats not going to happen. Nobody has been harmed. This is just a political demonstration. And indeed Congress Left the building in a huff. The soldiers went back to their barics. That night Congress Held an emergency session in which there was a quaremand voted that since pennsylvania did not defend congress of the United States the congress of the United States was going to move. And it was going to move to princeton, new jersey, Little Village of princeton. And thats exactly what it did. Since well, what happened was very quickly there was oped pieces in the newspapers saying well, this should never happen again. What Congress Needs is an exclusive jurisdiction some territory where the federal government is supreme and controls everything. This idea had been talked about privately by members of congress for some three or four years but it was so threatening to the constitutional basis of the republic in which the states were supreme that it was never brought out publically until after the demonstration when the idea came out of the closet and came to the floor of Congress Another one of these amendments to the constitution and to the articles of confederation that allow congress to have a small territory over which it had exclusive jurisdiction. It was laughed off the floor of congress because states controlled congress. Since it would then, of course, in 1787 that Committee Report was taken out of the files of the papers of the Continental Congress and written into the United States constitution only it was no one mile or three mile. It was a Federal Territory of up to 100 square miles over which congress would have exclusive jurisdiction. Term capital was not used because capital was like really threatening. Only certain states had capitals, of course. Richmond was a capital philadelphia was a capital. Boston was a capital. Many states didnt. Annapolis was another capital. What they had was the State Government that sat in one city or one town and rotated around the state. The term seat of federal government or seat of government is a term in the United States constitution and as our next speaker will point out United States, people in the United States did not refer to this place as the capital of the United States until the 1870s except for a very few people. Not George Washington who would not use the word because he so careful about doing things constitutionally but certainly the american peter lanfant who designed washington, d. C. Im highly offended to hear the word pierre. This man was an american french born, of course. But like italianborn and irish born they are americans. African born, they are americans. He was an american citizen. The pierre nonsense was created by the American Institute of architects in the late 19th century in order to claim that our capital was not designed by some mere american slob but by a frenchman and a parisean. He was trying desperately to find french men who had been involved in the creation of the country so that he can have a second to hold up against the prussians who were arguing that was more important than lafayette. The prussians and the french now the prussians are the germans by 1900. Everybody in the diplomatic world knew that there was going to be a war. And the duty as ambassador to the United States was to create a french hero in the minds of the americans so that this dramatic nation would go to war on the side of france and not germany. And that is where the pierre nonsense comes from. And it was absolutely i mean in my book on the creation of washington, d. C. I call him pierre. I didnt know any better. Americans didnt know any better until one day i discovered the little land warrant that he had for his lot in washington, d. C. And in his own handwriting peter. He is not ever called pierre. He is pete charles. He refers to himself as major and now im way way, way ahead of my story. Let me back up a bit. Were approaching october 1783. The vote is held. Where to locate this seat of government this federal town. Each state has one vote and they called the roll how many states want it to be in New Hampshire . How many states massachusetts . And then all the way down through georgia. The state that won was, of course, new jersey. Could have been pennsylvania but it happened to be new jersey. New jersey got the seven votes. Somewhere near trenton new jersey. Committee is appointed to view the Delaware River and choose actually. They could have chosen the pennsylvania side for a small federal town. This was very, very upsetting to the southerners. They very much wanted the seat of government to have a southern atmosphere. Of course, it wasnt mentioned exactly why, but, of course, everybody knew the issue was slavery. If you have a southern town as the seat of government its going to have a southern atmosphere. Southern Office Holders southern biassed newspapers et cetera. Arthur lee from virginia saw the great musical 1776 best thing ever written on the revolution or coming of the declaration at least. Here a lee there a lee, everywhere a leelee. Arthur was in congress and had been part of what we call the leeadams. The lees of virginia and adams of massachusetts suffolk county, boston. The radical seat of the revolution. These people had led the revolution thousands of americans had died in the revolutionary war. As i said many many had fled the country. But here we have for the first time the south saying we are not going to remain in a union which locates its seat of government so far to the north as trenton, new jersey when Everybody Knows and its a very lucky fact for our friend George Washington the exact North South Center of the United States in 1783 was arlington house in arlington cemetery. And i recently saw a wonderful print birds eye view of the city of washington in the 1830s from arlington house, very unusual. Most birds eye views are from the capital. And you can see that vast expanse of tidal marsh south of georgetown which as i said gave rise to the swamp myth. Well lee went to his friend who was part of the adams part of the leeadams and said we have to find the solution. We have to hold the union together. After all the sacrifice that was made. We are just not going to tolerate a seat of government so far to the north as trenton. And they came up with a wonderful compromise called the dual residence. Congress is going to have a residence. These terms are not really in the dialogue. Its simply residence for the federal government. A dual residence. They would have six months in the trenton area on the delaware and six months on the potomac in georgetown, maryland. This is government that had no source of revenue sometimes couldnt pay the interest on its debts, certainly couldnt pay all the claims of americans from the war itself. Its now going to build two federal towns. Philadelphiaens were outraged. Philadelphia in the 18th century and perhaps in the 21st philadelphiaens viewed themselves as the only thing between philadelphia and heaven was london. And how in the world could congress have thea odd asity to by pass philadelphia and go to the potomac. Francis hopkins, a signer of the declaration of independence wrote a wonderful oped piece saying congress, youre such a wise body. In august you voted and ev