A new capital would signify a new beginning for the nation.
Everyone who has seen the play Hamilton knows that the nation’s capital was moved to the present site in the District of Columbia due to a dinner-table bargain in 1790 between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton needed Jefferson’s support in Congress to win approval for federal assumption of revolutionary war debts; in return, Jefferson wanted Hamilton’s support in moving the capital from New York City to a location nearer to the population and geographical center of the country, later carved out between the states of Maryland and Virginia.
For most of the nation’s history, the District of Columbia was an inhospitable “swamp” with relatively few permanent residents and a minimal federal establishment. Pigs and cows roamed the streets; summer heat and humidity were unbearable; slavery was widespread until it was outlawed in 1862. Congressional sessions were brief: representatives and senators did not enjoy life in the capital, and did not stay there any longer than necessary. The expansion of government since the 1960s (along with air conditioning) has changed that: Washington today is a company town, with government as its sole business — and a growing business at that. It is increasingly remote from the people it is supposed to serve, a development feared in 1787 by supporters and opponents of the Constitution as incompatible with representative government.
The Capital today is far removed from the geographical and population centers of the country, which today are located well beyond the Mississippi River. The westward movement of the United States during the 19th Century turned Washington into a far distant capital for most citizens — perhaps more so than any other major capital in the world. Representatives travel vast distances to get there, and must travel back and forth to their states and districts to serve constituents, leaving Washington under control of its permanent residents, nearly all of them Democrats.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The American Spectator
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James Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
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