Up until 1800 Philadelphia was the seat of government but a decision was
made to create a separate district for that purpose. Here is Henry
Adam's description of Washington D.C. as of 1800:
"When in the summer of 1800 the government was transferred to what was
regarded by most persons as a fever-stricken morass, the half-finished
White House stood in a naked field overlooking the Potomac, with two
awkward Department buildings near it, a single row of brick houses and a
few isolated dwellings within sight, and nothing more; until across a
swamp, a mile and a half away, the shapeless, unfinished Capitol was
seen, two wings without a body, ambitious enough in design to make more
grotesque the nature of its surroundings. The conception proved that
the United States understood the vastness of their task, and were
willing to stake something on their faith in it. Never did hermit or
saint condemn himself to solitude more consciously than Congress and the
Executive in removing the government from Philadelphia to Washington:
the discontented men clustered together in eight or ten boarding-houses
as near as possible to the Capitol, and there lived, like a convent of
monks, with no other amusement or occupation than that of going from
their lodgings to the Chambers and back again. Even private wealth
could do little to improve their situation, for there was nothing which
wealth could buy; there were in Washington no shops or markets, skilled
labor, commerce, or people. Public efforts and lavish use of public
money could alone make the place tolerable; but Congress doled out funds
for this national and personal object with so sparing a hand, that their
Capitol threatened to crumble in pieces and crush Senate and House under
the ruins, long before the building was complete." [from /Henry Adams,
History of the United States of America during the administrations of
Thomas Jefferson, /The Library of America edition, pages 23-24]
Lawrence
