Jenkins Hill And The Early Politics of the Federal Government

The new capital of the United States foretold the future of the young nation. The city needed to be placed in the South to placate Republicans led by Jefferson and Madison and to gain their support for any Federal City and Capital.

Thomas Jefferson offered a plan more modest than what President Washington envisioned, but Washington's plan was more modest than Secretary Alexander Hamilton's vision of the new federal seat of government. As the leader of the Federalists, Hamilton envisioned a strong central government with which President George Washington agreed, but it was President Washington who placed the capital district on and around Jenkins Hill in Maryland and Virginia along side of the Potomac River.

The Federal City, now know as Washington DC, was the compromise between opposing political forces and and agrarian interests in the south versus urban business interests in the north. In 1801 it was known as Washington City which resided with Georgetown in the District of Columbia on the Maryland side of the Potomac containing large tracts of low lying swampy land. The Virginia side of the Potomac which included the city Alexandria and a good port once was part of this federal district, but was retroceded to Virginia in 1846.

Recap: DC was a political compromise built on a swamp, split in two parts and after only 45 years of federal control, 32 percent of it was gone, much as things are still done by the federal government today.

To the Banks of the Tiber Stench

In the late 1700's in and around the area known as Jenkins Hill our current Capital City was begun. An earlier owner had named a creek that flowed through the area Tiber Creek after the Roman River. Later Congress changed Tiber Creek into the City Canal. The City Canal filled with garbage and waste that produced disease and a smell in the summer that drove the city's residents out of the city. Today, City Canal has been paved over and named Constitution Avenue which has become the norm for Congress to take something with a foreign name, mess it up and then cover up the garbage and give it a pretty name without doing anything about the stench.

July 16, 1790 - Congress designates land on the Maryland side of the Potomac to be the official capital territory of the United States including the town of Georgetown. In what became the norm, Congress left the details to someone else. President Washington picked the actual location.
February 24, 1791 - Feeling the need to control more land and people Congress adds land on the Virginia side of the Potomac to the federal territory making each of the 4 sides of the territory 10 miles.

November 1, 1800 - President John Adams moves into the President's House (The White House) and Congress, later in the month, leaves Philadelphia with the rest of the federal government to move into their unfinished building in the federal district with only 9 crates of federal documents. Those were the days. Adams referred to Congress' unfinished building, the Capitol, as "two wings without a body." It still is today.

February 24, 1801 - Congress names the federal territory the District of Columbia which included the City of Alexandria and Alexandria County in what was Virginia and on the Maryland side the City of Washington and the City of Georgetown and Alexandria County.

All of this was to be 100 square miles with each of its four straight borders to be 10 miles long. Later, Congress gave the Virginia side of the district, 32 square miles, back to Virginia, but forgot to revoke certain charters. On the Maryland side they decided that Georgetown and the City of Washington were to be separate entities, then decided they should merge and later made them separate again. By 1895 Congress had once again revoked the charter for the City of Georgetown merging it into the City of Washington. All during this time Congress took control of levy courts, forgot to do anything about Washington County, which technically still exists, and didn't really decide if it was all Washington City, Federal Town or the Federal City.

Such consistency in Congress still occurs today.