Establishing Congress
The Removal to Washington, D. C. and
The Election of 1800
Kenneth R. Bowling
Dondal R. Kennon,
Editors
(Ohio)

When, in 1790, much to everybody's relief, it was decided that the United States government should abandon Philadelphia, it was known officially as "the removal." Then when they discovered that they would be going to Foggy Bottom, a general wailing and gnashing of teeth arose, hair-pulling, people falling to their knees, begging the gods to prevent such a disaster. It's been a disaster ever since.

The wailing did no good: the people of Maryland and Virginia were hell-bent on selling off the swamps and miasmas to the organizing committee responsible for choosing the locale for the national capitol.

The very word "capitol" --- a spelling stumbling-block to many a sixth-grader (not to say the rest of us) --- was, according to Establishing Congress, coined by Thomas Jefferson. It referred to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus or Capitolinus in Rome.

Historian C. M. Harris tells us that Jefferson was much taken by Roman architecture, was heavily involved in the design of the building, believing that "the rectilinear, peripteral temple form should serve as a modern republican archetype." It was, Harris goes on, "Palladian in organization," with "a Pantheon dome."

Speaking of spelling, or spelling of speaking, the Potomac River appears on early maps as Powtomac. No matter --- it was a soupy, scrofulous creek. And it was soon made even more scrofulous, for the new citizens dumped the leavings from their rendering plants, their animals, and water-closets therein.

The first president of the country died in 1799. Congress wanted to bury Washington in Washington but John Augustine Washington --- a feisty nephew --- would not part with the old man's bones. It was a damn good thing that he refused: the drawings of proposed mausoleums show structures that could best be described as Trump Retrograde.

There was much to-do in the Sixth Congress as to exactly who should run the District of Columbia --- the states who had donated the land, a separate locally elected government, or the Federalists. Those who have power are usually reluctant to part with it, so the subsequent 200 years of plunder and mismanagement of the District of Columbia can be laid squarely at the door of the outgoing, sour-faced Federalists (they barely lost the election of 1800).

In the early days, members of Congress usually stayed in boardinghouses, known colloquially as "messes," not referring to the quality of the foodstuffs, but rather the etymology being from Lower Latin, missus. It has nothing to do with the ladies; it means "the courses of a meal."

For some of us the word "boarding-house" brings up the memory of an ancient daily comic strip called "Our Boarding House with Major Hoople," in which the Major was eternally ejaculating "Egad, Marta." We trust that Marta was the one who ran the boardinghouse, or even Martha, great-aunt of the recalcitrant John Augustine, keeper of the sacred bones.

In those days, congressmen slept with each other, rather than their wives. Most respectable wives of senators and representatives wouldn't be caught dead in the District of Columbia, much less sleeping with their spitooning, cigar-chomping husbands. They chose to stay in civilization ... in New York, say, or Boston, or Richmond, or Charleston. They also knew that if they repaired to the new capitol, they would be caught dead, what with typhoid fever, malaria, yellow fever and other notorious diseases emanating from the fens of the District of Columbia.

The representatives slept with each other not because they had gone gay, although the word (and the concept) did not exist then, but because in 1800, the official date for the move to Washington, the capitol city turned out to be alarmingly short of living space. Thus senators and representatives slept in the same rooms, often in the same bed, in boarding houses with names like The Little Cottage, Captain Coyle's, Frost & Quinn's, Robert Peacock's, Mrs. Turnbull's.

The chapter in Establishing Congress titled "entertaining Congress" makes nothing of the not-so-subtle pun available to those of us with dirty minds, but the thought of some of our present-day representatives being forced to share bed if not breakfast with each other does make one long for the old days. Can you imagine Ted Kennedy snoring next to prissy Trent Lott, ruffling up his impeccable hairdo?

Speaking of beds, Establishing Congress is not exactly a hot-bed of fun writing. It is, after all, nine historians out to show off to each other at a conference sponsored by the Capitol Hill Historical Society in 1989. It does have its moments, though. For instance, the election

was the most notable as a vigorously fought affair that involved intrigue, manipulation on the basis of the narrowest self-interest, and a close, uncertain outcome that was not resolved until well after the votes had been cast --- and counted.

2000? No, says historian John H. Aldrich. "The current one was less controversial and the associated campaign was assuredly less negative than that of two centuries ago."

--- Robert Gardner, MA