THE FOUNDING OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL 249 



After a careful survey of the surrounding scenery, he said to 

 his companions — " Gentlemen, I have never seen a more beauti- 

 ful near panorama in all my travels." This was told me by the 

 late William W. Corcoran, who died in 1888, at the age of ninety. 



The oft-told story of the location of the National Capitol at 

 Washington is too familiar, in its main outlines, to justify repe- 

 tition here. It enters into ever}^ book about our city, and was 

 made the subject of a separate publication, 'The Founding of 

 Washington City,' forming No. 17 of the Maryland Historical 

 Society's Fund Publications, prepared by the present writer. I 

 shall here brief a mere outline of the salient facts, with some al- 

 lusions which are less generally known. 



When the first Congress under the Constitution met at New 

 York in 1789, that body was embarrassed by the claims of many 

 cities, and the offers of various States, to provide a permanent 

 seat of government. Trenton, Philadelphia, Carlisle, German- 

 town, Lancaster, York, Harrisburg, Reading, Wilmington and 

 Baltimore all were eager to receive the new government with 

 open arms. The debates in the House of Representatives (for 

 none of those in the Senate are reported) were long and some- 

 times acrimonious. Suffice it to say, that after many locations 

 had been successively defeated (Germantown, Pa., having been 

 once selected, but reconsidered) the site on the Potomac was 

 carried July 9, 1790, by a majority of only two votes in the 

 Senate, and three votes in the House. Those votes, moreover, 

 could not have been obtained, had North Carolina not came 

 into the Union before the decision, casting her vote for the south- 

 ern location. 



The prolonged struggle over a question which excited so 

 many passions, interests and prejudices, attests at once, in its 

 settlement, the wisdom and moderation of our fathers, and the 

 prodigious power of compromise in human affairs. Philadel- 

 phia was placated by receiving the boon of the temporary seat 

 of government from 1791 to 1800. Other northern votes were 

 secured by pledging enough southern votes for the National 

 assumption of state debts to carry that favorite measure of the 

 creditor States. As nearly all legi-slation is the fruit of com- 

 promise in some form, as the earliest American Confederation 



