Washington signs the Residence Act; the Potomac wins the capital over Philadelphia
By 1790, the young United States still had no permanent home for its government, drifting between Philadelphia and New York since the Revolution. On July 16, 1790, President George Washington signed the Residence Act, choosing a stretch of the Potomac River near Georgetown for a federal district up to ten miles square. Philadelphia would serve as a ten-year stopgap while the new city rose from the riverbank. Washington himself picked the ground, walking it near the Anacostia before settling on the site that would carry his name.
The Residence Act was the price of Hamilton's debt plan: Southern votes for a Potomac capital bought Northern votes for federal assumption of state war debts, in a bargain brokered by Madison over dinner with Jefferson. It fused the nation's finances to its geography in one stroke, and gave America something no state capital could offer: neutral ground.
QWhy did Jefferson host the dinner that settled the capital's location?
Jefferson had just returned from serving as minister to France and found Hamilton's assumption plan and the capital fight deadlocking Congress. He offered to host a dinner to bring Madison and Hamilton together after meeting Hamilton at President Washington's residence in New York City in late June 1790. Over that meal, the three men worked out the terms that became the Compromise of 1790: Southern votes for federal debt assumption in exchange for Northern votes for a Potomac capital. Jefferson later wrote to James Monroe explaining the compromise he had helped broker. It was the rare case of a dinner party functioning as a legislative session.
QHow close were the votes that actually created the nation's capital?
Closer than most people realize. The Residence Act squeaked through the Senate 14 to 12 on July 1, 1790, and the House by an even narrower 31 to 29 on July 9. A handful of switched votes in either chamber, and the federal government might sit today on the Susquehanna River near Wrights Ferry rather than the Potomac. The margins reflected just how evenly split Congress was between Northern commercial interests and Southern agricultural ones, a divide the compromise papered over rather than resolved.
QWhat other laws did Washington sign around the same time as the Residence Act?
1790 was a remarkably productive year for the young federal government, and Washington signed the Residence Act along with other foundational legislation, including the Funding Act that assumed states' Revolutionary War debts. Each one built out a piece of federal authority that the Constitution had only sketched in outline. Washington was acutely aware of the stakes of these early choices, writing to Madison that precedents set during his presidency needed to be fixed on true principles, since everything done first would become the model for everything done after.
