The Nation's New Capital

     Washington D.C. today is much different from the time of our Founding Fathers.  After many deliberations over where the new capital should be located, it was decided that the capital would be on the Potomac River along the Virginia and Maryland borders, which just so happened to be the geographic center of the original thirteen states. The Northern states had favored large commercial cities to serve as our capital, while Southern states wanted it to be closer to home. In the end, Washington D.C. was chosen, and our government had one decade to build the city while government proceedings would continue in Philadelphia.

     Not only were there tensions over where the new capital should be located, but also as to how it should be built; George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had very different ideas and approaches as to how it should be constructed.  Washington believed that our capital should be a representation of a strong federal government and that it should be a big, magnificent city.  He would go on to hire Charles Pierre L'Enfant to design the plans for his vision.  (L'Enfant had previously worked on Federal Hall where Congress met when New York was the capital of the United States.)  He understood Washington's vision for our nation's capital and he combined French baroque grandeur and English picturesque garden design.  L'Enfant's version of the White House was more like a palace, and about four times bigger than what was actually built.  Thomas Jefferson differed from Washington in that he believed the federal government should not have too much power over the states, this stance could be seen in his designs of our capital.  Instead of a large presidential palace, Jefferson favored a smaller, more moderately sized home based on Andrea Palladio's architecture.  He believed this type of architecture celebrated "country life" and that it was more suitable as a home.  This helped reiterate Jefferson's idea that the United States should be an agrarian republic. Although Thomas Jefferson strongly opposed George Washington's ideas from the new capital, he never actually directly voiced his dissatisfaction.  Instead, Jefferson took pleasure in firing Washington's designer L'Enfant, and there is some speculation on whether his idea to hold a contest to design the future White House was actually a ploy to get his design selected.  As a result of this contest, William Thorton won but his design was altered due to the fact that a fellow competitor, Stephen Hallet, found mistakes in his drawings.

     Even though George Washington went to great lengths to get his idea of the capital built, he would never actually get to see it completed.  John Adams, our second US President, would be the first to move into the new White House.  When Adams arrived, much of the house was incomplete due to the lack of funds available.  Even though Adams only lived at the White House for a short period of time before being defeated by Thomas Jefferson, the atmosphere was still an unhappy one.  It was even said in the book that "the first weeks in the White House were some of the hardest Abigail and John Adams's lives".  When Thomas Jefferson arrived in D.C. four months later, the White House wasn't in much better shape but the city matched his idea of a perfect agrarian capital namely because there was no city at all.

     Jefferson's time in the White House was not what I would've expected.  As someone who was obsessed with anything related to plants and gardening techniques, it was unexpected that Jefferson did not build a garden until after six years of living there.  What he did do was help local farmers by sharing his knowledge and passing along packages of new seeds.  Jefferson also would buy new plants for Monticello from these local farmers, as well as buy their produce for top dollar.  When he did decide to plan the White House garden, there was not enough funds to complete the project as most of it was spent leveling the grounds.  But Jefferson's ideas for the presidential garden can be seen at an estate he inherited from his father-in-law, named Poplar Forest.

     Washington's ideas for the capital to be a grand representation of the federal governments power was not automatically translated onto the land.  Because there were continual funding problems, much of Washington D.C. still looked like a rural town, with cows wandering all over the place and very little building going on.  Jefferson in the end got what he wanted; the capital was a representation of his idea that the central government shouldn't have too much power over the states and it was a perfect republican capital.