Washington [483]
Members of Congress were now rapidly flocking back to the capital, and as soon as Washington learned on December 2 that a quorum had been mustered, he decided to deliver his fifth annual address to Congress the next day, escorted for the last time by his first-term cabinet, the warring triumvirate of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Knox. As war raged in Europe, Washington felt the need to combat pacifist fantasies and insisted upon the need for sufficient “arms and military stores now in [our] magazine and arsenals.”11 As always, he touted military preparedness as the best way to prevent war and gently raised the question of whether militias were adequate to the country’s defensive needs. He also defended his neutrality proclamation and explained the rationale behind the seeming betrayal of the historic French alliance. Beyond its policy particulars, the speech reaffirmed that the government had weathered the yellow fever epidemic and would now revert to some semblance of normality.
WHILE THE TEMPORARY CAPITAL suffered from the horrors of yellow fever, the permanent capital was beginning to emerge in all its splendor. That September Washington had been on hand in the federal city for the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone for the U.S. Capitol. Among his endless responsibilities, he was bogged down in administrative minutiae related to the new capital, having to approve personally, for example, the contract for a bridge over Rock Creek. The Residence Act of 1790 had stipulated that government buildings in the district should be ready by December 1800, and an impatient public clamored for visible signs of progress.
Disclaiming any special talent as an architect, Washington nonetheless endorsed a design for the new home of Congress sketched by Dr. William Thornton, a versatile doctor, inventor, and abolitionist. Thornton came up with a clever amalgam of classical architecture and modern American themes. Jefferson rejoiced in the building’s style as “Athenian” and, to emphasize the parallel with antiquity, changed its name from the plain-sounding Congress House to the far more grandiose Capitol. 12 Washington was especially enamored of the dome, which he thought would lend “beauty and grandeur to the pile,” its visual effect enhanced by a magnificent colonnade.13 Washington’s approval also helped the Irish architect James Hoban win the commission for the President’s House, later known as the White House. “He has been engaged in some of the first buildings in Dublin,” Washington wrote admiringly of Hoban, “appears a master workman, and has a great many hands of his own.”14 The White House cornerstone was laid on October 13, 1792. As in all matters pertaining to the capital, Washington wanted an elastic design that would accommodate future growth. “It was always my idea . . . that the building should be so arranged that only a part of it should be erected at present,” he told the commissioners, “but upon such a plan as to make