when it came to what he knew to affected them most, public and c private debt management, and tht potential injustices attending s legislation that sacrificed thet welfare of the minority to the majority.he this is one of the key points j. where jefferson and madison never agreed.ke jefferson believed in the will of the majority.eed. madison did not. and this is also where he differed from hamilton. this is sort of ironic.this hamilton was much more i comfortable with inherited power, where madison wanted to create a system that could n restrain excessive passions among people. and what is ironic about that is that madison came from a well l established genealogy and pedigree, established family in virginia, which as we know hamilton did not, who was illegitimate by birth. in our book, what we try to looo at are the personal motives andv not just the abstract thinking o when it comes to madisont . and you can begin to see this if

you pay close attention to what he says and don't just relate it to political thinkers from europe. he had very specific individualy in mind when he conceived the political principle.ceived and the best example of that is that when he raised the specter of a dangerous demagogue, he actually wasn't thinking of ly ' hamilton, he was thinking of virginia's effusive patrick henry in mind because he had watched him manipulate the house of representatives with his rhetorical skill. when he thought of firm and yett reasonable leadership, he had washington in mind.n and when he reached for symbolic embodiment of the republican style, it would have not been one of the democratic republican clubs that sprang up in the p mid-1790s even though hamiltonian federalists saw them as having been inspired by ough madison. havin they went so far to nickname g club members the mads.

basically implying that they're not quite stable upstairs. no, madison would have found a more appealing symbol of the moe republican style and the national gazette.na the newspaper that madison helped found in 1791. that was for madison a prime a source of educated public opinion. not what we get today. not polls. get educated public opinion. he wrote public opinion sets ss bounds to every government. here we get this theme that is weetty consistent with madison, setting boundaries. g this is a fundamental principle. it meant restraining, ries. disciplining excesses. this is what madison was committed to.str unlike his friend thomas jefferson, madison never had complete faith in majority rule or anything close to it.ero in a mob, ordinarily decent individuals were capable of abandoning their own reason and

joining in the group's enthusiasm.ning this is what madison wrote to wt jefferson, which was the operative term for radical he sentiment or religious ecstasy that implied a loss of individual conscience. this was central to madison's thinking, protecting the individual conscience.e. so government had to serve not n only to protect minorities but another key idea for him was that governor had -- government had to serve as a neutral arbiter between competing interests. let me repeat that, because it is another key theme to madison. government had to be a neutral arbiter between competing interests so he knew there was going to be tension.g he knew there would be conflicto and this is central to the ict. american experience, not union t or unity, conflict. it was the new institution instt proposed by hamilton, the natiol national bank, which led madison more in the direction of a d mai strict construction of the constitution.n th under the bank's aegis, emerging

industrial concerns could receive loans, currency would circulate more easily. and funds could be made available to the government nata the problem here was that a government had so powerful a h t system ofem funding and think o this today combined with english practices of increasing government debt, the united states would be imitating the british and become a large scale military machine. this is an idea that jefferson and madison both got from pang. madison argued that the u.s. congress was granted a institutional power to charter corporations such as a national bank. that's what he argued in 1791 but it wasn't true. madison was not being entirely forthcoming but advancing this argument in the closed debates at the constitutional convention he had favored chartering a

national university but he had change bd by 1791. he didn't get what he wanted t hamilton got his bank.st madison's part isson credentials onlycomi enlarged as the tryinge decade of the 1790s war on.parts one of the things we discoveredf is that t the party was first identified more with madison than jefferson because he was the active player in congress and was much more out in the open. the first two st organized political partiesäjñ3t federalists andie democratic republican and as they took shape, this is also a period po where wed see some of the most e interesting writings by madison as a legislature. he developed strong positions and wrote pieces such as a candidate state of parties who e were the best keepers of the people's liberty.erson while jefferson had to confine his complaints to private correspondences, madison went g public, opposing hamilton in

newsprint. madison's embrace of partisan newspapers helped lay a org foundation foran organized litia political parties yet hle never put his metaphorical eggs in ona basket. concentrating power in any one institution, officer or even a private body. as you guessed he deeply distrusted speculators which was a very wise position to be now and then. it was a bad thing. parties therefore also had to be restrained. if we look closely at his at response to the alien and sedition act of 1798 in which the federalists were tried to t squelch decent, madison did notd follow, jefferson down the roads of nullification. they both responded. in madison's version -- in jefferson's version he held out the prospect of a state nullifying the law of congress it objected to. madison now madison very consciously and

carefully avoided that word choosing interpose instead. a word that ment to meditate to act between two parties. he did not want to annul a power of the federal government.he fed heer wanted to bring the issue before the public and broaden o the range of debate by includint politicaicl voices from the stae government. now if we fast forward tono w, madison's presidency, we see the political environment is very different. the federalistdi party by that a time and laex andalexander hamir no longer there only had a minority status in the government. as president jefferson's secretary of state, madison had strongly supported an embargo of oversees trade, commercial tal retaliation on the high seas. american's lost honor was part

of the diplomatic stale mate that madison inherited. now if we look at kcanada and or of the things that we argue is the war of 1812 is two wars if not more in terms of the agendas that it takes on but the projecj of taking canada really is a fail buster masquerading as a national war. to what we tend to forget about ous history was filibusterering as the national past time in the 19th century.tempts there were numerous attempts to engage in either sparking revol revolution inut canada, in lati america, this was not a sort off one time event.. it defined america because america in the 19th century wase about getting their hands on land as much land as possible.aa it's the most important t principle of the 19th century. think about texas. texas independence.ce, it was not a revolution of tion independence. it had prutside americans as

private armies thativ went into texas to help facilitate what happened there. in the war of 1812, before the war begins, jefferson and jamesg monroe are dreaming of this potential war as leading to the annexation of cuba and canada. this is kind of fantasy of the ever expanding continent. without thinking about the real realities of what it takes to t deal with taking this land or conquering this land. but this was what they were very much invested in. unfortunately for mr. madison, he wasn't going to get canada or cuba. he had to settle for baton rouge where i happen to live right now so it's a good thing.th this -is- baton rouge if you dot know came into the united state because it was based on the fail buster undertaken by virginians as opposed to the new yorker air

inn aaron burr and his attempt to establish the republic of 1810. the lone star flag of the west florida republic later morphed into the better known texas an flag.adiso madison was completely onboard with this. he wasn't opposed to it.t. he was like we'll take advantage of this. now while historyor has priviled the role of the younger war st haur hawks in congress.fia, they are part of one story. madison's long time secretary of the treasury, wrote the ollowi following on the eve of madison's assumption of the presidency. mr. mad madison is as i always e him slow when taking his ground but firm when the storm arises. >> in his first inaugural address, march 1809, madison made sure everyone knew that he considered his election to have

come at a critical historical o moment. he was the first u.s. president to use the inaugural address fof this purpose the first to move beyond generalities.s. he was absent of political bromides, absent of platitudes., he was strong and direct. america faced, he said, global f challenges without a pair legal in hi , parallel, he wanted no part of europe's bloody and wasteful wars. but he demanded of the smug power that was great britain one thing, the rights of neutrals. s of e course, we all know what s happened before his first term had ended. u.s. the u.s. declared war on britain, a war it was il, ill

equipped to fund.ence there was a reference in that first inaugural address to the constitution as the cement of ce the union. as well in its limitations as in its authorities. he was promising to adhere to o the same principle he demanded of the hamility yo ililithamili party was in the minority and both houses of congress excluded from the executive decision making. he promised to continue repu republicanbl measures. economy in public expenditures. keeping the standing army within the requisite limits and state denoting state militias as quote theme firmest bow work of republics but that on interpretation of the constitution, constrained from i moving americaca in the directi

of a permanently centralized ra military, that interpretation of an america constrained from building up a war chest, that government was supplanted by another. it had to be if continental co expansionism that jefferson anda madison both saw as ultimately desirable was to take place.pl so madison had to learn on the job. in delivering the second inaugural address in march of e 1813 in the midst of the war, which the government was then i fund, he sang a different tune.t tune now, if you listen to his language, he was referring to ng the rapid development of our national faculties in support oe unavoidable war. when the public voice called for war, he reminded, all new and

still know that the effort had to be paid for which required the patriotism, the good sense,, and the manly spirit. manl you can't get anywhere without manly spirit.rit. the manly spirit of our fellow citizens in bearing each his share of the common burden. the he said to render the war short and the success sure, animated t and systematic exertions alone are necessary. major war

without politics voting to raise taxes on the people who voted them in or out of office. this is a conundrum the 21st century understands.

peace negotiations got under way in europe with madison's full support. he needed albert galatin as his linchpin on the negotiating team in gent. british ships had appeared at the mouth of the potomac as early as july 1813, and raids along the chesapeake caused a nervous congress to look less favorably on an internal revenue solution. the fiery decimation of the white house, the capital, you know, august 1814 only intensified the need to reorder republican priorities and accommodate president madison's turnabout in favoring tax increases and a national bank that secured a uniform currency and maintained people's confidence in government during peace time as well as war. he had quietly succeeded in rendering hamilton's purportedly unconstitutional bank safe.

a bank compromised of private merchants and stock jobing speculat speculators. this was no longer of concern to lovers of the republican form of government. the second bank as reconstituted under madison would not place the constitutional separation of powers in jeopardy. the people could rest easier. at least those for whom the constitution was a living thing. >> the burning of washington tells us something important about the state of the union in 1814. one massachusetts newspaper ran a satirical headline, the president lost. the story was about how madison had gone missing since the battle of bladensburg and contended and here i quote, he does not even know where he is himself entirely lost and bewildered. in other words, the president

hadn't just lost washington, he had lost his mind. so if you think politics is bad today, it isn't any better. now, we have to -- i think several of the presenters have returned to this question, does the burning of washington turn madison into a failed president? a simple sound bite would fly today. but it misses the larger historical context. the british torched the capital to humiliate the president and actually to humiliate more than one president in reducing washington, the city, they were symbolically reducing washington the general who reduced lord corn wallace at york town 30 years before. you should read british newspapers, they rallied because they fqxçyresented american politicians chest thumping and macho posturing. they thought of america as an undisciplined adolescent who needed a good drubbing.

and what we have to remember is that the war itself reflected the nation's conflicted interests. i already referred to the idea of the filibuster are oregon the idea of a war initiated by westerners, which was a frontier war against native americans in a desire to obtain land from canada and from the northeast and that's what inspired westerners, but there was another war this is the war that madison cared about, which was finding a way to redefine english power on the high seas. it was a tough thing to connect those things and present them as a unified script on what the war stood for. the burning of washington did not symbolize the death of the republic or close to it. because washington city itself did not symbolize the united states to all americans in the way we might think of the federal government today. it was in 1814 as madison

acknowledged in 1788 when he wrote jefferson about his disappointment with the federal constitution. he called the new government system a feudal system of republics. feudal system of republics. and what he imagined was going to happen in the united states is there would emerge multiple state alliances or sectional and regional divisions that would undermine the spirit of the union. and that is a consistent condition of the united states from the time of the constitution, of course, until the civil war. and i would say it still exists today, living in louisiana. and that much reflected the reality of the state of the union in 1814. there was a new england coalition, one that almost seceded from the union, a western coalition that many feared would separate from the

union during aaron berr's failed filibuster movement a few years earlier. the middle states, new york, pennsylvania, maryland with port cities invested in international trade, had maintained a loose affiliation with the virginia dominated republican party. bound together by a commercial notion of democracy. by 1814, their leaders, in the middle states, had grown tired of the virginia dynasty. meanwhile, the new england inspired northwest vied with southern accented coalition of indiana, kentucky and tennessee. and this south itself was less united than imagined. south carolinians had a much greater investment in large scale plantation slavery than virginia did. saddam hussein in fact wanted to reopen the slave trade abolished in 1808. americans in 1814 didn't see washington as the only embodiment of the republic. westerners had far more at stake in protecting mississippi.

their trade artery, which explains why andrew jackson's victory in new orleans took on special meaning for them. new englanders rallied around victories in the atlantic as when the uss constitution sank a british warship, 750 miles east of boston. and by the close of the war, and this is -- this was alluded to by ken bowling, americans were even divided about what to do after they went back to washington and had to deal with the ashes. and the remains of the city. in 1816, congress failed in its attempt to increase the wages of national representatives. first the legislation was passed, but then fully half of the 14th congress were either voted out of office or failed to get nominated for re-election. and the law was promptly

rescinded. this statement was a reaction in part against the war hawks who had pushed for a war. and as we know, it took 13 years to rebuild a capital, and as was mentioned in 1814, swampy washington was almost abandoned all together in favor of philadelphia. how then should we remember madison as a political actor. more than a constitutionalist, he altered the course of history in many ways and jefferson's cabinet, where -- this is the other thing we forget about madison is how he pretty much was not only equal to jefferson in political influence, but stage managed jefferson's political career from 1782 when he persuaded him not to retire from politics after the death of his wife. in 1796, he convinced jefferson to run for president against john adams. when jefferson was urging madison to do so.

and jefferson took few actions as president without first profiting from madison's advice. and this is what we keep stressing. that madison's theories about the constitution, theories about a government, evolved due to the other experiences that he had, in the legislature, in the cabinet, as president. and in fact what we -- when we look at madison's thinking, he was someone who liked to solve real world problems. and sometimes a very more gradual manner than people would like, but a practical manner. he was much more willing to change gears than someone like jefferson was. and this in a sense is a good thing, he was adaptable. the other thing that we tend to forget about is that madison's style was very different. we, today, think that great president has to show his leadership and pretend he's a

big man. well, madison was not. but that was actually very soothing to a lot of people in 1814. they saw him as exercising influence without outward ambition. as a legislator, he saw in following and taking great -- paying great attention to details, and the details of how people behaved. and collecting that knowledge, collecting that information is how he was able to persuade people. it wasn't through his rhetoric. and he had incredible experience. he was in the virginia assembly. he went to the confederation congress, the constitutional convention, the first congress of the united states, and then at the end of the united states he was a ra have state constitutional convention. few had this kind of experience. throughout his career, his was the art of quiet persuasion rather than the art of eloquence and cap the vacation. he analyzed the political

conditions and adapted his views. he was attentive to national considerations. he was well aware of balancing the different branches of the government and he never lost site of his state as all politicians of his generation took the same ground. he had a much more flexible conception of the constitution. especially when the nation faced difficult conditions that demanded solutions. he understood are that the federal system was fragmented. and preserving the union required negotiation. the war of 1812 was as we said an example of the competing interests in different parts of the union. and in many ways it didn't succeed. westerners made off better than the other regions, they didn't get additional land from canada, but as john stag mentioned they did get a lot of land from native americans. the english did not end impressment of sailors because

of any pressure the united states had put on them, they did it when they chose to do so. the war are had been waged by a union of regional republics with a loose allegiance to a different government, distant government in washington. you know francis scott key's poem was originally titled "the defense of ft. mchenry," a much more localized illusion. maybe our flag was still there, but the land of the free didn't get its national anthem into the less than heralded presidency of herbert hoover. >> in balancing central authority against states rights, madison was an able leader in an unpredictable world. congress in 1814, not so much to admire, on the way of

leadership. the ever quotable historian henry adams, grandson of john quincy adams, great grandson of quin quincy adams wrote of the year, every ernest patriot in the union and many who are were neither ernest nor patriotic were actively reproaching the house of representatives for its final failure at an parent crisis of the national existence to call out or organize any considerable part of the national energies. the people, however jealous of power, would have liked in imagination, though they would not bear it in practice to be represented by something nobler, wiser and purer than their own average honor, wisdom and purity. and as they required of their religion and infinitely wise and powerful deity, they revolted in their politics from whatever struck them as sordid or selfish. the house reflected their own weaknesses, rebelled against a petty appropriation of money. there is a lot going on in the

proceeding passage, adams was reflecting on a central contradiction in the principle of american democracy, that still applies today. people of average intelligence and mediocre knowledge require people of stronger minds and greater decision-making prowess than their own. in 1814, the people's house, the house of representatives was just not wise enough to rule. they were too much of the people. just as madison had feared in 1787 when he wanted either an elite educated senate or an extra strong executive. fortunately, for the massive political mediocrity that was the house in 1814, the chamber of commerce responsible for the budget, for the country's fiscal health, fortunately for this uninspired crowd, they had a president who did his job, who knew that the job was to act in the interest of the many as many

of his fellow citizens as possible. to quote adams a little further, president madison far from being called to account for errors real or imaginary seemed to enjoy a popularity never before granted to any president at the expiration of his term. more than jefferson, more than washington? adams. this apparent contemptment was certainly not due to want of grievances, the internal taxes pushed hard upon the people. but no portion of the country seemed pleased that a fourth virginian should be made president. and here is the real reason why madison is someone other than that flat nerdy caricature of popular history. that hopy changy thing we associate with president monroe and the era of good feelings,

that cascaded from his nearly unanimous election in 1816, it was generated by his predecessor, little gemmy madison. a political revolutionary, life long student of government, forth coming, open minded, honorable, who lived to enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge, no less than any of his more storied contemporarcon. hail frodonia. thank you. [ applause ] >> the obligatory q&a begins. we'll just take a little bit of time for this because i know everybody wants to get to the refreshments.

[ inaudible ] -- >> -- between madison about nullification. there are those that say madison pulled his punches and what was his ultimate service to the union, but in theory given that who -- who would be better thought of as an expression of original intent, why were madison's opinions not -- was he honestly representing this position in his correspondence with calhoun. and my second question is, why did his responses bear so little influence on this controversy. >> i'll start and i know nancy, she's the constitutional thinker of the family. just before jefferson died, a couple of months before, he wrote a letter to madison, take care of me when dead, take care of my reputation after i'm gone. he knew the end was coming. and in a very real sense, in the

1820s, 1830s, madison continued to promote the best jefferson that he wanted history to remember. not the nullifier, but the unifier. and that in part conditions what he was saying during the nullification crisis when he -- while acknowledging that he and jefferson were responsible for the kentucky/virginia revolution in 1799, which had never been publicly stated before, still he -- he gave a nuanced response. >> the thing you have to remember, this is what we chart, is that madison's attitudes towards constitutional power, how the constitution should be interpreted, changed over the course of his lifetime. and i have a whole critique of original intent. it doesn't -- you cannot identify it. and scholars have moved, they first argued, well, it was just what the founders said, the constitutional convention.

then they said, no, the ratifying convention. their opinion is original intent. now they moved and said it is the man on the street. the man on the street in 1788, no, really, how do you know this person? it doesn't exist. it is a theory that can't actually be substantiated historically because who are we going to actually embrace everyone who is at the constitutional convention or do we only pay attention to the people we want to listen to. this is the problem. the people who endorse original intent are not historians. >> all right. yes, go ahead. >> this builds on that kind of questioning, you're talking about madison understanding his place in history and his good friend jefferson and his place in history. and one of the questions i always wondered is that madison is one of the framers of the constitution, so he's the one that helps start the framework of government that we have.

and as you said, in later in his life, at montpelier, he's organizing his papers to try to make sure that everything is down in the best correct possible interpretation of what it has evolved to by the late, mid-1830s. so the british are coming to washington in a war that started and thankfully ended during his administration. and much of the same way started by him. and he understands this. he has to understand this. he may not talk about it. but then as in bladesburg, when the army and militia leave and they're going to come through, does he ever talk about the possibility that at that moment in time, it's all going to go away? and it centers on him and at

that moment. he may be the only one that's there that's thinking in that context. >> toward the end of his second term, he and alexander james dallas collaborate on a document that's kind of a white paper, really a white wash of the war of 1812. blaming the british in every respect, and using invective and describing the destruction of washington. as time went on, you know, madison stuck to that narrative, stuck to his guns. and egged on by jefferson as well, because jefferson was really most proactive of the two of them in looking for a republican who they could trust to open their private papers and allow them, public and private

papers, and allow them to write the authoritative history of parties. they were combatting for many years the multivol ume biograph of washington by john marshall, which got well beyond george washington's life and into partisan politics. and they were especially jefferson desperately afraid that american history would be told from the opposition point of view. so you know, this kind of explains why they weren't prepared to let history judge them without their doing everything possible to line up the authoritative writers of the history of the times. >> i want to add one point. this is why history can be really complicated. what you have to know, who is writing what letter, what the

agenda is. if you kind of look at a document and just quote it and you don't know the back story, you've missed what's going on. and that's why you have to go to the archive, you have to do research. you have to actually know all of the players involved, not just a handful of players, to really figure out because even when they wrote in their personal correspondence, they were quite conscious about shaping what they said. i love there's a series of l letters that jefferson writes when burr is on trial where he changes what he thinks and how he expresses what's going on depending on who the recipient of the letter is. in one letter, he's like, oh, good thing. he should be hanged. to another person, he's like, oh, this is so sad that we might lose this important political figure. so this is the problem with history. you have to actually know the archive. you have to know who these people are to really understand that history in a sense is not just there in the archive for

the taking. it's already been -- it's been constructed and defined before you get there. >> it's not by accident that there's no letter, no written evidence of jefferson's reaction to the death of alexander hamilton in 1804. it's not an accident. you know, he was probably relieved on some level. he may have had hamilton's bust at mont acello, but i don't think he mourned hamilton's death. burr was already out of the picture as a political threat. jefferson was content that madison would be his anointed successor. and there's a certain cold-bloodedness in our early presidents that, you know, we tend not to talk about because it doesn't -- it doesn't make them sound, you know, as genial or as the geniuses, the cerebral individuals that we like to remember the founding generation

as. but they were first and foremost hard-nosed politicians. they would understand the vindictive kind of statements that, you know, that form our partisan politics today. and perhaps, you know, that's kind of the last word on this, that madison and jefferson were virginians before they were nationalists or more than they were nationalists. we don't like to know that. we don't like to see that underside. we don't like to think about madison for some reason as a guy who told dirty jokes. but this was a part of the charm that a great early american literatureur who we don't talk about anymore, james k.paulding, he got to know madison, and he loved the story telling.

he loved the raunchy humor. and he thought that, you know, too bad american history will not know the real james madison. thank you.>> join us next wedneg washington journal for the theme of the 2015 cspan student cam document. competition. >> two 00 yea200 years ago, bri soldiers invaded washington d.c.

and set fire to the us capital building and white house. kenneth bowling discusses the history of the white house and the capitol buildings. the white house historical association and the u.s. capitol historical society jointly hosted the symposium. this part of the event is 35 minutes. has been just a tremens group of presentations. so the first speaker that will be coming up this afternoon is kenneth r. bowling. kenneth received his phd from the university of wisconsin. his specialty is the creation of the -- is all about the creation of the federal government during the revolution. he's been very active and interested in particularly researching the seat of government. he's been the author of many book and articles. throughout most of his professional life, he's been the co-editor of documentary history of first federal congress. i do want to say one thing about

one of his books, which i think is a real classic now, that's the creation of washington, d.c., which is published back in 1991. if anybody wants to know about behind the scenes and proceedings and meetings and all the things that went on in terms of the location of national capital, this book is a must read. i'd like you to welcome kenneth [ applause ] >> thank you, bill. rather than thank the individual organizations, i just want to say i think most of us would agree that this conference just rocks. [ laughter ] >> i would like to thank in particular the editor of our papers for the fine job they are doing. fiona griffin and marsha

anderson. [ applause ] one of the i think so i have in common with the next speaker, we tend to edit and precise our talks to about the last minute. so i apologize if suddenly i can't read my own handwriting. >> some water. this is going to have to sit up here. in late june 1790, james hemings, enslaved half brother of thomas jefferson's deceased wife prepared dinner for secretary of state and two guests. he had invited hamilton and james madison of virginia in an

attempt to resolve a stalemate that despite weeks and weeks of off the floor negotiations threatened to break up congress and some thought the union itself. hamilton needed a few southern votes in order to achieve congressional passage of a key component of his plan for funding the federal debt. that is the assumption into it of much of the revolutionary war debt of the states. madison did not achieve any votes to achieve his an george washington's longtime goal, the location of the seat of federal government on the potomac river. not for the first time he and his southern allies had come to an arrangement by which pennsylvania would provide votes for that location in exchange for a temporary residence in

philadelphia. each time such an agreement had been reached, new york congressman succeeded in blocking it by promising pennsylvania to support a permanent location in pennsylvania while remaining at new york. congress had been at new york since 1785. madison needed assurance that new york and new england wouldn't do this again. at dinner hamilton promised to talk to his northern supporters and madison agreed to find necessary votes for assumption provided a potomac residence act had first been signed by president washington. as a documentary record shows, hamilton was successful. and a month later the president signed such an act. soon thereafter congress agreed to assume $21.5 million in state

revolutionary war debt. this has become known as the compromise of 1790, the first of the three great sectional compromises that came like clock work every 30 years and held the union together, except for the last. from the moment the federal government arrived on the potomac river at the end of 1800, residents of washington, d.c. lived under the constant threat that congress would move elsewhere. the concern remained until 1870 when the republican party and best friend washington, d.c. has ever had in the white house, that great american president ulysses s. grant put an end to it. grant believed the 1790 decision

to have been of such constitutional magnitude that the question of removal, quote, should go through the same process at least as amendments to the constitution. even if there be a constitutional power to remove it, which is not settled, unquote. his implied threat to veto any unconstitutionality or the absence of a supermajority established the district of columbia at last as the permanent seat of government. after that the republican party included the physical and symbolic reconstruction of the city as part of its reconstruction of the south only then -- only then did americans outside of washington, d.c. begin to refer to it as the capital of the united states.

rather than the seat of federal government. the issue of removal first came before congress in 1805. senator john quincy adams became the first member to argue the constitution did not give congress the power to remove the seat of government. only the power to locate, build, and govern it. his colleague from georgia, james jackson, pointed out that $21.5 assumed state debt had been pledged to the location. in late 1807 philadelphia launched campaign for the city. john adams reminded his dear friend james rush, that pennsylvania must accept responsibility not only for the potomac location but also for the domination of the federal

government it had given slave holding south." when it reached house of representatives in february of 1808, opponents of washington, d.c. had nothing, nothing positive to say about a place they considered miserable, sickly, wretched in appearance, totally unfit for the seat of a great and powerful empire. it was badly planned with public buildings, distant from each other. perhaps the solitary block on george washington's character, in fact, washington, d.c. was one of the greatest evils the people of the united states suffered. it should be destroyed and annihilated. that's all from the house

debate. members of both side indicated their awareness that the decision to come south to the potomac had been a matter of barter. a north carolina representative threatened that if the removal bill passed the house, he would immediately call for the repeal of 1790 funding act. after a week of consideration, a motion to continue debate failed 5 1-35. on august 24th, 1814, british general robert ross burned several buildings in washington. americans at the time, and as pointed out this morning, british after the fact considered it retaliation for the american burning of