Washington: A Life

Aside from trimming the number of diagonal streets, Washington gave L’Enfant an unrestricted hand to pursue his plan. At the close of his southern tour, he rode across the federal district with L’Enfant and Andrew Ellicott to experience the elevations chosen for Congress and other public buildings. While he endorsed Jenkins Hill for Congress, he balked at a site chosen for the executive mansion and opted for higher ground farther west, thereby asserting executive power and giving it visual parity with the Capitol. In endorsing the spot for the future White House, L’Enfant cu

That October Washington sneaked in a monthlong stay at Mount Vernon before Congress reconvened. The health of his tubercular nephew and estate manager, George Augustine Washington, had deteriorated so sharply that he had gone to Berkeley Springs for rest. He was a likable young man who pleased many visitors; one praised his “gentle ma

In the federal district L’Enfant, schooled in a European tradition where master builders ruled entire projects, refused to take direction from anyone. The first lots were auctioned off in Georgetown on October 17, with Jefferson and Madison in attendance; L’Enfant declined to show anyone his map, afraid that buyers would shun parcels in sections distant from the main government buildings. The most he deigned to share with bidders was a verbal description of the town layout. Washington had expected to be on hand for the three-day sale but was caught in an embarrassing error. In pla

In late October the three commissioners informed Washington that L’Enfant’s high-handed refusal to turn over his plans had impeded the auction; scarcely more than thirty lots had been sold. Washington replied angrily that while he had suspected that L’Enfant might be obstinate in defending his plan, he had not thought he would go so far as to sabotage the sale. Clearly L’Enfant would make no concessions to attract real estate speculators and considered himself answerable only to the president. His feud with the commissioners festered. At one point, when L’Enfant demolished a building erected by a commissioner because it intruded on one of his grand avenues, the clash erupted into open warfare. Washington confidentially told Jefferson that he could tolerate the French prima do

L’Enfant seriously misread Washington, who wanted harmony and cooperation among those involved in pla

Philadelphia’s citizens were by no means resigned to their city being only a temporary capital and continued to throw up new government buildings, hoping to sway legislators to stay. When they tried constructing a new presidential residence, Washington saw their secret intent and insisted that his current house was perfectly satisfactory. Sensing an even split in public opinion about moving the capital to the Potomac, he divulged his fears to Jefferson: “The current in this city sets so strongly against the Federal City that I believe nothing that can be avoided will ever be accomplished in it.”45 Washington grew paranoid about the wily Philadelphians, even imagining that local printers stalled in producing engraved designs of the Potomac capital. Any delays, he feared, might doom the enterprise. He pressed for buildings in the District of Columbia that would foreshadow America’s future might and rival the great cities of Europe. “The buildings, especially the Capitol, ought to be upon a scale far superior to anything in this country,” he insisted to Jefferson. The house for the president should be both “chaste” and “capacious.”46 In time the city of Washington would come to justify the grandiose dimensions envisioned by both Washington and L’Enfant.

AS EARLY AS THE FALL OF 1789, Washington emphasized to General Arthur St. Clair, first governor of the Northwest Territory, that he preferred a peace treaty with the hostile Indians of the Ohio Country to war. On the other hand, as long as those tribes, instigated by the British, pursued depredations on frontier communities, the government would be “constrained to punish them with severity.”47 During the summer of 1790 the Miami and Wabash tribes flouted peace overtures from the government and conducted fierce raids against American traffic on the Ohio and Wabash rivers. In response, Washington and Knox instructed St. Clair to summon the militia and destroy crops and villages of the offending Indians, hoping a show of strength would prod them into a negotiated peace. Selected to command the fifteen-hundred-man force, made up mostly of militia, was Brigadier General Josiah Harmar, a Revolutionary War veteran whose drinking habits caused concern in Philadelphia. Henry Knox scolded Harmar for being “too fond of the convivial glass” and pointed out that Washington was aware of this problem.48