The new city of Washington in the District of Columbia becomes the official capital of the United States, succeeding Philadelphia. It would not be until November that Congress convened in the new capital and Adams moved into the new Executive Mansion.
John Adams - Washington Becomes U.S. Capital
On June 11, 1800, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ceased to be the capital of the United States, as the new city of Washington in the District of Columbia became the country's official capital. The federal government moved its offices to Washington, D.C., in June. In November, President John Adams first slept in the unfinished Executive Mansion (now known as the White House) and Congress met for the first time in the U.S. Capitol building.
In 1790, Congress passed “An Act for Establishing the Temporary and Permanent Seat of the Government of the United States,” commonly known as the Residence Act. The act made Philadelphia the temporary capital for ten years and authorized the President to select a site for the nation's permanent capital along the Potomac River. As President, George Washington energetically promoted the development of his namesake city so it would be ready to receive the federal government in 1800, according to the terms of the Residence Act.
In 1791, President Washington asked the French engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant to design the city. L'Enfant's plans included great public squares, extensive parks and gardens, a system of avenues radiating from the city's center, and public buildings located majestically along the Potomac. His dismissal from the project in 1792, combined with a lack of funding for construction, rendered the city woefully underdeveloped when the federal government arrived in 1800. (It was not until the twentieth century, in fact, that L'Enfant's designs for the city were gradually implemented.) At the dawn of the nineteenth century, only one wing of the U.S. Capitol building was complete, and the federal city consisted of less than 400 houses with a population of about 3,000. Roads were scarce, entertainment virtually nonexistent, and housing limited. Fewer than 300 federal personnel moved into the city. Congressmen frequently rented rooms in boarding houses two to a bed.
In November, President John Adams moved into the still incomplete White House, of which only the box-like center had been built. Life in the White House seemed only a slight improvement over congressmen's circumstances. John and Abigail Adams lacked an expense account to furnish the house and a staff to maintain it. Yet, they were expected to host social functions and official receptions. However, President Adams did not have to struggle under the burden for long. Just a few months after moving into the White House, he turned it over to Thomas Jefferson, who defeated him in the election of 1800.
Despite the initial hardships and inadequacies of the federal government's new home, a general optimism about the city prevailed. Unlike the Adamses, who were from Massachusetts, Jefferson knew the Potomac region well and had long supported its location for the nation's capital. His election, the “Revolution of 1800,” along with the rapid progression of construction in Washington, breathed life into the fledgling capital city. Jefferson's election renewed enthusiasm for the federal government and provided impetus for the further development of Washington, D.C.
John Adams, a remarkable political philosopher, served as the second President of the United States (1797-1801), after serving as the first Vice President under President George Washington.
Learned and thoughtful, John Adams was more remarkable as a political philosopher than as a politician. “People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity,” he said, doubtless thinking of his own as well as the American experience.
Adams was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1735. A Harvard-educated lawyer, he early became identified with the patriot cause; a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, he led in the movement for independence.
During the Revolutionary War he served in France and Holland in diplomatic roles, and helped negotiate the treaty of peace. From 1785 to 1788 he was minister to the Court of St. James’s, returning to be elected Vice President under George Washington.
Adams’ two terms as Vice President were frustrating experiences for a man of his vigor, intellect, and vanity. He complained to his wife Abigail, “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”
When Adams became President, the war between the French and British was causing great difficulties for the United States on the high seas and intense partisanship among contending factions within the Nation.
His administration focused on France, where the Directory, the ruling group, had refused to receive the American envoy and had suspended commercial relations.
Adams sent three commissioners to France, but in the spring of 1798 word arrived that the French Foreign Minister Talleyrand and the Directory had refused to negotiate with them unless they would first pay a substantial bribe. Adams reported the insult to Congress, and the Senate printed the correspondence, in which the Frenchmen were referred to only as “X, Y, and Z.”
The Nation broke out into what Jefferson called “the X. Y. Z. fever,” increased in intensity by Adams’s exhortations. The populace cheered itself hoarse wherever the President appeared. Never had the Federalists been so popular.
Congress appropriated money to complete three new frigates and to build additional ships, and authorized the raising of a provisional army. It also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, intended to frighten foreign agents out of the country and to stifle the attacks of Republican editors.
President Adams did not call for a declaration of war, but hostilities began at sea. At first, American shipping was almost defenseless against French privateers, but by 1800 armed merchantmen and U.S. warships were clearing the sea-lanes.
Despite several brilliant naval victories, war fever subsided. Word came to Adams that France also had no stomach for war and would receive an envoy with respect. Long negotiations ended the quasi war.
Sending a peace mission to France brought the full fury of the Hamiltonians against Adams. In the campaign of 1800 the Republicans were united and effective, the Federalists badly divided. Nevertheless, Adams polled only a few less electoral votes than Jefferson, who became President.
On November 1, 1800, just before the election, Adams arrived in the new Capital City to take up his residence in the White House. On his second evening in its damp, unfinished rooms, he wrote his wife, “Before I end my letter, I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.”
Adams retired to his farm in Quincy. Here he penned his elaborate letters to Thomas Jefferson. Here on July 4, 1826, he whispered his last words: “Thomas Jefferson survives.” But Jefferson had died at Monticello a few hours earlier.
The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association.
Learn more about John Adams’s spouse, Abigail Smith Adams.