History of the Washington National Monument and of the Washington National Monument Society Part 1

History of the Washington National Monument and of the Washington National Monument Society.

by Frederick Loviad Harvey.

The practical construction of the Washington National Monument, in detail, as a work of great engineering skill, is a subject for separate account and technical discussion.

The _history_ of the Monument is found in the annals and proceedings of Congress and in the records and archives of the Washington National Monument Society. This history, in the main, is the history of that Society--its original formation, subsequent incorporation by act of Congress, and its long continued and patriotic labors to fulfil the object of its existence, the erection at the seat of the Federal Government of a great Monument to the memory of Washington.

The origin of the Society is to be found in the failure of the National Congress, through a long series of years, to redeem a solemn pledge made by the Continental Congress, in 1783.

A review of this failure properly precedes any account of the Society or of the constructed Monument.

IN CONGRESS.

On the 7th of August, 1783, it was resolved by the Congress "that an equestrian statue of General Washington be erected at the place where the residence of Congress shall be established." The resolution also directed that "the statue should be supported by a marble pedestal on which should be represented four princ.i.p.al events of the war in which he commanded in person."

On the pedestal were to have been engraved the following words:

"The United States, in Congress a.s.sembled, ordered this statue to be erected in the year of our Lord, 1783, in honor of George Washington, the ill.u.s.trious Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States of America during the war which vindicated and secured their liberty, sovereignty, and independence."

At this time Washington was beloved by the American people as their great leader in their struggle for liberty. But the pa.s.sage of this resolution by Congress was not followed by any legislative action looking to its practical execution.

As President of the United States, by his wise administration of the affairs of the new-born Republic, he so added to his fame and so won the grat.i.tude of his countrymen, that on his death a select joint committee of both Houses of Congress was appointed to consider a suitable manner of paying honor to his memory.

December 24, 1799, on motion of John Marshall, in the House of Representatives, it was resolved by Congress, among other things, "that a marble monument be erected by the United States at the City of Washington, and that the family of General Washington be requested to permit his body to be deposited under it; and that the monument be so designed as to commemorate the great events of his military and political life."

A copy of the resolutions was sent to his widow by the President of the United States. In her reply, acceding to the request, she said:

"Taught by the great example which I have so long had before me never to oppose my private wishes to the public will, I need not, I cannot, say what a sacrifice of individual feeling I make to a sense of public duty."

The select committee which was appointed to carry into effect the foregoing resolution, and of which Mr. Henry Lee was chairman, reported on the 8th of May, 1800, that a marble monument be erected by the United States, at the Capital, in honor of General Washington, to commemorate his services, and to express the feeling of the American people for their irreparable loss. It was further directed by this report that the resolution of the Continental Congress of August 7, 1783, should be carried into immediate execution, the pedestal to bear the inscription which that Congress had ordered for it.

Upon considering the report and resolution of the select committee that part in reference to the equestrian statue was so amended by Congress as to provide that a "mausoleum of American granite and marble, in pyramidal form, one hundred feet square at the base and of a proportionate height," should be erected instead of it.

To carry these resolves into execution no appropriation was then made; but on the 1st of January, 1801, it appears the House of Representatives pa.s.sed a bill appropriating $200,000 to cover the objects of their resolution.

The Senate, however, did not concur in this act. The reason, perhaps, may be found in the political questions then absorbing the attention of Congress and the people, and which continued until the War of 1812.

The subject of a suitable national memorial to Washington now slept apparently forgotten until 1816, when it again awoke in the Halls of Congress. In the month of February of that year, the General a.s.sembly of Virginia instructed the Governor of that State to correspond with Judge Bushrod Washington, then proprietor of Mount Vernon, with the object of securing his consent to the removal of Washington's remains to Richmond, to be there marked by a fitting monument to his memory. Upon learning of this action by the General a.s.sembly of Virginia, Congress, being then in session, Hon. Benjamin Huger, a member from South Carolina, and who had been in the Congress of 1799, moved that a select joint committee of both Houses be appointed to carry into effect the proceedings had by Congress at the time of Washington's death. In this the Senate concurred.

The committee proposed was appointed, and later introduced a bill and reported, recommending that a tomb should be prepared in the foundations of the Capitol for the remains of Washington, and that a _monument_ should be erected to his memory. But this plan for the removal of the remains failed. Judge Bushrod Washington declining to consent to their removal on the ground that they had been deposited in the vault at Mount Vernon in conformity with Washington's express wish. "It is his own will," said Judge Washington, writing to the Governor of Virginia, "and that will is to me a law which I dare not disobey." The recorded action in the House of Representatives on this bill was, "And that said bill be indefinitely postponed."

No report seems to have been made in the Senate. A vault, however, appears to have been prepared for the remains beneath the center of the dome and rotunda of the Capitol and beneath the floor of its crypt.

Again did Congress fail to take steps to carry out its deliberate action to build a monument to Washington. In 1819, Mr. Goldsborough, in the Senate, moved a resolution to erect an equestrian statue to General Washington, which pa.s.sed July 19th. The resolution was read twice in the House, referred to Committee of the Whole, and was indefinitely postponed.

On the 15th of January, 1824, Mr. James Buchanan, then a member of the House of Representatives, and later President of the United States, offered to that body the following resolution:

"_Resolved_, That a committee be appointed whose duty it shall be to inquire in what manner the resolution of Congress, pa.s.sed on the 24th of December, 1799, relative to the erection of a marble monument in the Capitol, at the City of Washington, to commemorate the great events of the military and political life of General Washington may be best accomplished, and that they have leave to report by bill or otherwise."

This resolution, after some discussion, was laid on the table. The hour was not propitious, and honor to the memory of Washington was again deferred.

In his first annual message to Congress, dated December 6, 1825, the President, John Quincy Adams, invited the attention of Congress to its unfulfilled pledge in the following language:

"On the 24th of December, 1799, it was resolved by Congress that a marble monument should be erected by the United States in the Capitol, at the City of Washington; that the family of General Washington should be requested to permit his body to be deposited under it, and that the monument be so designed as to commemorate the great events of his military and political life. In reminding Congress of this resolution, and that the monument contemplated by it remains yet without execution, I shall indulge only the remarks that the works at the Capitol are approaching completion; that the consent of the family, desired by the resolution, was requested and obtained; that a monument has been recently erected in this city over the remains of another distinguished patriot of the Revolution, and that a spot has been reserved within the walls where you are deliberating for the benefit of this and future ages, in which the mortal remains may be deposited of him whose spirit hovers over you and listens with delight to every act of the Representatives of this Nation which can tend to exalt and adorn his and their country."

But this reminder of the President's went unheeded by the Congress to which it was addressed.

Several years now elapsed before the question again arose in Congress of a monument to the memory of Washington. On the 13th of February, 1832, a report was made to the Senate of the United States by Henry Clay, and to the House of Representatives by Mr. Philemon Thomas, chairmen, respectively, of committees to make arrangements for celebrating the approaching centennial anniversary of Washington's birthday. One of the resolutions authorized the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives "to make application to John A. Washington, of Mount Vernon, for the body of George Washington, to be removed and deposited in the Capitol at Washington City, in conformity with the resolutions of Congress of the 24th of December, 1799, and that if they obtain the requisite consent to the removal thereof they be further authorized to cause it to be removed and deposited in the Capitol on the 22d day of February, 1832."

It will be noted that this resolution does not suggest any connection between the removal of the remains and their being deposited under a monument, as proposed by the resolution of 1799. At this time, one of the standing committees of the House of Representatives, as it appears, had under consideration the erection of a marble statue of Washington, to be executed by Mr. Horatio Greenough, and which it was proposed to place in the centre of the rotunda of the Capitol. The resolution providing for this statue had been introduced into the House of Representatives in 1830.

Upon the submission of the select committee's resolutions for the removal of Washington's remains discussion arose. From a remark by Mr.

Clay, the purpose seems to have been to place the remains in the vault under the center of the rotunda, which had been suggested on a former occasion by President Adams, in 1825.

The two Senators and some of the Representatives from Virginia opposed the removal of the remains of Washington from Mount Vernon. In the discussion Senator Tazewell referred to the application by Virginia in 1816 for the removal of the remains of Washington to Richmond, to be there deposited under a suitable monument. He remarked that Judge Washington replied that "it was impossible for him consent to the removal unless the remains of one of those dear relations accompanied the body."

"Are the remains," asked Mr. Tazewell, "of the husband to be removed from the side of the wife? In their lives they lived happily together, and I never will consent to divide them in death."

This thought appears to have made so strong an impression on Congress that the resolution was altered so as to ask the consent of Mr. John A.

Washington and that of Mr. George Washington P. Custis, the grandson of Mrs. Martha Washington, for the removal and depositing in the Capitol at Washington City of her remains at the same time with those of her late consort, George Washington.

In response to the purpose of the resolution, Mr. John A. Washington felt constrained to withhold his consent by the fact that General Washington's will, in respect to the disposition of his remains, had been recently carried into full effect. Mr. Custis, however, took a different view of that clause in the will, and gave his "most hearty consent to the removal of the remains after the manner proposed," and congratulated "the Government upon the approaching consummation of a great act of national grat.i.tude."

In the debate in the House of Representatives on the resolution and accompanying report, Mr. Doddridge, of Virginia, remarked that he was a member of the State's legislature when the transaction by it took place in 1816, and "he felt entirely satisfied that the resolution for removing the remains to Richmond would never have pa.s.sed the a.s.sembly of Virginia but for the loss of all hope that Congress would act in the matter."

Mr. Duffie opposed the removal of the remains, saying: "As to a monument, rear it; spend upon it what you will; make it durable as the pyramids, eternal as the mountains; you shall have my co-operation.

Erect, if you please, a mausoleum to the memory of Washington in the Capitol, and let it be as splendid as art can make it."

The refusal of Mr. John A. Washington to permit the removal of the remains of Washington seems to have prompted Mr. Clay to urge the adoption of the pending resolution to erect a statue of Washington at the Capitol. "An image," he said, "a testimonial of this great man, the Father of his Country, should exist in every part of the Union as a memorial of his patriotism and of the services rendered his country; but of all places, it was required in this Capitol, the center of the Union, the offspring, the creation, of his mind and of his labors."

The resolution for the statue of Washington by Greenough was adopted, and it was ordered. The statue was made and was placed in the rotunda in 1841, but subsequently removed into the east park of the Capitol, where it now rests.

In 1853, Congress appropriated $50,000 for the erection of an equestrian statue of George Washington by Clark Mills.

This statue, in bronze, representing Washington on the line at the battle of Princeton, was placed in its present location in the public circle at Pennsylvania avenue and Twenty-third street, in the City of Washington.

THE WASHINGTON NATIONAL MONUMENT SOCIETY.

The resolutions and proceedings of Congress which have been referred to having remained unexecuted as late as 1833, certain citizens of the City of Washington, whose names were a pa.s.sport to public confidence, took steps in that year to form a voluntary a.s.sociation for erecting "a great National Monument to the memory of Washington at the seat of the Federal Government."

In September, 1833, a paragraph appeared in the "National Intelligencer," leading paper of the City of Washington, calling for a public meeting of the citizens of Washington to take up the matter and redeem the pledges of Congress. In response to this call a meeting of citizens was held in the aldermen's chamber, in the City Hall, on the 26th of September, 1833. There was great interest and earnestness manifested on the part of those present in the object of the meeting.

The oft-repeated failure of Congress to finally act in the matter of erecting a monument to Washington was reviewed, and it was deemed almost hopeless to expect that body to provide for such a monument in the near future.

The meeting resulted in the organization of the Washington National Monument Society. Committees were appointed to draft a const.i.tution and by-laws, and to report at a future meeting of the citizens and to devise a practical plan for the collection of funds and to prepare an address to the country.