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.