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 principal 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 assembled, ordered this statue to be
erected in the year of our Lord, 1783, in honor of George
Washington, the illustrious 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 passage 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
gratitude 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
passed 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 Assembly 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 Assembly 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 passed 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, passed 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 gratitude."
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 passed the Assembly 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.