Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

A key symbol and great source of debate among the revolutionary generation is the permanent location for the seat of the federal government. It is decided that the capital should be somewhere near Virginia in the middle of the Eastern seaboard. Were the House to remain too far north, the southern states would feel neglected and ruled from afar, like they dreaded. The location off the Potomac River suites both prominent Virginians, Jefferson and Madison, as well as the current president Washington, whose Mount Vernon estate is near. For Virginians who worry about a Yankee (northern state) takeover, this is a triumph: 

they would not abandon the seat of government, but capture it. Like the new capital, it would become an extension of Virginia, or at least the Virginia vision of what the American Revolution meant and the American republic was meant to be (80). 

The House, set in a capital named after the first president, will be the stone culmination of the revolution and give the new republic official status. The figure of a building, a permanent home, suggests that the new regime will be here to stay. Further, the House’s separation from the new republic’s burgeoning financial center, New York, is symbolic in honoring the distinction between finance and politics.