Everyone who has seen the play Hamilton knows that the nation’s capital was moved to the present site in the District of Columbia due to a dinner-table bargain in 1790 between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton needed Jefferson’s support in Congress to win approval for federal assumption of revolutionary war debts; in return, Jefferson wanted Hamilton’s support in moving the capital from New York City to a location nearer to the population and geographical center of the country, later carved out between the states of Maryland and Virginia.
The country needs a fresh start after decades of conflict, stagnation, and bureaucratic inertia.
For most of the nation’s history, the District of Columbia was an inhospitable “swamp” with relatively few permanent residents and a minimal federal establishment. Pigs and cows roamed the streets; summer heat and humidity were unbearable; slavery was widespread until it was outlawed in 1862. Congressional sessions were brief: representatives and senators did not enjoy life in the capital, and did not stay there any longer than necessary. The expansion of government since the 1960s (along with air conditioning) has changed that: Washington today is a company town, with government as its sole business — and a growing business at that. It is increasingly remote from the people it is supposed to serve, a development feared in 1787 by supporters and opponents of the Constitution as incompatible with representative government.
The Capital today is far removed from the geographical and population centers of the country, which today are located well beyond the Mississippi River. The westward movement of the United States during the 19th Century turned Washington into a far distant capital for most citizens — perhaps more so than any other major capital in the world. Representatives travel vast distances to get there, and must travel back and forth to their states and districts to serve constituents, leaving Washington under control of its permanent residents, nearly all of them Democrats. (READ MORE from James Piereson: Thomas Piketty’s ‘Le Capital’)
The time has arrived to think the unthinkable: we should move the capital. The reasons for doing so are more compelling today than they were in 1790 when Jefferson originally raised the subject.
Washington, D.C., as an urban center, is something of a joke compared to other important capitals around the world, like London, Paris, and Berlin, and compares unfavorably with the capitals of many impoverished nations. Crime has been out of control in Washington for decades but has now moved into areas frequented by politicians, office workers, and visitors, thanks to recently approved legislation that reduced penalties and eliminated bail for many crimes. The public schools are like those in other major cities: lavishly funded but poorly performing. A few years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, protestors and rioters ran amok through the city, smashing storefronts, tearing down statues, and threatening the White House, with the implied support of the mayor and city council.
Schools across the country used to send their students on annual field trips to the capital to see Congress in action and to visit the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, along with other historical sites. That is increasingly a thing of the past, in view of what has happened to the capital city in recent years. Americans were once proud of their capital city but think differently about it today.
The city is overwhelmingly populated by Democrats — and, on top of that, by the most partisan and far-left Democrats. Over the past five presidential elections, an average of 91 percent of the vote in the city has gone for Democratic candidates. In neighboring counties in Maryland and Virginia, Democrats typically carry between 70 and 80 percent of the vote. Federal bureaucrats living in those jurisdictions are nearly all Democrats, and use their powers to advance Democratic Party causes. Why should we have a capital city that is dominated by one party with a vested interest in the growth of government?
The partisan bias in the region expresses itself in every area of law and politics. Protestors swarmed the White House while Donald Trump was President; they have not done so during Biden’s tenure, and never will. Whenever public officials are accused of crimes, they face jury pools composed entirely of Democrats: those juries reliably acquit fellow Democrats and convict Republicans, irrespective of the facts. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith brought charges against former president Donald Trump in the district because he knows Trump will face a jury composed entirely of partisan Democrats, and will therefore win an easy conviction. That is not how things are supposed to work under the rule of law, rather than the “rule of politics.”
For these reasons, it comes as no surprise that law enforcement agencies — the FBI, IRS, and the Justice Department — have been weaponized by Democrats to threaten Republicans and conservatives. They routinely investigate Republicans like Trump and his allies, while looking the other way when Democrats do the same kinds of things. They are prosecuting Trump for retaining classified documents, while absolving Biden for having done the same thing, and possibly worse. Just a few years ago, the FBI took a phony piece of opposition research from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and used it as a basis for an investigation of President Trump. This is now commonplace in the capital. A few years ago, the Attorney General used a memorandum from a teacher’s union to label parents as terrorists simply because they showed up at school board meetings to express opposition to school policies. Yet Democratic groups freely do this kind of thing (and much worse) all the time without hearing a peep from federal law enforcement authorities. (READ Flashback: A Time for Choosing)
Democrats have been successful in building effective networks among members of Congress and their staffs, interest group representatives, and influential journalists. In any agency or issue area, federal officials work with Congressional committees, advocacy groups, and well-placed journalists to advance their agenda, sometimes by well-timed leaks of sensitive material or by working with interest groups to develop policies then mobilizing the groups to lobby for them or collaborating with journalists to develop “investigations” that are published at exactly the right time to advance one or another cause. This kind of exercise is on display continuously in Washington — in the Russia collusion conspiracies, in the Kavanaugh hearings, in the Trump impeachments, and in many other situations.
Republicans could do it also, but they have to work in a city that is controlled by Democrats. This is a large problem for Republicans. When they win national elections, they soon discover that they must steer a gigantic administrative operation controlled by the opposition party — a nearly impossible task. The bureaucrats have an infinite number of ways at their disposal to embarrass Republican presidents and cabinet officers — and they use them to their advantage. When, for example, a Republican cabinet officer drafts a memorandum to change this or that policy, he will soon find that bureaucrats have leaked it to the press in order to mobilize opposition to it. There have been times when bureaucrats have advised cabinet officers to remodel their offices, then (once the job is finished) leak the expenses to the press to embarrass them. We now have a capital city that is organized on behalf of one party and in opposition to the other.
Democrats, knowing all this, have proposed legislation to turn Washington into the 51st state for the obvious reason that it would add two more Democrats to the Senate and give formal representation to the bureaucracy in town. They believe they can do this by routine legislation approved by a majority in Congress and signed by the president; though others say it requires a constitutional amendment to turn the capital into a state. Democrats have an answer to that objection: they will pack the Supreme Court so that it will approve statehood via simple legislation. Republicans are opposed to this, and for good reason, but (in view of proposals to turn the capital into a state) they should go further to call for the capital city to be moved to another less partisan location.
What would happen in that case to Washington, D.C., and the historical sites located there? It is a valid question: much of the nation’s historical memory is concentrated in the current capital, though Democrats and city residents seem to care less and less about that particular aspect of their city, since they trash U.S. history and the founding fathers at every opportunity. The obvious solution: The city should be attached in parts to the adjoining states of Maryland and Virginia, and given representation in Congress through those avenues.
The Constitution sets up no barriers to moving the Capital to a new location. Article I, Section 8 says only that Congress shall exercise exclusive jurisdiction over a district designated as the seat of government as ceded by particular states and not exceeding 10 square miles in area. Congress can move the capital by statute if it wishes to do so. A constitutional amendment is not required.
It will not be easy to move the capital, and difficult also to win support for it in Congress. Yet the city is going downhill quickly — many members of Congress are well aware of it. People may still visit the city to view public buildings and historical sites, though at some point not far in the future crime and disorder will keep them away as in other major cities. (READ MORE: A Visit to the DC Gulag)
It is a good question how long those memorials will remain intact with a “woke” city government putting pressure on Congress to remove or rename some of them. It may be a matter of time until residents demand that the city be given a new name — George Washington having been a slaveowner. At that point, few Americans will care what happens to it. As to the Congress, many members are already fed up with disorder and partisan bias in the city; and there are many Democrats from West coast and Midwest who might prefer to see the capital relocated to a spot nearer the center of the country.
President Trump made a few mild gestures in this direction when he tried to move some government agencies to new locations outside Washington, D.C. He raised a good point: why should the Interior Department be located in Washington when it might better carry out its functions in Montana, Idaho, Utah, or the Dakotas? For that matter, why are the FBI or the Commerce department located in Washington when they might better be located in Kansas City, Wichita, Dallas, or any number of other cities? There are government agencies located outside of the capital. The nation’s space center is based in Houston; the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention is located in Atlanta. Yet, when Trump proposed to move some of these agencies, bureaucrats loudly protested — after all, they are comfortable in Washington. They need not have worried: Democrats, once in power, reversed Trump’s initiatives, for obvious partisan reasons. It appears that half measures will not work: it will be necessary to move the capital, once and for all.
A new capital might be moved to various sites nearer the center of the country. It is not a new idea. In the decades after the Civil War, some called for the capital to be moved to St. Louis, in part to divert the country from the north-south struggle, and also because that city was located nearer to the new geographical center of the country. T.D. Shields, in her novels Into Shadow and Into Light, placed the capital in western Kansas after Washington, D.C. was overrun by war, crime, and climate change. There are many areas in the states of Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and Colorado out of which a new capital city might be carved out, much as the District of Columbia was carved out of a swamp more than 200 years ago. Washington, after all, was a new city, built entirely as the seat of government. It can be done again.
Other countries in recent decades have either moved their capital cities or built entirely new cities as seats of government. Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was planned and developed as a new city in the late 1950s. Sejong City was established just two decades ago as the administrative capital of South Korea. Egypt has been building a new capital city outside Cairo since 2015. Malaysia moved its capital city in 1999 from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya, envisioned as a new form of electronic government emphasizing digital communications — a concept worth considering in the USA. Kazakhstan moved its capital to Astana following the collapse of the Soviet Union. West Germany created a new capital in Bonn in 1949, but relocated it to Berlin again when the country was unified in 1990. There is no reason why the United States cannot do something similar. The country needs a fresh start after decades of conflict, stagnation, and bureaucratic inertia. A new capital would signify a new beginning for the nation, a re-creation of the spirit of 1776 and 1787.
Former President Trump recently said that the United States should create new cities to relocate citizens from failed urban centers like Chicago and Washington, D.C. That is not a bad idea. A good place to start might be with a new capital city. Mr. Trump, if he is elected this year, should put it at the top of his agenda.
James Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
