Establishing Congress: The Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800.

Establishing Congress: The Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800. Edited by Kenneth R. Bowling and Donald R. Kennon. Perspectives on the History of Congress, 1789-1801. (Athens, Ohio: Published by Ohio University Press for the United States Capitol Historical Society, c. 2005. Pp. xii, 225. $44.95, ISBN 0-8214-1619-7.)

This book is the product of a diverse group of scholars brought together in 2000 and 2001 by the United States Capitol Historical Society's second conference series. Completed in the wake of the election crisis of 2000, this book focuses on the political culture during another critical moment in our nation's past, when the transfer of the federal capital to Washington, D.C., provided the political stage for the contested election of 1800.

The first three chapters of this book invoke the works of Richard Hofstadter. For Cal Jillson--as for Hofstadter--the election of 1800 transcends mere interest or political combat. Instead it represented a conscious ideological "fork in the road" at which Americans accepted a more visionary and democratic "American dream" premised on decentralization and republican agrarianism instead of a Hamiltonian one driven by the need for order and premised on commerce and manufacturing (pp. 1, 4). Jillson provides a broad and balanced summary of competing legacies but in the end offers relatively few new insights. John H. Aldrich's essay uses somewhat newer arguments to support another of Hofstadter's basic points--that the election of 1800 witnessed a democratic moment when power was transferred between competing parties. Rather than seeing Republicans and Federalists as mere "proto-parties" engaged in a deeply personal "affair of honor," as James Rogers Sharp and Joanne B. Freeman have respectively concluded, Aldrich accepts the more traditional notion that their strategies and actions demonstrate the existence of two "great, organized, and reasonably coherent political parties" (p. 24). Pre-election congressional caucuses, efforts to change state-level election laws, and the remarkable partisan discipline during the post-election congressional voting support Aldrich's claim. Even William C. diGiacomantonio's promising look at Federalists' last-minute effort to ensure Congress's exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia concludes that the "so-called Organic Act of 1801" reflected little more than the "'paranoid style of American politics'" that Hofstadter first examined in the 1960s (pp. 39, 49). Yet given the critical nature of jurisdiction for debates over slavery in the capital city, surely much more was at stake than psychological fears. These chapters are well argued, remind us of Hofstadter's genius, and will perhaps reopen some of the discussions he generated. Yet their general detachment from recent historical interpretations that highlight the truly fragile and deeply divisive nature of politics in the early republic will limit their appeal to many historians.

Mixing gender and political history, Catherine Allgor offers an examination of the limits and unique opportunities afforded to women in the new republican city. Extracted in part from her award-winning book, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Helped Build a City and a Government (Charlottesville, 2000), Allgor's study demonstrates how the unofficial political status of women like Dolley Madison and sisters Margaret Bayard Smith and Jane Bayard Kirkpatrick enabled them to peddle influence behind the scenes in ways that male politicians officially bound by republican codes could not. Though not early "feminists," these women successfully negotiated the separate spheres to fulfill "inherent" political "impulses" and "performed the 'dirty work' of politics to ensure their husbands' political purity" (pp. 127, 126).

Other essays of this volume focus specifically on the changing landscape of the capital city and its culture. Elaine C. Everly and Howard H. Wehmann demonstrate the logistical and political challenges facing the Adams administration as it gradually moved departments, officials, and government records from Philadelphia to the rudimentary accommodations of the Chesapeake. C. M. Harris builds upon his earlier work to argue that Jefferson's attempts to shape the city's physical appearance reflected a broader approach to nation-building rooted in classical republicanism. According to Harris, Jefferson's shrewd maneuvering against Washington's architectural plans and his more overt attacks against Britain in the form of an embargo reflected his commitment to Roman architecture, Livy's history, and the "Fabian republican tactics of delay" that he believed had preserved the Roman republic from foreign and domestic tyranny (p. 97). Cynthia D. Earman provides a detailed examination of the boardinghouses and mess halls of Washington, arguing that the new capital afforded much more personal and political intrigue than James Sterling Young allows in his classic The Washington Community, 1800-1828 (New York, 1966). Rubil Morales-Vazquez offers a fascinating examination of the prolonged and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to bring George Washington's remains to the city bearing his name. He deftly shows how Republican political and economic concerns, fears that the union would dissolve, and even a middle-class sentimentalism emphasizing familial rather than communal notions of grief combined to prevent Congress from fulfilling its pledge to Martha Washington that her husband would be interred in the capital. A conclusion by Kenneth R. Bowling provides a review essay that will be invaluable for anyone interested in studying the first sessions of the federal Congress.

Historians looking to teach or study the election of 1800 through a more historical lens might find another collection, James Horn et al., eds., The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race and the New Republic (Charlottesville, 2002), a more rewarding read. Nevertheless, Establishing Congress will provide a useful reference for scholars in the field, especially for anyone interested in the early life of Washington D.C.

BRIAN D. SCHOEN

California State University, Sacramento