Think about the people of the British colonies of North America around 1770 A.D. You have to admit there's a good chance that some of those people thought that George Washington was an ass. Maybe they thought things like: Here was a guy who married the famous Custis widow just for her money. Maybe also things like: Here was a guy who in his career as a surveyor had seen the wealth and extent of the rich land of the Ohio Valley and had probably set his sights on grabbing as much of it as he could for himself. And maybe also things like: He and the whole lot of his Virginia cohorts were just setting out to make an empire for themselves, extending the boundaries of Virginia as far as they could push them at the expense of all the rest of the colonies. (You will remember that Virginia included at one time the entire region of Kentucky. And also that up until 1863 the boundaries of Virginia went all the way to the Ohio River; it included the area where West Virginia is now.)
However, the whole American Revolution event forced people all over these colonies to take a second look at George Washington, no matter what they may have thought about him before. The driving force of that Revolution was a north/south coalition that essentially revolved around a Massachusetts-Virginia axis. But these two colonies were radically different from each other and had been so from their beginnings: Massachusetts started as a haven for an insular religious group and Virginia started as a business enterprise for profit. The differences between these two colonies represented the large gulf between all the colonies as a whole: Northern ones were trade and fishing and manufacturing oriented and southern ones were agricultural oriented. There were really very few people who could keep this diverse coalition together. Ben Franklin might have been able to do it, as he was held in the highest respect of anyone in the colonies. But he did not have the military background that was necessary, and many would have considered him too old. Only Washington had enough backing across the spectrum of the very different and diverse colonies to serve as the lead for the joint effort. He had the military experience needed and the respect of most of the decision-makers throughout the colonies. Of course even he still had some strong detractors; you recall the story of Benedict Arnold as that of someone resentful of a lack of prominence of position for himself, relative to Washington’s own prominence, so much so that he sold sensitive information to the British out of this resentment. And also of Horatio Gates, who after the Battle of Saratoga was convinced he deserved Washington's position entirely.
Now when the Revolution was over it was time to take stock of what to do from there. One obvious move by the new country was to build on the name and new height of popularity of George Washington, the one guy who kept everybody together through the bad times, and as such the best to unify the diverse people of the new country. So the decision was made to build on the Washington mystique as the great unifier of the diverse people of the time by naming the new country's capital after him, and going even farther, using his old family coat of arms (which was used back in England) as the model for the new country's flag.
So if the new American country could agree on some basic issues like the pattern for the national flag and what to call the new nation's capital, a remaining issue would be where to put that capital. Obviously, Washington D.C. as the American capital ended up being carved out of Maryland, just up river from Chesapeake Bay; that being done in 1788. There are at least three good reasons why it was located where it was:
(1) Good central location: Almost exactly in the center of the new country.
(2) Good access to lines of communication: At the time that meant being near sea lanes.
(3) Relatively cheap: It was on some land that Maryland was more than happy to donate since it was mostly land that no one wanted anyway.
Now consider some of the history of Peter the Great (he was Czar of Russia around 1700-1720). You’ve got to hand it to this guy Peter: He had no qualms about getting his hands dirty and doing things that needed to be done. A great example of this was that he personally trained in and worked in European shipyards so as to understand as much as possible what was the most strategically important technology of the day, heavy ship-building. When he became Czar, he had a far bigger task to master, re-inventing a country, as he inherited a country that was very backwards and almost anti-European, and he did what had to be done to make it become part of the contemporary world. Two fundamental problems that Peter faced were these:
(1) Stagnation within the government of the country due to the involvement and the character of the traditional Russian nobility. The government offices and responsibilities were filled by the nobles, and these were people who had very little interest in being effective at these roles and mostly used their positions to enrich themselves.
(2) Isolation of the government of the country due to the location of Moscow being a long way from lines of communication with other capitals, or even with any major economic centers. To get to and from Moscow involved a long overland trek and/or a long river trip no matter which way you went about it.
So to address both of these problems, Peter decided to move the capital somewhere else, making a complete, wholesale change in the personality of his country’s government. By moving somewhere else, the nobles would be forced to spend a whole lot more to maintain themselves in a new capital, so if they wanted to stay in a government office, it was no longer so profitable to do so. Also by moving somewhere else, the new capital could be located in a place that had better access to other European capitals and economic centers.
Now to get better access to other locations meant access to sea lanes of communication, and to Peter that meant he had to locate the capital either near the Black Sea or the Baltic Sea, the only places open to Russia at the time. The obvious problem with the Black Sea was the Turks, who had (and still have) a vice grip over traffic in and out of the Black Sea. So the best option was the Baltic, since the Baltic just by itself provides access to a whole lot of European connections, and the outlet from the Baltic to the Atlantic proper can be blocked only by the Danes, and they weren’t as formidable as the Turks.
And so as a result, Peter made the decision to locate and build a new capital with easy access to the Baltic Sea, and so founded St. Petersburg. This move did a great deal to solve a lot of problems. The nobles filling the government offices had to build new places in the new capital and in the end found this to be expensive; such offices were not as lucrative for them. Plus, with access to sea lanes, trade and connections with other countries were boosted, which led to long-standing and mutually helpful relationships all over the world, especially with Germans, who became the court favorites for a long time thereafter.
There’s a big lesson from Peter the Great for the United States: Its long past time for us to make the same kind of move with our Federal capital. All of the reasons why the capital was located where it was have become obsolete: The current capital at Washington D.C. is nowhere near centrally located, sea lanes are not the main lines of communication in any way, and the location is too expensive to maintain due to the expansion of the urban areas of the northeast U.S coast. We should move the capital to a new location that is more centrally located, which would thus have the advantage of today’s main lines of communication (air traffic), and which would be easier and cheaper to maintain.
In short this is how we could achieve this: Washington D.C. as a separate federal district gets re-absorbed back into Maryland and becomes Washington City, Maryland. A new capital is established somewhere in Missouri or Kansas, near some existing city there. We could name the new capital Jefferson, District of Columbia, just like the old one, with the new name meant to represent a new outlook on the country. The first capital was named after Washington as the great unifier of the country; this second capital could be named after Thomas Jefferson as the great grower of the country, through his roles in the Louisiana Purchase (of the Missouri River basin and western Mississippi basin) and the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore not only this new area but also part of the Columbia basin and its outlet to the Pacific Ocean.
In addition to centrality of location, air lanes access, and expense issues, there are a number of other good reasons for this move of the capital:
(1) The change gives us an opportunity to correct the representation and governance issues with the people who live in Washington D.C., and also with the new capital.
Its always been a problem that the population of the current District of Columbia is only “theoretically” represented in Congress, by Congress itself, and that Congress is supposed to be involved in detail with the area’s governance. You will recall from a passage from the U.S. Constitution, Article I Section 8.17, that Congress has total responsibility over any area that “as may by cession of particular States” become the national capital. With Washington D.C.’s population being devolved into Maryland, that problem is solved. The people there become fully represented as citizens of Maryland.
In addition, in the establishment of the new capital, there really is no need for this new District of Columbia to be a separate Federal district the way the old one was, through any cession of land. It can be D.C. “in name only” and not separated out or ceded from any State. By making the capital in an area that is not separated from a State, Congress does not have to take on any local governance responsibility, as such area is at the same time remaining in a State, and thus all the people in it are represented in Congress as anyone else is, through the Congressional representatives and senators of that State.
(2) The move of the capital would cause wider dispersion of government for more effective responses; more agencies would be closer to the people.
A change of capital does not mean moving all government offices or agencies or even most of them. There would still be many federal offices and agencies located in Washington City, Maryland; its just that many would be dispersed to the new capital and at the same time to other locations around the country. Note that most government agencies already have major offices spread around, like the FBI, the IRS, the EPA, the Federal Reserve, and so on. We would just see more of that. For example, the Defense Department would have some presence at their old Pentagon, but also in the new capital, and also at the same time have more regional command centers. The same can be said of all the monuments and cultural attractions; there’s no reason to move anything or duplicate anything, and so the old capital would have a historical showcase role. Washington City would be something like a monument city of historical interest.
(3) The location of Washington D.C. is a spot that is highly susceptible to natural disasters, such as coastal flooding and other storms from the Atlantic Ocean.
There is of course no location that is entirely safe from natural disasters; any place near the middle of the contiguous U.S. will have its share of river flooding potential and tornados. However, coastal flooding and ocean storms are potential disaster sources that can cover very wide areas, far wider than any tornado. A direct hit by a major ocean storm could take out the entire capital where it is. And so a capital location in the central interior would be far better insulated from wide-area storm damage potential.
(4) The location of Washington D.C. is highly susceptible to attack specifically by submarine-launched, low-trajectory missiles.
During the Cold War with the Soviet Union it was a well known problem that a submarine-launched attack could easily take the U.S. off guard and achieve something like a “decapitation” attack, where a quick strike could take out almost the entire U.S government. As you recall, the big deal with the Cuban Missile Crisis was the fact that a missile launch from Cuba would hit the U.S. much quicker and with much less warning than any launched from central Asia, where the Soviets had most of their ballistic missiles. A submarine-launched attack from right off the Atlantic coast would present this danger to a much higher degree; not only would it be much closer but with a low-trajectory shot, it would be much harder to detect and intercept.
Now there were a whole lot of things we could do about such a close-launched attack in the Cold War. Any Soviet submarine attack could only approach from one direction; they would come through the northeast Atlantic and drop down into the main Atlantic from there. But that would mean that they would be detected by the sonar barrier between Greenland-Iceland-U.K., which would then allow us to track them, and so we would know if a submarine was coming up close to the East coast.
But now almost anybody can get submarines and almost anybody can get missiles to launch from them, and it doesn’t take nuclear weapons to make a close-launched attack effective. So now a low-trajectory attack from submarines could be made by almost anyone, and could route from any direction. And so again, a capital location in the central interior would be far better, as it would not be in danger of this kind of attack.
(published 10/11/19)
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