PATRIOTISM AND PROFIT

Biographer, journalist, and former humanities professor Nagel paints a convincing portrait of George Washington and his friend New York Sen. Philip Schuyler as manipulative real estate moguls who vied to establish the nation’s capital on a site that would enrich them personally. Schuyler, with vast tracts in the northeast, wanted the seat of federal government in New York City. Washington, on the other hand, envisioned the capital situated around the port of Alexandria, Virginia, and the Potomac River, near his Mount Vernon plantation and the 70,000 acres of western Virginia land that he owned. In addition to increasing the value of their property, both men wanted control of waterways that had great commercial potential: for Schuyler, the Erie Canal; for Washington, the Potomac. At the same time that he was the nation’s first chief executive, Washington was also president of the Potomac River Canal Company, an enterprise set up to profit from the river’s development. Both men, Nagel argues convincingly, “belonged to the class of eighteenth-century agrarians who were also capitalist merchants. They saw opportunities for commerce in everything they grew, butchered, milled, and distilled.” Virginia and New York were not the only contenders to be the nation’s capital. At various times, fierce supporters emerged for many other venues, including Kingston, New York; Annapolis, Maryland; Williamsburg, Virginia; and Princeton, New Jersey. During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Nagel notes, debate over the location of the capital “exploded several times on the convention floor.” Although Thomas Jefferson perpetuated the story that he “masterfully mediated” the battle, Nagel asserts that he was a “bit player” in the drama that resulted in New York’s becoming the seat of financial power, and Washington, D.C., the seat of government. In her view, Washington “borrowed, leveraged…coerced, and otherwise cheated his way to creating the nation’s capital city."

A fresh look at the self-serving nature of the Founding Fathers.