The Last Days of the Marshall Court

William Mercer

Abstract

Consider this political issue from the first decade of the American republic: while the new Constitution required the President to update Congress on a periodic basis, it did not specify the etiquette required of Congress by way of a response. In the 1790s, when the capital resided in New York City and then Philadelphia, congressmen began traveling together as a procession to the President's residence to wait on the President and give their response. After the capital moved to the new District of Columbia in 1800, this custom was discontinued within one year, replaced by a courier.1 Criticized as overly aristocratic and not befitting the representatives of a republic, the congressional procession came to an end because of the changing notions of deference exemplified politically by the transition from federalist to republican control of the government. Marching across marshy and unfinished Washington, D.C., however, also raised objections rooted more in practicality, annoyance, and the reality that the government had moved to a city that barely existed.