Question: Has there ever been a proposal to move the US federal capital?

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Krall

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I technically have two questions rather than just the one, but they're closely linked.


The first question is as above: Has there ever been a serious proposal to move the US federal capital?

I know there was some debate over where the first capital would be early on, and they settled on Washington DC's current site as it was a convenient, central location, but as the US has expanded Washington DC has moved further and further from the centre of the US. I was wondering if there had ever been any proposals to move the US capital closer to the geographic or population centre of the US?


The second question is thus: If there were to be such a proposal, where would be a good place to move the US capital to and how plausible would the move be?

I'm actually asking this for a timeline involving a much different United States, but assume I'm talking about the OTL US. Are there any major transportation hubs or population centres in the Midwest that would make for convenient capital cities? For the sake of this question assume the year is around 1900 (or before 1900, considering the forum we're in).

Any help would be greatly appreciated! :)
 
Well, I believe that geographic center of the continental states is a small town in the middle of western Kansas. So, there's that :rolleyes: Aside from that KCK is the closest major metropolitan area, which is also a central location of data centers and cables and air & train lines.
 
I assume you mean after it was put in DC... Washington is actually a more or less artificial city built expressly to be the capital. Before that, the national capital shifted between several cities (Philadelphia, New York, I think Baltimore, maybe one or two others).

I can't imagine there was any serious proposal, although I can't conclusively answer that. It'd just be very difficult. In the first few decades, there would've been no purpose whatsoever for a shift in capital, and by the time the US had started to really expand west, there was enough of a bureaucracy that it would've been incredibly inconvenient and expensive to move, and would probably result in the loss of more than a few documents, while giving up a lot of the major advantages (keeping it in the Boswash population base).

If it did move, it'd depend on the time. Omaha and St Louis are both good choices. Maybe Louisville, KY if it's early enough; it'd be a good compromise between southern slave states and northern free states, west enough to be frontier but still not disconnected from the east. I've heard some Colorado city thrown around as a potential capital (Boulder, probably?), but more of a "let's stuff all the politicians in a mountain bolthole the Soviets can't possibly nuke" emergency capital.
 
In the first few decades, there would've been no purpose whatsoever for a shift in capital...

Well, aside from the fact that DC was at that time a diseased hellhole, a place where foreign ambassadors got hazard pay for living in. Which is what happens when you build your national capital in a swamp.
 
Well, aside from the fact that DC was at that time a diseased hellhole, a place where foreign ambassadors got hazard pay for living in. Which is what happens when you build your national capital in a swamp.

But all of the reasons for building the capital where it is still apply.

It's not like the federal government can just say "Okay, New York State, give us ten square miles of Manhattan, the Constitution says we can have it for the capital." And moving the capital from a neutral federal zone into an actual state is just begging to make massive tensions. Some South Carolina congressman proposes to move it to South Carolina, and every state north of the Virginia is going to cry foul. Propose to move the capital to Boston, and every state south is going to complain.
 
cinncinati was propsed once.

St. Louis would be a very good spot in my opinion, its more accessable than somewhere in the Rural West, yet its still near the middle.
 
I would say either Chicago or St. Louis. Central locations that are also large trade centers that could easily be transformed into good capitals. (It would be awesome to see the Sears Tower become the new Presidential Residence. That would kick ass on so many levels.)
 
Well, aside from the fact that DC was at that time a diseased hellhole, a place where foreign ambassadors got hazard pay for living in. Which is what happens when you build your national capital in a swamp.


St. Petersburg was built in a swamp as well.. along with Berlin and London..

Granted London and Berlin have a few years on DC..

ST. PEtersburg had a hundred years on DC
 
IIRC, there was in fact a semi-serious proposal to move the US capital to St. Louis.
That said, the whole "diseased hellhole" meme may be a tad exaggerated-Georgetown and Alexandria were fairly prosperous local ports(Alexandria less so) and the hilly countryside in the district was I think fairly productive farmland.
 
St. Petersburg was built in a swamp as well.. along with Berlin and London..

Granted London and Berlin have a few years on DC..

ST. PEtersburg had a hundred years on DC

DC Wasn't really a swamp, parts of it along the rivers were marshy, but that's no different than anywhere where human settlement encroaches on wetlands.
http://www.welovedc.com/2009/07/07/dc-mythbusting-built-on-a-swamp/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr...ine/features/2008/dc-1791-to-today/story.html
http://bobarnebeck.com/swamp.html

It's nothing like Chicago (and Seattle, if I recall correctly), where they literally had to raise the downtown buildings a couple of yards up in order to keep their first floors from flooding in the spring.
 
St. Louis would be a very good spot in my opinion, its more accessable than somewhere in the Rural West, yet its still near the middle.

I agree a capital city where modern day St. Louis would make a lot of sense.

I was reading in Washington: The Making of the American Capital by Fergus M. Bordewich that during the Grant administration some people (It doesn't say who) proposed that the capital be moved further west. Pres. Grant however killed any discussion of moving the capital citing the thousands of men who died defending the city during the Civil War.
 
I wouldn't go with St Louis. Too close to the New Madrid fault. There are advantages to moving the capital closer to the true center of the country. Less vulnerable to certain types of attack, eliminating some of the gravitational pull of the eastern corridor.

I've toyed with the idea of having multiple federal districts, adding maybe a midwest federal district and western federal district. You would want the agencies who dispense power via guns to all be headquartered in the same place, for reasons that students of history should spot. I could see the other federal districts being places where say Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, that sort of thing are housed. It might be smart to put one of them in a bit of a hellhole so that you could send the people you really want out of federal service but can't find a reason to fire there and have them make the decision to leave on their own.

If we're dinking around with the constitutional structure anyway, it might be interesting to look into making a few of the biggest cities into states. Maybe New York, LA, and Chicago. All are very different culturally and politically than the rest of the states they are in, and those differences lead to very dysfunctional state governments. In terms of the national balance of political power it would probably be a wash. The Dems would have a lock on all three new sets of senators, but the rump Illinois and New York would probably become Republican country. Not sure about California. It might go to swing state status.
 
I wouldn't go with St Louis. Too close to the New Madrid fault. There are advantages to moving the capital closer to the true center of the country. Less vulnerable to certain types of attack, eliminating some of the gravitational pull of the eastern corridor.

I've toyed with the idea of having multiple federal districts, adding maybe a midwest federal district and western federal district. You would want the agencies who dispense power via guns to all be headquartered in the same place, for reasons that students of history should spot. I could see the other federal districts being places where say Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, that sort of thing are housed. It might be smart to put one of them in a bit of a hellhole so that you could send the people you really want out of federal service but can't find a reason to fire there and have them make the decision to leave on their own.

If we're dinking around with the constitutional structure anyway, it might be interesting to look into making a few of the biggest cities into states. Maybe New York, LA, and Chicago. All are very different culturally and politically than the rest of the states they are in, and those differences lead to very dysfunctional state governments. In terms of the national balance of political power it would probably be a wash. The Dems would have a lock on all three new sets of senators, but the rump Illinois and New York would probably become Republican country. Not sure about California. It might go to swing state status.

Mini-New York would probably be a Republican leaning swing state, actually. Dominated by Republicans for local politics, but primarily moderate Republicans.

Anyway, it's not a fantastic idea to split capitals. It's possible, but not particularly wise. It becomes a lot easier to do things if the HQs are clustered together. The president can have a meeting with the speaker of the house at 10, talk with the head of the FDA at 11, eat lunch with the head of the OMB at noon, and then get an intelligence briefing by the heads of the CIA, NSA, and FBI at 1. You can't do that if they're scattered everywhere, at least not without a lot of trouble. Perhaps in a more decentralized nation, or a parliamentary one, but not without some pretty major and fundamental changes to the Constitution.
 
I agree a capital city where modern day St. Louis would make a lot of sense.

I was reading in Washington: The Making of the American Capital by Fergus M. Bordewich that during the Grant administration some people (It doesn't say who) proposed that the capital be moved further west. Pres. Grant however killed any discussion of moving the capital citing the thousands of men who died defending the city during the Civil War

The Most important reason however, is that i live in St.Louis so that makes it the best option. :p

I'd think New Orleans would also make a good Canidate, anywhere along the Mississippi would be nice. St. Louis also has the Missouri (and the somewhat nearby Illinois which is linked to Chicago).

Cario ,Illinois is another idea, but i dont think it was much back then. Although with the Ohio river and Mississippi River nearby make it a nice spot nevertheless.

I think a POD to move the American Capital would require the british to torch the entire place.
 
they debated moving it westward after the burning by the British in 1814 but thought of it as a show of defeat in a war that we had "won" i thing they wanted it in Louisville but that might be wrong
 
If the idea is to make it a transportation hub, easy to get to for basically all Americans, then it's St. Louis. Still the rail hub of the nation. If you reckon air travel as more important/relevant than rail (depending on exactly when this proposal is being bandied about), Chicago and Dallas are the two air travel hubs, and Chicago is a much easier sell than Dallas.

Oops, saw that you were positing about 1900, so air travel is probably not a concern.

Really curious as to what sort of (Unified?) USA wants to be rid of DC :)
 

Krall

Banned
I've toyed with the idea of having multiple federal districts, adding maybe a midwest federal district and western federal district. You would want the agencies who dispense power via guns to all be headquartered in the same place, for reasons that students of history should spot. I could see the other federal districts being places where say Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, that sort of thing are housed. It might be smart to put one of them in a bit of a hellhole so that you could send the people you really want out of federal service but can't find a reason to fire there and have them make the decision to leave on their own.

I was thinking of something similar to this for my timeline with America having something similar to how things work in the Netherlands - a de jure capital city in Washington, but the actual state apparatus moved somewhere further west - or something similar to how things work in South Africa - having different parts of the government housed in different cities, so some could stay in Washington and others could be moved to more convenient locations further west.

If we're dinking around with the constitutional structure anyway, it might be interesting to look into making a few of the biggest cities into states. Maybe New York, LA, and Chicago. All are very different culturally and politically than the rest of the states they are in, and those differences lead to very dysfunctional state governments. In terms of the national balance of political power it would probably be a wash. The Dems would have a lock on all three new sets of senators, but the rump Illinois and New York would probably become Republican country. Not sure about California. It might go to swing state status.

I was thinking about America's big cities as well and came up with an idea for federally recognised special cities that are still technically part of a state, but have their own government devolved from the state government and appoint their senators/representatives separately from the rest of the state (though they'd still count as coming from said state).
 
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