The Room (where it happened)
The Federal District for the Nation’s Capital was created by the Constitution. But exactly where it was to be located, was originally part of a “grand political bargain”. This deal was memorialized on Broadway in Hamilton, the Musical. Alexander Hamilton wanted to pass his large financial plan to stabilize the new Nation’s money and credit. But to the “anti-Federalists”, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Hamilton’s plan smacked of Federal government expansion of power.
Hamilton’s plan was “dead”. Madison was Speaker of the House and Anti-Federalists controlled the legislature. Without the Speaker and Secretary of State Jefferson’s support, no plan would get through. Hamilton needed to make a deal with “the South” to get what he needed.
You might remember the moment in Hamilton the Musical, when Aaron Burr laments that he wasn’t, “In the room where it happened.” Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson pounded out a deal. Hamilton got his financial plan. But in return, the Constitution’s Federal District for the Nation’s capital would be located somewhere else, not in the biggest city of the new nation where they currently met, New York. The political center of the United States would move South, while the financial center remained in the “Big Apple”.
Our Nation’s Capital
Why would Maryland and Virginia give away a ten by ten mile square of land along the Potomac River? It placed the capital squarely in the South, in an era when Northern and Southern culture already diverged. It wasn’t just enslavement, even the accents of the two regions were completely different. And the new capital was only a few days ride from almost anywhere in the South, versus the long journey required from New York, or Boston.
And besides, a lot of the “plot” for the District of Columbia was low land anyway, almost uninhabitable in the summer months due to swarms of mosquitos. The new Federal District of Columbia was, in part, a swamp.
The center of that swamp was just beside the Potomac, across from Arlington, Virginia, and just south of where Rock Creek emptied into the River. Today, we call that area the “National Mall”. In the 1800’s it was the pasture for local flocks of sheep or herds of cattle. During the Civil War it became a national encampment for Union soldiers, who suffered from mosquito borne diseases like malaria because of the location. But there were efforts to drain the swamp, and the area was used to build national memorials like the Washington Monument (1884) and the Lincoln Memorial (1922).
The Pool
As part of the Lincoln Memorial project, a reflecting pool was built. It was designed to reflect the entire height of the Washington Monument from one end, and the shiny new Lincoln Memorial from the other. The idea was wonderful, but the 6.75 million gallons of water to fill it weighed in at 27,000 tons. That load pressed into the old swamp, causing continual cracks and structural breaks in the pool “container”. And, like any swampy land, algae growth was a constant problem.
In 2010, the Obama administration began a $34 million project to rebuild the pool. Over the next two years they drove deep pilings into the old swamp, to keep the pool from “sinking”. In addition, new circulation pipes and pumps were installed that pulled fresh water from the nearby Potomac River. In two years the pool was back in shape, better than ever before. But, like any giant swimming pool, there were still leaks, and algae growth was a constant problem.
The Metaphor
In a metaphor for our current government, the Trump Administration decided to “clean up” the pool. They did a “quick and dirty” job, spending $14 million to drain the pool, line the pool with a sealant, then paint it “American Flag Blue”. But it took only weeks for the original algae to return, and soon the sealant was flaking to the surface in chunks.
And like many of America’s problems in the Trump era, their immediate response was to claim some form of sabotage. Rumors were spread that “Antifa cut the liner”, and dumped chemicals into the pool to encourage algae growth. But the reality of the Reflecting Pool is that it’s a body of water built on swamp land, and ultimately the swamp will have its say.
What’s the answer to the Reflecting Pool problem? It’s going to be swampy, not a “crystal clear swimming pool” of 6.75 million gallons. But even if that water’s murky (after all, look at the Potomac River it comes from) it still can reflect two of America’s greatest monuments. And the more they try to “clean it”, the more the origins of the problem bring it right back to “normal”.
Washington is a city created in compromise. The Reflecting Pool is a pond built on a swamp. America is a series of deals, when all sides have to search for some middle solution. Neither extreme has all of the answers. But today, we are so divided, we can’t even figure out the obvious.
If you pump dirty river water into a pool, it’s going to be a pool of dirty river water. And, sometimes, that needs to be enough.
