We recall but two or three citizens of Washington who have spent their money on the spot where they have made it. Corcoran was the most generous; he erected a museum of art, and Government has made it a Commissary depot! But how few of the illustrious Senators, Chief Justices, Generals, etc., who draw their sustenance from the Capital, care a penny to decorate it? Compare the home of Governor Sprague on 6th Street, to his splendid mansion at Providence, or the Club House of the Secretary of State, to his place at Auburn. Washington has power, but it cannot attract. It is the solitary monarch, at whose feet all kneel, but by none beloved. Strangers repair to it, grow rich, and quit it with their earnings. Government works nobly to imitate the Palaces of the Cæsars, and the public edifices leave our municipal structures far beneath, but these marble and granite piles seem to mock the littleness of individual ambition. Two hotels have been built during the war, both of the caravansary class, but the city, for four years, has been miserably incompetent to entertain its guests, or to command their respect.
Washington, to be a city, lacks three elements--commerce, representation, health; the environs are picturesque, and the new forts on the hill-tops little injure the landscape.
But the question is not premature, whether Washington city will ever answer the purposes of a stable seat of government, and reflect the enterprise, patriotism, and taste of the American people.
I have sometimes thought that these huge public buildings,--now inadequate to accommodate the machinery of the Government,--would, at some future day, be the nucleus of a great _lycee_, and that Washington would become the Padua of the Republic, its University and Louvre, while legislation and administration, despairing of giving dignity to the place, would depart for a more congenial locality.
At any rate, the old Federal theory of a sylvan seat of government has failed.
For a sequestered and virtuous retreat of legislation, we have corruption augmented by dirt, and business stagnation aggravated by disease. There are virtues in the town; but these must be searched for, and the vices are obvious.
I commence my account on the battle-field, but must soon make the long and lonely ride to Humphrey's Station, where I shall continue it.