<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Act to allow the capital to encompass areas to the south of the Eastern Branch, including Alexandria, Virginia (1791), ch. 17, 1 Stat. 214 Act to retrocede Alexandria County, D.C. to the State of Virginia (1846), ch. 35, 9 Stat. 35 </Td> </Tr> <P> The Residence Act of 1790, officially titled An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States (1 Stat. 130), was a United States federal statute adopted during the second session of the First United States Congress, and signed into law by President George Washington on July 16, 1790 . The Act provided for a national capital and permanent seat of government to be established at a site along the Potomac River and empowered President Washington to appoint commissioners to oversee the project . It also set a deadline of December 1800 for the capital to be ready, and designated Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the nation's temporary capital while the new seat of government was being built . At the time, the federal government was operating out of New York City . </P> <P> Congress passed the Residence Act as part of a compromise brokered between James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton . Madison and Jefferson favored a southerly site for the capital on the Potomac River, but they lacked a majority to pass the measure through Congress . Meanwhile, Hamilton was pushing for Congress to pass the Assumption Bill, to allow the Federal government to assume debts accumulated by the states during the American Revolutionary War . With the compromise, Hamilton was able to muster support from the New York State congressional delegation for the Potomac site, while four delegates (all from districts bordering the Potomac) switched from opposition to support for the Assumption Bill . </P> <P> At the outset of the Revolutionary War, the Second Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania State House . On account of British military actions, the Congress was forced to relocate to Baltimore, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and then York, Pennsylvania for a time before returning to Philadelphia . Upon gaining independence, the Congress of the Confederation was formed, and Philadelphia became the new nation's first seat of government . Congress did not remain in the city long however, for in June 1783, a mob of angry soldiers converged upon Independence Hall demanding payment for their service during the war . Congress requested that John Dickinson, the governor of Pennsylvania, call up the militia to defend Congress from attacks by the protesters . In what became known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Dickinson sympathized with the protesters and refused to remove them from Philadelphia . As a result, Congress was forced to flee to Princeton, New Jersey on June 21, 1783, and met in Annapolis and then Trenton, before ending up in New York . </P>

The site of our nation's capital was the result of a deal regarding the