appears to have been prepared for the remains beneath the center of the dome and rotunda of the Capitol and beneath the floor of its crypt.

Again did Congress fail to take steps to carry out its deliberate action to build a monument to Washington. In 1819, Mr. Goldsborough, in the Senate, moved a resolution to erect an equestrian statue to General Washington, which passed July 19th. The resolution was read twice in the House, referred to Committee of the Whole, and was indefinitely postponed.

On the 15th of January, 1824, Mr. James Buchanan, then a member of the House of Representatives, and later President of the United States, offered to that body the following resolution:

"Resolved, That a committee be appointed whose duty it shall be to inquire in what manner the resolution of Congress, passed on the 24th of December, 1799, relative to the erection of a marble monument in the Capitol, at the City of Washington, to commemorate the great events of the military and political life of General Washington may be best accomplished, and that they have leave to report by bill or otherwise."

This resolution, after some discussion, was laid on the table. The hour was not propitious, and honor to the memory of Washington was again deferred.

In his first annual message to Congress, dated December 6, 1825, the President, John Quincy Adams, invited the attention of Congress to its unfulfilled pledge in the following language:

"On the 24th of December, 1799, it was resolved by Congress that a marble monument should be erected by the United States in the Capitol, at the City of Washington; that the family of General Washington should be requested to permit his body to be deposited under it, and that the monument be so designed as to commemorate the great events of his military and political life. In reminding Congress of this resolution, and that the monument contemplated by it remains yet without execution, I shall indulge only the remarks that the works at the Capitol are approaching completion; that the consent of the family, desired by the resolution, was requested and obtained; that a monument has been recently erected in this city over the remains of another distinguished patriot of the Revolution, and that a spot has been reserved within the walls where you are deliberating for the benefit of this and future ages, in which the mortal remains may be deposited of him whose spirit hovers over you and listens with delight to every act of the Representatives of this Nation which can tend to exalt and adorn his and their country."

But this reminder of the President's went unheeded by the Congress to which it was addressed.

Several years now elapsed before the question again arose in Congress of a monument to the memory of Washington. On the 13th of February, 1832, a report was made to the Senate of the United States by Henry Clay, and to the House of Representatives by Mr. Philemon Thomas, chairmen, respectively, of committees to make arrangements for celebrating the approaching centennial anniversary of Washington's birthday. One of the resolutions authorized the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives "to make application to John A. Washington, of Mount Vernon, for the body of George Washington, to be removed and deposited in the Capitol at Washington City, in conformity with the resolutions of Congress of the 24th of December, 1799, and that if they obtain the requisite consent to the removal thereof they be further authorized to cause it to be removed and deposited in the Capitol on the 22d day of February, 1832."

It will be noted that this resolution does not suggest any connection between the removal of the remains and their being deposited under a monument, as proposed by the resolution of 1799. At this time, one of the standing committees of the House of Representatives, as it appears, had under consideration the erection of a marble statue of Washington, to be executed by Mr. Horatio Greenough, and which it was proposed to place in the centre of the rotunda of the Capitol. The resolution providing for this statue had been introduced into the House of Representatives in 1830.

Upon the submission of the select committee's resolutions for the removal of Washington's remains discussion arose. From a remark by Mr. Clay, the purpose seems to have been to place the remains in the vault under the center of the rotunda, which had been suggested on a former occasion by President Adams, in 1825.

The two Senators and some of the Representatives from Virginia opposed the removal of the remains of Washington from Mount Vernon. In the discussion Senator Tazewell referred to the application by Virginia in 1816 for the removal of the remains of Washington to Richmond, to be there deposited under a suitable monument. He remarked that Judge Washington replied that "it was impossible for him consent to the removal unless the remains of one of those dear relations accompanied the body."

"Are the remains," asked Mr. Tazewell, "of the husband to be removed from the side of the wife? In their lives they lived happily together, and I never will consent to divide them in death."

This thought appears to have made so strong an impression on Congress that the resolution was altered so as to ask the consent of Mr. John A. Washington and that of Mr. George Washington P. Custis, the grandson of Mrs. Martha Washington, for the removal and depositing in the Capitol at Washington City of her remains at the same time with those of her late consort, George Washington.

In response to the purpose of the resolution, Mr. John A. Washington felt constrained to withhold his consent by the fact that General Washington's will, in respect to the disposition of his remains, had been recently carried into full effect. Mr. Custis, however, took a different view of that clause in the will, and gave his "most hearty consent to the removal of the remains after the manner proposed," and congratulated "the Government upon the approaching consummation of a great act of national gratitude."

In the debate in the House of Representatives on the resolution and accompanying report, Mr. Doddridge, of Virginia, remarked that he was a member of the State's legislature when the transaction by it took place in 1816, and "he felt entirely satisfied that the resolution for removing the remains to Richmond would never have passed the Assembly of Virginia but for the loss of all hope that Congress would act in the matter."

Mr. Duffie opposed the removal of the remains, saying: "As to a monument, rear it; spend upon it what you will; make it durable as the pyramids, eternal as the mountains; you shall have my co-operation. Erect, if you please, a mausoleum to the memory of Washington in the Capitol, and let it be as splendid as art can make it."

The refusal of Mr. John A. Washington to permit the removal of the remains of Washington seems to have prompted Mr. Clay to urge the adoption of the pending resolution to erect a statue of Washington at the Capitol. "An image," he said, "a testimonial of this great man, the Father of his Country, should exist in every part of the Union as a memorial of his patriotism and of the services rendered his country; but of all places, it was required in this Capitol, the center of the Union, the offspring, the creation, of his mind and of his labors."

The resolution for the statue of Washington by Greenough was adopted, and it was ordered. The statue was made and was placed in the rotunda in 1841, but subsequently removed into the east park of the Capitol, where it now rests.

In 1853, Congress appropriated $50,000 for the erection of an equestrian statue of George Washington by Clark