Federal Hall — the marble temple with the bronze Washington standing out on the steps.
Two things about it. Washington was inaugurated President of the United States on this spot. And this is not the building.
The actual Federal Hall stood on this ground. The first Congress sat in it, the Bill of Rights was written in it, and the federal government of the United States opened for business in it. It was pulled down in eighteen twelve and sold off for scrap. The city got four hundred and twenty-five dollars for it.
What replaced it, thirty years later, was a customs house. The birthplace of American government was demolished and paved over by the tax system Hamilton designed to pay for it.
The inauguration. April thirtieth, seventeen eighty-nine. Washington came out onto the balcony above a packed street, put his hand out to take the oath — and nobody had brought a Bible.
Not one person, at the founding of the executive branch of the United States, had thought about the book.
So so
mebody sprinted around the corner to the Masonic lodge on Broad Street and borrowed theirs. That Bible still exists. It has been carried back out for presidential inaugurations ever since. A section of the original balcony floor is inside this building right now — the actual stone he stood on.
Four months later, in this same building, Congress created the Treasury Department, and Washington hande
