First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

by Thomas E. Ricks

Washington personally selected the site of the White House.22 Under Jefferson’s influence, the major buildings of the new capital would display Roman stylings, shimmering white under the southern sun. “The Federal City on the Potomac . . . was one of Thomas Jefferson’s dearest undertakings,” write Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick. “He subsequently gave more of his time, energy, and thought to that problem than did any other officer of the state.”23 As secretary of state, he conceived of a competition to design a building for the Congress. He decided that it would be called not “The Congress House,” as originally listed, but the Capitol, a nod to ancient history. This building, home to both houses of the federal legislature, would dominate Washington, DC, just as the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill had been the most prominent religious building in ancient Rome. The upper house was already called the Senate, after the Roman example. The winning design—classical, as might be expected—was submitted by William Thornton, who had trained as a physician at the University of Edinburgh and later received a degree from the University of Aberdeen.