The Treaty of Paris is Ratified

Washington’s resignation was far from the only significant event to occur while Congress was in session in the Old Senate Chamber. On January 14, 1784, the Treaty of Paris was ratified, officially ending the American Revolution and making the Maryland State House the first official peacetime capitol of the United States.

An excerpt from the Treaty of Paris, 1783. Image courtesy of International Treaties and Related Records, General Records of the United States Government, Record Group 11, National Archives.

Negotiations for peace began as early as April 1782, but it wasn't until September 3, 1783 that British and American delegates signed the final draft in France. In order for the treaty to officially take effect, it had to be ratified by Congress within six months. Congress immediately called its delegates to meet in Annapolis that November to approve the treaty.

“The Prettyest in America:” Accounts of the OSC

Much like their accounts of the city discussed in last week's blog post, delegates of Congress had much to say about their new seat at the Maryland State House. Due to a lack of surviving pictorial evidence from the eighteenth century, these descriptions serve as valuable evidence for determining the appearance of the Old Senate Chamber in 1783.

Opinions on the State House were generally favorable, even from those delegates who were unimpressed with the entertainments of Annapolis. David Howell of Rhode Island, who looked unfavorably on the lack of a church in the city, said of the State House, “The State House & the House assigned for the President are spacious & eligantly finished, far exceeding those buildings in Philadelphia.”[1] Charles DeWitt, a delegate from New York, similarly described the State House in a letter to his son as, “the most superb, it is thought, in any of the United States.”[2]

Conceptual sketch of the State House c.1859. Drawn by Elizabeth Ridout, 1954, Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1444-01-20.

Annapolis: A “School of Idleness"

Though Congress had opened session on November 26, 1783, very little was getting accomplished. Not enough delegates had arrived to reach even the minimum amount required to vote and pass legislature. In fact, on the day of Washington’s resignation, the Journals of Congress noted that only seven states were represented, and “most only by two delegates.”[1] Without nine states, legislation could not be passed, and with delegates arriving and leaving, the issue of representation was a reoccuring problem. In a letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson’s frustration was evident as even Maryland delegates at times failed to show up in their own state capitol: “We have eight states only and seven of these represented by two members... the other absent states are N. York, Maryland and Georgia. We have done nothing and can do nothing in this condition but waste our time, temper, and spirits in debating things for days or weeks and then losing them by the negative of one or two individuals.”[2]

With little business in Congress taking place, delegates occupied their time in other ways in their new city. Annapolis, in its heyday, elicited a diversity of opinions from the delegates.

Captaine Michel du Chesnoy's 1781 map of Annapolis, known as "The Frenchman's Map." Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1427-1-7.

Congress Arrives in Annapolis

On this day, two hundred and thirty years ago, Congress officially arrived in Annapolis to begin holding sessions in the Maryland State House’s Old Senate Chamber. Though it would take several more weeks for enough delegates to trickle into Annapolis to officially meet the quorum, November 26, 1783 marked the beginning of a congressional session that would witness the resignation of George Washington, the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, and the appointment of Thomas Jefferson as foreign minister. The next nine months would not only set the course for America’s future, but also mark the Maryland State House as the nation’s first peacetime capitol and the only state house to ever serve as the nation’s capitol.

Portrait of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, one of Maryland's signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Senate President in 1783. Painted by Thomas Sully, 1834, Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 1545-1114.

On October 1781, the British surrendered at Yorktown, but the struggles of establishing a strong government to run the new country were just beginning. The Continental Congress faced staggering war debts and soldiers demanding pensions that the government couldn’t afford to pay, causing civil unrest and dramatic inflation. In June 1783, riots in Philadelphia threatened the safety of the delegates, then meeting in Independence Hall, and Congress relocated to Princeton, New Jersey in the first of a series of congressional venues between 1783 and 1787.

Lost Relics

WANTED:

c. 1892-1893
Taken from the Detroit Publishing Company Photographic Collection
Courtesy of the Library of Congress det 4a15044 LC-D4-21356

This photograph is one of the most significant archival findings related to the late 18th century appearance of the Old Senate Chamber. Found under the heading, "213356, Relics in Museum, U.S. Naval Academy," in the Library of Congress' collection of Maryland photographs, this image depicts fragments of architectural elements from the Old Senate Chamber. Without the keen eye of a past intern, this photograph would have gone unnoticed in the extensive archives of the Library of Congress. 

At first glance this scene looks like a haphazard display of archaic relics; however, enlarging the photograph reveals a label affixed to the fragment on the right. It reads:

 "A portion of the ____back [?] of the Gallery [or balcony] of the Senate Chamber in the State House at Annapolis, Maryland where General Washington surrendered to Congress his Commission as Commander...of the American Army. December 23, 1783."