City On A Hill

Since the founding of the United States, nine cities have hosted our Congress and served as our nation’s capital. The list includes Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Annapolis, Trenton, New York City, and finally Washington, DC. Our seat of government moved both to escape British invaders and at least once to avoid angry American troops demanding to be paid.

Following the adoption of our Constitution in 1789, the District of Columbia was designated as the site of our permanent national capital. Construction of the US Capitol Building began in 1793 atop Jenkins’ Hill, now referred to as “Capitol Hill.” Since then many additional buildings have been constructed around this site to serve Congress and the Supreme Court.

The location of the US Capitol Building was selected by the designer of our federal city, Pierre L'Enfant, and approved by President George Washington during a visit to the site in 1791. L'Enfant wrote that he thought the position selected for the building was like “a pedestal waiting for a monument.” And what a monument it has become!

President Washington laid the cornerstone of the building on September 18, 1793, with Masonic ceremonies. Its construction was a long, laborious process which was interrupted when the British set fire to the building during the War of 1812. After several repairs, modifications, and extensions under a series of architects, the building was more or less completed in 1863 when the Statue of Freedom was put in place atop the dome. In a sense, however, the building’s construction, modification, and repair have been part of a nearly continuous process which is still going on to this day.

Who can view this magnificent structure without thinking of what it symbolizes to America and to the world? In the words which John Winthrop borrowed from the Sermon on the Mount, it is our shining City on a Hill:

For we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world, we shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the way of God and all professors for God’s sake; we shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into Curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whether we are going.

Every year on the Fourth of July, Americans celebrate our favorite Independence Day tradition with a wonderful concert in front of the US Capitol. Known as “A Capitol Fourth”, it features performances from military bands and some of the country’s best-known musical acts and the greatest display of fireworks anywhere in the nation. On this day in this shining City on a Hill, we celebrate our national independence and give thanks to God that He has so blessed us and has allowed us to become a light unto the nations of the world.

From Chapter 10 of No More Patriots
Copyright © 2015 by Howard T. Uhal
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