Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/726123
not recorded as pictures or engravings. He established an early standard for the hierarchy and decoration of an important federal building, which included no small degree of iconographic representation, including a sunburst pedi- ment. L'Enfant planned for a Statue of Liberty to be placed behind the Speaker's chair in Federal Hall but there is no record that this occurred. 4 Only two sessions of Congress met in Federal Hall, but the important Residence Act of 1790 was passed here, creat- ing the District of Columbia. The third session of Congress met at Congress Hall, Philadelphia, in December 1790, and would remain there until the removal of the government to Washington, DC, in 1800. The Residence Act gave the president unprecedented oversight over every aspect of the relocation of the capital, and in early 1791 George Washington asked L'Enfant to design the new federal city. L'Enfant developed a plan of radiating avenues connecting salient higher elevations inter- woven with a grid of smaller streets (fig. 3). By these formal devices the plan emphasized a hierarchical and symbolic expression of the new government, particularly of the rela- 4 THE CAPITOL DOME Fig. 2. Cartoon showing American Indian maiden Liberty embracing Britannia (ca. 1780-83), by Thomas Cooley PRINTS DEPT., BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Fig. 3. Capitol Hill (detail of map by Samuel Hill, 1792) CARTOGRAPHY DIVISION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS