2026-06-27
43 分钟The Economist.
The plain fact is that crossing the immense expanse of the country we've just seen,
doing it so quickly and in wintertime, was not a practical enterprise.
But we were right to do it since we succeeded.
That's the moral of the story.
Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont arrived in Washington in early 1832. Their journey there,
across the south, had taken two months.
Their bad luck with broken carriages, frozen rivers
and bridges swept away meant they had to hurry north to make it in time.
They were eager to catch Congress while it was still in session.
What they found in the capital was a city that didn't seem to be finished yet.
Pennsylvania Avenue was the only significant thoroughfare.
It turned to a quagmire in wet weather and was cloaked in a haze of blinding dust when it was dry.
Buildings were separated by miles of cow pastures.
It became known as the City of Magnificent Distances.
Washington presents the image of an arid plain scorched by the sun,
on which scattered here and there are two or three sumptuous edifices and five or six villages that constitute the city.
The city was designed with the ideals of the Republic in mind.
The Parliament was built at the highest point, where in Europe a palace would have stood.
But the Founding Fathers' vision for the capital hadn't quite materialised.