New York City served as the first U.S. national capital under the Constitution. The federal government began operating there in 1789, when George Washington was inaugurated as the first president.
Federal Hall on Wall Street was the site of Washington’s inauguration and the first meeting place of the new Congress under the Constitution. New York’s role was brief: the national government moved to Philadelphia in 1790 and then to Washington, D.C., in 1800.
Philadelphia had been an important revolutionary and early national center, but it was not the first capital under the Constitution. It served as the temporary capital after the move from New York. Washington, D.C., became the permanent capital after the federal district was established along the Potomac River.
The sequence matters when comparing the Revolution with the later federal government. The Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776, while the Constitution created the current federal system in 1787. America250 commemorates the earlier independence milestone, but its historical story includes the institutions that followed.