Philadelphia served as the temporary U.S. capital under the Residence Act of 1790.
President George Washington signed the Residence Act on July 16, 1790. The law selected a site along the Potomac River for a permanent national capital and set December 1800 as the deadline for the federal government to move there. While construction proceeded, Philadelphia was designated the temporary seat of government.
The law emerged from the Compromise of 1790, an agreement associated with James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Southern legislators supported federal assumption of state Revolutionary War debts, while northern legislators accepted the Potomac location for the capital. The compromise helped resolve two major disputes facing the first Congress.
The federal government had previously operated from New York City. Congress reconvened in Philadelphia on December 6, 1790, and met there at Congress Hall. Washington, D.C., became the permanent national capital in 1800, although the District’s boundaries, administration, and relationship with neighboring Maryland and Virginia changed over time.