Congress Hall: Where Two Presidents Took the Oath

Why is it significant?

Stand on the corner of Sixth and Chestnut Streets facing Congress Hall, a handsome two-story red-brick building with dark green shutters.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand on the corner of Sixth and Chestnut Streets facing Congress Hall, a handsome two-story red-brick building with dark green shutters. When Philadelphia served as the temporary capital of the young republic from seventeen ninety to eighteen hundred, this very building was the legislative heartbeat of America.

Inside on the second floor sat the United States Senate, where twenty-six senators gathered in a plush carpeted chamber beneath a frescoed plaster ceiling displaying an American eagle. On the ground floor met the House of Representatives, filled with intense oratorical clashes between Alexander Hamilton's Federalists and Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans.

Here in seventeen ninety-three, George Washington took his second oath of office, delivering the shortest inaugural address in presidential history at just one hundred and thirty-five words. Four years later, John Adams was inaugurated here in the first peaceful, democratic transfer of executive power between two different presidents in modern history.

Walk east along Chestnut Street toward the hidden brick courtyard of Franklin Court.