The decade during which Philadelphia served as the capital was a formative period for our new Government. In foreign relations, the Citizen Genêt affair and other repercussions of the French Revolution, which brought near-hostilities with France, ended the historic Franco-American Alliance of 1778. It is impossible to list all the great events which occurred during that period, but among them must be mentioned the inauguration of Washington for his second term in the Senate Chamber on March 4, 1793. At the same time John Adams assumed the Presidency of the Senate. Washington delivered his last formal message before Congress, prior to retiring, in the chamber of the House of Representatives on December 7, 1796. It is this message which some have confused with Washington’s famous Farewell Address. It was in Congress Hall that the first 10 amendments—the Bill of Rights—were formally added to the Constitution. It was here also that the First Bank of the United States and the Mint were established as part of the comprehensive program developed by Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, to rectify the disordered state of Government finances. Here, too, Jay’s Treaty with England was debated and ratified; Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee were admitted into the Union; and the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed. And it was here that the Federal Government successfully weathered an internal threat to its authority—the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794. [Illustration: _Congress Hall (looking west along Chestnut Street) near the turn of the century when Philadelphia ceased to be the capital city and the building reverted to use as a county courthouse. In right foreground is old Chestnut Street Theater._ Engraving by William Birch, 1799. Courtesy Philadelphia Free Library.] [Illustration: _“The Artist in his Museum.” In 1802, Charles Willson Peale obtained permission to use the second floor of Independence Hall for his museum. This scene shows the “long room” as a museum and gallery._ Courtesy Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.] In the chamber of the House of Representatives, John Adams was inaugurated as second President of the United States on March 4, 1797. Two years later, official news of the death of Washington was received here by Congress, at which time John Marshall introduced Henry (“Light-Horse Harry”) Lee’s famous words: “First in War, First in Peace, First in the Hearts of his Countrymen.” _After 1800_ With the turn of the century, Philadelphia ceased to be a capital city. In 1800, the Federal Government moved to Washington. During the previous year, the State Government had moved first to Lancaster and later to Harrisburg. Congress Hall and the Supreme Court building reverted to the uses for which they were originally intended—a county courthouse and a city hall. The State House became an empty building, used apparently only at elections.