It being understood that plans were suggested in some quarters looking to a demolition of the uncompleted Monument, and the, use of the materials of it in the construction of a different style of monument to Washington, at a meeting of the Society on March 30, 1876, among other things, it was resolved "that all idea of surrendering the character of the Monument or allowing the structure, as far as completed, to be taken down, should be positively and emphatically disavowed."
In view of the resolution of the Senate of February 6th, the chairman of its Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds received plans for changing the Monument to a Lombard Tower, and for erecting an arch of its materials. Bat the committee made no report.
ACT OF AUGUST 2, 1876.
On the 5th of July, 1876, Hon. John Sherman, of Ohio, offered in the Senate a joint resolution declaring, after an appropriate preamble, that the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, "in the name of the people of the United States, at the beginning of the second century of the national existence, do assume and direct the completion of the Washington Monument, in the City of Washington." This resolution was unanimously adopted in both Houses of Congress.
On July 22d, the Senate passed a bill appropriating $100,000, "to continue the construction of the Washington Monument in the City of Washington."
In the debate in the Senate there was some criticism of the design of the Monument as an obelisk, and preference was expressed for some other form of Monument.
It was said by Senator Bayard:
"I do not believe that the impression we desire to produce upon them (the people) will in any degree be assisted by the continuance of such a blot upon architecture, as I must consider this obelisk which stands here half-shorn of its height."
It was remarked by Mr. Sherman:
"I think it is the misfortune now of this Washington Monument that it has been talked of in Congress for one hundred years. We have made promise after promise, and the very moment we come to do anything like the execution of the promise we are met by these delays."