No report seems to have been made in the Senate. A vault, however, appears to have been prepared for the remains beneath the center of the dome and rotunda of the Capitol and beneath the floor of its crypt.
Again did Congress fail to take steps to carry out its deliberate action to build a monument to Washington. In 1819, Mr. Goldsborough, in the Senate, moved a resolution to erect an equestrian statue to General Washington, which passed July 19th. The resolution was read twice in the House, referred to Committee of the Whole, and was indefinitely postponed.
On the 15th of January, 1824, Mr. James Buchanan, then a member of the House of Representatives, and later President of the United States, offered to that body the following resolution:
"Resolved, That a committee be appointed whose duty it shall be to inquire in what manner the resolution of Congress, passed on the 24th of December, 1799, relative to the erection of a marble monument in the Capitol, at the City of Washington, to commemorate the great events of the military and political life of General Washington may be best accomplished, and that they have leave to report by bill or otherwise."
This resolution, after some discussion, was laid on the table. The hour was not propitious, and honor to the memory of Washington was again deferred.
In his first annual message to Congress, dated December 6, 1825, the President, John Quincy Adams, invited the attention of Congress to its unfulfilled pledge in the following language:
"On the 24th of December, 1799, it was resolved by Congress that a marble monument should be erected by the United States in the Capitol, at the City of Washington; that the family of General Washington should be requested to permit his body to be deposited under it, and that the monument be so designed as to commemorate the great events of his military and political life. In reminding Congress of this resolution, and that the monument contemplated by it remains yet without execution, I shall indulge only the remarks that the works at the Capitol are approaching completion; that the consent of the family, desired by the resolution, was requested and obtained; that a monument has been recently erected in this city over the remains of another distinguished patriot of the Revolution, and that a spot has been reserved within the walls where you are deliberating for the benefit of this and future ages, in which the mortal remains may be deposited of him whose spirit hovers over you and listens with delight to every act of the Representatives of this Nation which can tend to exalt and adorn his and their country."
But this reminder of the President's went unheeded by the Congress to which it was addressed.
Several years now elapsed before the question again arose in Congress of a monument to the memory of Washington. On the 13th of February, 1832, a report was made to the Senate of the United States by Henry Clay, and to the House of Representatives by Mr. Philemon Thomas, chairmen, respectively, of committees to make arrangements for celebrating the approaching centennial anniversary of Washington's birthday. One of the resolutions authorized the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives "to make application to John A. Washington, of Mount Vernon, for the body of George Washington, to be removed and deposited in the Capitol at Washington City, in conformity with the resolutions of Congress of the 24th of December, 1799, and that if they obtain the requisite consent to the removal thereof they be further authorized to cause it to be removed and deposited in the Capitol on the 22d day of February, 1832."
It will be noted that this resolution does not suggest any connection between the removal of the remains and their being deposited under a monument, as proposed by the resolution of 1799. At this time, one of the standing committees of the House of Representatives, as it appears, had under consideration the erection of a marble statue of Washington, to be executed by Mr. Horatio Greenough, and which it was proposed to place in the centre of the rotunda of the Capitol. The resolution providing for this statue had been introduced into the House of Representatives in 1830.