Why did it take so long for that work to begin?

Well, actually, the Continental Congress in 1783, the year the Revolution ended, Continental Congress passed a bill to erect an equestrian statue of George Washington in what would be the national city, which became Washington, DC.

Well, having passed the bill, they then did absolutely nothing about it.

Of course, in 1783, the United States was completely and utterly broke.

They couldn't pay interest on the debt, let alone fund the erection of a statue.

And so more or less nothing happened.

I believe in the 1820s that some place in Maryland built a Washington Monument, which is the, is still there And then only in the 1830s did a organization become formed, the Washington National Monument Society, and they were supposed to raise money privately in order to erect a statue or erect a monument to him.

Talk to me a little bit about what that significance is.

Can you talk a little bit about Robert Morris and the role that he played in helping America, helping the young, the Revolutionary Army fight the war against Britain, that it was, that it was d- barely hanging on to, to be able to prosecute?

Yeah, Robert Morris was a very successful Philadelphia merchant, lived in the state in a large house, and he was very creative financially, and he was known as the financier of the Revolution.

But how he did it is, to some extent, "Don't ask.

Here's the money." And he was, he was a brilliant man, but we still were, the Continental Army was just barely hanging on.

General Jedediah Huntington described the soldiers at Valley Forge as being barefooted, bare legged, and for the most part, bare-assed.

And, and Morris was able to do things, but it was only after the British had effectively lost the war, when the Battle of Yorktown had- And they were forced to surrender, and the British were faced with either throwing in the towel or raising a whole new army.

And that was not possible politically in Britain.

How did that economy function in the pre-revolutionary period without a banking system? And, and when we saw the creation of a banking system to serve that economy, what was the result in terms of economic growth after that, in, after that period?