“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”— Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 1776
The Dome That Built a State Capital
Stand at the base of Olympia's Legislative Building and look up. The masonry dome soaring 287 feet above you is taller than the United States Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. It's the fourth tallest masonry dome in the world, a monument not just to government but to the ambition of a young state determined to proclaim its permanence.
The story begins not with politicians but with timber baron Ernest Lister, who became governor in 1913 with a singular vision: Washington needed a capitol worthy of its explosive growth. For sixty years, the state had operated out of modest wood-frame buildings that barely conveyed the dignity of statehood. Lister pushed the legislature to fund an ambitious Capitol Campus that would rival any in the nation.
The New York architecture firm Wilder & White won…
1.Olympia's Legislative Building dome is taller than the U.S. Capitol dome and required 6.5 million pounds of steel to construct — it was specifically engineered to withstand earthquakes.
2.Thurston County has 189,843 registered voters out of a population of approximately 294,000 — representing a 64.6% voter registration rate.
3.Washington's 1889 constitution was one of the first state constitutions to guarantee equal rights regardless of sex in property ownership — a right the Founders would have recognized as Natural Law decades before the 19th Amendment.
Stand at the base of Olympia's Legislative Building and look up. The masonry dome soaring 287 feet above you is taller than the United States Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. It's the fourth tallest masonry dome in the world, a monument not just to government but to the ambition of a young state determined to proclaim its permanence.
The story begins not with politicians but with timber baron Ernest Lister, who became governor in 1913 with a singular vision: Washington needed a capitol worthy of its explosive growth. For sixty years, the state had operated out of modest wood-frame buildings that barely conveyed the dignity of statehood. Lister pushed the legislature to fund an ambitious Capitol Campus that would rival any in the nation.
The New York architecture firm Wilder & White won the commission, and their lead architects — Walter Wilder and Harry White — drew inspiration from the great domed capitols of the world. But tragedy struck during construction. The original contractors went bankrupt. Cost overruns threatened to halt the project. Anti-tax sentiment surged among voters who questioned whether a farming and logging state needed such grandeur.
Governor Lister didn't live to see his vision completed — he died in office in 1919. But the work continued through the 1920s under Governor Louis F. Hart, who understood that symbols matter. The Legislative Building's foundation alone required 72 reinforced concrete caissons driven 80 feet into the glacial till beneath Capitol Lake. The dome structure consumed 6.5 million pounds of steel and enough brick to build a solid wall six feet high and four feet thick stretching from Olympia to Seattle.
The building's architect, Ernest Flagg, had survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and designed the structure to withstand seismic forces. The dome sits on a steel framework independent of the building's walls — a technique that allows it to flex during earthquakes. This foresight proved critical during the 1949 and 2001 earthquakes that damaged surrounding structures while leaving the dome intact.
The laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them to a separate and equal station.— Declaration of Independence, 1776
The Founders built the entire American system on one premise: certain principles of right and wrong exist independent of any government. They called it Natural Law — the idea that reason and observation reveal universal rules for human conduct. Just governments don't create rights. They recognize ones that already exist.
•Olympia City Council recently approved $5.8 million in funding for downtown infrastructure improvements, including new sidewalks and stormwater management systems along Capitol Way.
•The Olympia School District Board governs 10,000 students across 18 schools and controls a $180 million annual budget that determines everything from teacher salaries to classroom technology.
•Thurston County Commission manages a $447 million biennial budget covering 911 dispatch, 772 miles of county roads, and emergency services for unincorporated areas across the county's 727 square miles.
“Flora teaches A Virtuous and Moral People — one of the 28 founding principles that shaped America. Every quarter, a new character and principle arrive at your door. Collect all 28 to complete the set.”
The Washington State Archives maintain free public access to historical documents including territorial records, legislative journals, and land claims dating to 1853. Located on the Capitol Campus, the archives offer research assistance and digitized collections exploring Washington's journey from territory to statehood.
Attend the next Olympia City Council meeting on Tuesday, June 3 at 7:00 PM in Council Chambers at City Hall (601 4th Avenue E).
The first patent for a cooling system was filed in 1902. Before that, Congress debated in sweltering heat — and some historians argue shorter sessions made for shorter laws. Your comfort standards didn't exist a century ago.
Scan to learn how building codes became constitutional →
When the Legislative Building opened on January 12, 1928, 25,000 people — nearly triple Olympia's entire population — attended the dedication ceremony. Governor Roland Hartley presided over festivities that lasted three days. Citizens marveled at the bronze doors weighing a ton each, the Tivoli Fountain modeled after one in Copenhagen, and the Sunken Garden inspired by European palace grounds.
But the building's true significance wasn't architectural — it was civic. The vast Rotunda, with its marble columns and brass chandelier weighing five tons, was designed specifically as a gathering place for citizens. The galleries overlooking the House and Senate chambers put ordinary people directly above their representatives, a physical manifestation of popular sovereignty.
The Capitol Campus became the stage for Washington's most defining civic moments. In 1933, unemployed workers gathered on the Legislative Building steps during the Great Depression, demanding relief programs. In 1970, thousands of students protested the Vietnam War beneath the dome. In 1992, the Campus hosted 'Hands Across Washington,' a human chain advocating for education funding. Each generation has claimed this space to petition their government.
Today, the Capitol Campus receives over 900,000 visitors annually. School groups tour the Rotunda, learning how bills become laws. Citizens testify before committees in hearing rooms wired for modern technology but housed in classical architecture. Protesters and advocates still gather on the building's north steps, exercising rights the Founders called inalienable.
The dome's symbolism extends beyond government. Visible from Interstate 5 and throughout Thurston County, it serves as a geographic landmark and psychological anchor. When legislative sessions begin each January, the building's exterior lights illuminate the dome against winter darkness — a beacon reminding residents that self-governance requires their ongoing participation.
The Capitol Campus also houses the State Library, Temple of Justice (home to the Washington Supreme Court), and memorials to veterans of every American conflict since statehood. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 1987, bears the names of 1,124 Washingtonians killed or missing in Southeast Asia. The Winged Victory monument honors World War I service members. These memorials ground abstract civic principles in the concrete sacrifices of real people.
In 2021, the Capitol Campus became the site of intense security measures after the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack raised concerns about state capitols nationwide. Chain-link fencing temporarily surrounded the Legislative Building, creating an unsettling barrier between citizens and their government. The fencing came down after several months, but the episode raised fundamental questions about how democracies balance security with accessibility.
Those questions echo the same tensions the Founders grappled with in 1776. How do free people govern themselves while protecting the institutions of self-rule? The answer Olympia has chosen, renewed with each legislative session, is radical accessibility. Unlike many state capitols, Washington's Legislative Building remains largely open to the public. Citizens can walk the same marble halls as legislators, stand beneath the same dome, and participate in the same democratic process.
As America marks its 250th anniversary, Olympia's Capitol Campus stands as proof that self-governance requires more than documents and declarations. It requires physical spaces where citizens and representatives meet face-to-face. It requires architecture that elevates civic life without separating government from the governed. And it requires each generation to walk through those bronze doors and claim their inheritance.
The dome Walter Wilder and Harry White designed a century ago still dominates the Olympia skyline. It's outlasted the timber economy that funded its construction, survived earthquakes that toppled lesser structures, and witnessed a hundred years of citizens gathering to petition, protest, and participate. Stand at its base, look up at that soaring masonry, and understand: this is what it looks like when a people decide they're not subjects but sovereigns.
Principle of the Quarter
The Founders built the entire American system on one premise: certain principles of right and wrong exist independent of any government. They called it Natural Law — the idea that reason and observation reveal universal rules for human conduct. Just governments don't create rights. They recognize ones that already exist.
Ancient Philosophy: Cicero's De Legibus (c. 52 BC) argued that true law is right reason in agreement with nature, universal and unchanging — an idea that lay dormant for centuries before the Founders revived it. The Founders drew directly from this classical tradition to argue that British law violated a higher standard of justice.
Civil Rights Movement: In his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. distinguished between just laws and unjust laws, citing St. Augustine and Aquinas — invoking the same Natural Law tradition the Founders used. King's argument demonstrated that Natural Law reasoning remained a tool for challenging unjust statutes 187 years after the Declaration.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." — Declaration of Independence, Paragraph 2, 1776
"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature." — Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
This Quarter's Challenge: Name one right you believe exists whether or not any government recognizes it. Where does that right come from?
1. Olympia's Legislative Building dome is taller than the U.S. Capitol dome and required 6.5 million pounds of steel to construct — it was specifically engineered to withstand earthquakes.
2. Thurston County has 189,843 registered voters out of a population of approximately 294,000 — representing a 64.6% voter registration rate.
3. Washington's 1889 constitution was one of the first state constitutions to guarantee equal rights regardless of sex in property ownership — a right the Founders would have recognized as Natural Law decades before the 19th Amendment.
Flora's Story
Flora teaches A Virtuous and Moral People — one of the 28 founding principles that shaped America. Every quarter, a new character and principle arrive at your door. Collect all 28 to complete the set.
The Washington State Archives maintain free public access to historical documents including territorial records, legislative journals, and land claims dating to 1853. Located on the Capitol Campus, the archives offer research assistance and digitized collections exploring Washington's journey from territory to statehood.
City Council: The Olympia City Council consists of seven members elected citywide to staggered four-year terms. The Council meets every first and third Tuesday at 7:00 PM in Council Chambers at City Hall (601 4th Avenue E). The Council sets city policy, approves the biennial budget (currently $250+ million), and enacts local ordinances on everything from land use to business regulations. Citizens may participate in public comment at the beginning of each meeting — speakers typically receive three minutes to address any topic. Recent Council actions include approving affordable housing incentives, updating the comprehensive plan to accommodate growth, and allocating American Rescue Plan funds for community programs.
School Board: The Olympia School District Board governs the district serving approximately 10,000 students across 18 schools with an annual budget of $180 million. Five directors are elected to four-year terms from specific geographic regions within the district. The Board meets the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM at the Lincoln Options Elementary School Board Room (515 Milky Way SE). The Board hires and evaluates the superintendent, approves curriculum, sets academic standards, and makes facilities decisions. Parents and community members may address the Board during public comment periods at the start of meetings — sign-up is typically available online before meetings. The Board recently adopted new equity policies and approved technology upgrades across all district buildings.
County Commission: The Thurston County Board of County Commissioners consists of three members elected countywide to four-year staggered terms. The Commission meets every Tuesday at 2:00 PM in the County Courthouse (2000 Lakeridge Drive SW, Building 1). The Commission oversees a $447 million biennial budget covering unincorporated area services including 772 miles of county roads, planning and zoning, 911 dispatch, the county jail, and public health. Citizens may participate in public comment at each meeting and on specific agenda items. Recent Commission actions include allocating funds for homeless services, updating critical areas ordinances to protect wetlands and salmon habitat, and approving capital projects for emergency radio infrastructure upgrades.
The laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them to a separate and equal station.
— Declaration of Independence, 1776
The Founders built the entire American system on one premise: certain principles of right and wrong exist independent of any government. They called it Natural Law — the idea that reason and observation reveal universal rules for human conduct. Just governments don't create rights. They recognize ones that already exist.
This Quarter's Challenge
Name one right you believe exists whether or not any government recognizes it. Where does that right come from?
The Olympia City Council consists of seven members elected citywide to staggered four-year terms. The Council meets every first and third Tuesday at 7:00 PM in Council Chambers at City Hall (601 4th Avenue E). The Council sets city policy, approves the biennial budget (currently $250+ million), and enacts local ordinances on everything from land use to business regulations. Citizens may participate in public comment at the beginning of each meeting — speakers typically receive three minutes to address any topic. Recent Council actions include approving affordable housing incentives, updating the comprehensive plan to accommodate growth, and allocating American Rescue Plan funds for community programs.
School Board
The Olympia School District Board governs the district serving approximately 10,000 students across 18 schools with an annual budget of $180 million. Five directors are elected to four-year terms from specific geographic regions within the district. The Board meets the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM at the Lincoln Options Elementary School Board Room (515 Milky Way SE). The Board hires and evaluates the superintendent, approves curriculum, sets academic standards, and makes facilities decisions. Parents and community members may address the Board during public comment periods at the start of meetings — sign-up is typically available online before meetings. The Board recently adopted new equity policies and approved technology upgrades across all district buildings.
County Commission
The Thurston County Board of County Commissioners consists of three members elected countywide to four-year staggered terms. The Commission meets every Tuesday at 2:00 PM in the County Courthouse (2000 Lakeridge Drive SW, Building 1). The Commission oversees a $447 million biennial budget covering unincorporated area services including 772 miles of county roads, planning and zoning, 911 dispatch, the county jail, and public health. Citizens may participate in public comment at each meeting and on specific agenda items. Recent Commission actions include allocating funds for homeless services, updating critical areas ordinances to protect wetlands and salmon habitat, and approving capital projects for emergency radio infrastructure upgrades.
Cicero's De Legibus (c. 52 BC) argued that true law is right reason in agreement with nature, universal and unchanging — an idea that lay dormant for centuries before the Founders revived it.
The Founders drew directly from this classical tradition to argue that British law violated a higher standard of justice.
Civil Rights Movement
In his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. distinguished between just laws and unjust laws, citing St. Augustine and Aquinas — invoking the same Natural Law tradition the Founders used.
King's argument demonstrated that Natural Law reasoning remained a tool for challenging unjust statutes 187 years after the Declaration.
The Ninth Amendment protects rights not specifically listed in the Constitution — what the Founders called 'unenumerated rights.' In everyday Olympia life, this means you possess rights beyond those explicitly written in the Bill of Rights. When you make medical decisions for your family, choose where to live and work, decide what to read or study, or determine how to raise your children, you're exercising unenumerated rights the Ninth Amendment acknowledges. At an Olympia City Council meeting, when you speak about neighborhood concerns not covered by any specific constitutional clause, the Ninth Amendment's logic protects your standing to petition government on matters affecting your community. The amendment essentially says: just because a right isn't listed doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't protected.
Your Civic Responsibility
Your civic responsibility is to think seriously about where rights come from and which ones matter most to you. Don't assume that only explicitly stated rights deserve protection. When Olympia debates new ordinances — on housing, business regulations, or public spaces — ask yourself: does this law respect rights that exist independent of government recognition? Support elected officials who understand that government's job is to protect pre-existing rights, not to grant or revoke them at will. Teach your children that rights aren't gifts from government but inherent to human dignity.
Common Misconception
Most people think the Ninth Amendment is just a historical curiosity with no real legal force today. Actually, courts have cited the Ninth Amendment to recognize fundamental rights to privacy, family autonomy, and personal decision-making — rights nowhere mentioned in the Constitution's text but essential to human freedom and dignity.
Attend the next Olympia City Council meeting on Tuesday, June 3 at 7:00 PM in Council Chambers at City Hall (601 4th Avenue E).
Contact
Contact Mayor Cheryl Selby at (360) 753-8244 or cselby@ci.olympia.wa.us to share your priorities for Olympia's future.
Register
Register to vote online at vote.wa.gov or update your registration — Washington offers same-day registration and automatic voter registration through the DMV.
Natural Law Lives in Olympia's Citizen Testimony Tradition
Every Tuesday evening at 7:00 PM in Olympia City Hall, citizens step to the microphone during public comment to speak truths no statute compels the Council to hear. They testify about homelessness, housing costs, neighborhood safety, and environmental protection — subjects often not on the formal agenda. This tradition embodies Natural Law reasoning: citizens possess the inherent right to petition government regardless of what written rules permit. The Olympia City Council didn't invent this right by adopting public comment procedures — they recognized a right that already existed. When Martin Luther King Jr. distinguished just laws from unjust laws in his Birmingham jail cell, he used the same Natural Law framework Olympia residents invoke when they argue that certain community values transcend any particular ordinance. The Founders would recognize these Tuesday night testimonies as precisely what they meant when they wrote that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed — consent expressed not just through voting but through ongoing participation in the reasoning process of self-rule.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature.”
When Edmund Sylvester staked his claim at Budd Inlet in 1846, he acted on a conviction central to Natural Law: individuals possess the right to property independent of government decree. Sylvester arrived before Washington Territory formally existed, before any official authority could grant legal title, yet he believed his labor mixing with the land created a legitimate claim — precisely the argument John Locke made in his Second Treatise of Government, which deeply influenced the American Founders. By 1853, when Washington achieved territorial status with Olympia as capital, local citizens had already organized provisional governments, established property boundaries, and created civic structures without waiting for federal permission. This pattern of self-organization reflected the Founders' Natural Law premise: legitimate authority flows from the consent of the governed, not from government itself. The 1889 Washington State Constitution, drafted in Olympia, enshrined rights to free speech, due process, and equal protection as pre-existing limitations on government power rather than government-granted privileges — the same Natural Law framework underlying the Declaration of Independence 113 years earlier.
Every sponsor on this postcard teaches a civic lesson. Tap any sponsor to read their full story.
Capitol City Legal Group
Legal & Estate Planning
The Fifth Amendment protects your right to pass down what you've built. But before 1789, the government could seize your property without a hearing. Estate planning exercises a freedom that took a revolution to win.
In 1840, America founded the world's first dental school — the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. Colonial Americans had zero dental regulation. Today your {city} dentist meets 47 federal and state standards before touching your teeth.
The first property deed recorded in Okaloosa County dates to 1917 — but the property rights behind it trace to the Magna Carta in 1215. Your home title is backed by 800 years of legal evolution.
The first patent for a cooling system was filed in 1902. Before that, Congress debated in sweltering heat — and some historians argue shorter sessions made for shorter laws. Your comfort standards didn't exist a century ago.
The Founders put the Appropriations Clause in Article I, Section 9 — requiring every dollar of public money to be accounted for. They made transparent bookkeeping a constitutional principle before it was a profession.
America's first speed limit was 12 mph — set in 1901 in Connecticut. Today, 23 federal agencies regulate your vehicle before it leaves the lot. How did we get from horse trails to highway law in one century?
Benjamin Franklin started America's first insurance company in 1752 — the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire. The man who helped write the Declaration also invented your homeowner's policy.
The first federal food safety law wasn't passed until 1906 — after Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle horrified the nation. For America's first 130 years, nobody regulated what you ate. Today there are 43 federal food safety codes.
The Founders had working animals, not "fur babies." The first animal cruelty law in America wasn't passed until 1866. Pet ownership law is entirely a modern invention — and it's more complex than most people think.
George Washington made his troops exercise daily at Valley Forge — not for fitness, but for discipline. The idea that citizens have a right to personal wellness didn't enter American law until the 20th century.
The right to choose your own healthcare provider wasn't guaranteed until the 14th Amendment was tested in court. For most of American history, the government could decide who treated you and how.
Your property rights are older than the Constitution itself — John Locke argued in 1689 that ownership begins the moment you mix your labor with the land. But HOA rules, zoning laws, and permit codes? Those came later.
The first building code in America was passed in 1625 in New Amsterdam — it required every house to have a fire bucket. Four hundred years later, Florida's building code is 9,000 pages. The principle is the same: protect thy neighbor.
The Constitution says nothing about retirement. Social Security didn't exist until 1935. For America's first 159 years, "growing old with dignity" was a family matter, not a federal promise. How did that change?
Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson fought bitterly over whether America should even have a national bank. Hamilton won — temporarily. The bank was created, killed, recreated, and killed again before the Federal Reserve settled it in 1913.
Cosmetology licensing didn't exist in America until 1927. Before that, anyone could hang a sign and call themselves a barber — no training, no standards, no inspections. Today your stylist holds a state-regulated professional license.
The first U.S. Pharmacopeia was published in 1820 — a book of drug standards written because nobody could agree on what was actually medicine and what was snake oil. It took America 44 years to start regulating what you swallow.
Thomas Jefferson proposed free public education in 1779. It took almost a century for every state to agree. The Founders believed self-government was impossible without an educated citizenry — and they put their money where their mouth was.
The Environmental Protection Agency didn't exist until 1970. For nearly 200 years, there were no federal rules about what chemicals could be used in American homes. The cleaning products under your sink are more regulated than colonial gunpowder.
The Founders protected creative work in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution — the Copyright Clause. It's one of only two individual rights written into the original document before the Bill of Rights existed.
