The seemingly tiny against the backdrop of skyscrapers building adorned with classic marble portico - a historical relic of Wall Street. Federal Hall - it embodied the history of the United States.

In 1700, City Hall was built in New York, and in 1735 the building hosted the trial, the results of which have influenced the US Constitution. Judged publisher John Peter Zenger, who in his newspaper "The New York Weekly 'sharply criticized the British Governor (it was before independence). Zenger was accused of slander, publisher maintained that he adhered strictly to the facts. The prosecution argued that the publication of unsavory facts about the activity of the royal official is itself a slander. But the jury acquitted Zenger. It is believed that the process laid the foundations of a free press.

In 1765, delegates of the nine British colonies met in this building to make demands of the colonies to King George III. Here, from 1785 to 1789 met newly formed Congress of the United States, where the decision was taken for admission into the new territory of the future state of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.

In 1788 the building was rebuilt architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant - later it was he who designed the new country's capital on the Potomac. The renovated building was named Federal Hall, there sat the first Congress of the United States. Here in 1789 the inauguration of the first president, George Washington. Finally, there was adopted the Bill of Rights - the first ten amendments to the Constitution, guarantee the freedom of Americans and limit the power of the state. The most famous of them - the First Amendment, which prohibits restrictions on freedom of speech and people's right to peaceful gathering and the second, which asserts the right of Americans to bear arms.

After the capital moved to Philadelphia in 1812, the building was demolished in 1842 but rebuilt. Customs placed here, then the Treasury (cellars Federal Hall then kept gold and silver). In 1920, across from the terrorists detonated explosives stuffed with tram car - killing 38 people. Powerful explosion did not hurt standing in front of a bronze statue of George Washington by sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward.

Now the building is a National Memorial, dedicated to the events that took place at Federal Hall. Here you can see that same Bible on which the oath brought the first US president George Washington. A separate exposition tells of the trial of John Peter Zenger publisher - court, which began with the public burning of newspaper circulation, and ended with the decision of the jury that in America the press is free.