The ghosts of the Founding Fathers hover around the Capital. And so it seemed that Thomas Paine sat near this young woman, reiterating one of his more memorable laments: “When it shall be said . . . my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners; my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend . . . When these things can be said, then may that country boast its Constitution and its Government.”