President George Washington granted the government of the District of Columbia the power to regulate architectural design and urban planning. These powers were suspended by President James Monroe in 1822. In the wake of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the Cosmos Club and American Institute of Architects formed the Public Art League, a new organization whose purpose was to lobby for a new agency of the federal government to approve the design or purchase of art and architecture by the federal government. Legislation was proposed in Congress in 1897, but failed to pass because members of Congress wanted an advisory board rather than one which could deny Congress the ability to award commissions as part of the spoils system.