Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The District of Columbia

Episode Date: July 4, 2021

From the very founding of the United States, there was a debate that took place amongst the representatives from the 13 states. Where should be the capital of the new country be located? A compromise was eventually reached where the states of Maryland and Virginia would donate a total of 100 square miles of land along the Potomac River for the new Federal Capital. Learn more about Washington DC, its past, present, and possible future, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the very founding of the United States, there was a debate that took place amongst the representatives from the 13 states. Where should the capital of the new country be located? A compromise was eventually reached where the states of Maryland and Virginia would donate a total of 100 square miles of land along the Potomac River for the new federal capital. Learn more about Washington, D.C., its past, its present, and possible future on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

It effectively turned day into night and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thuline podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by audible.com. My audiobook recommendation today is Empire of Mud, the secret history of Washington, D.C. by J.D. Dickie. Before America became a world power, Washington City was an eyesore at best and a disgrace at worst. Unfilled swamps, filthy canals, and rutted horse trails littered its landscape. Political bosses hired hooligans and thugs to conduct the nation's affairs. The police served and protected with the aides of bribes and protection money.

Deadly horse races took place on the dusty streets, and opposing factions of volunteer firefighters, battled one another like violent gangs rather than life-saving heroes. The city's turbulent history set a precedent for the dishonesty, corruption, and mismanagement that have led to generations to look suspiciously on the various sins of Washington politicians. You can get a free one-month trial to Audible and two free audiobooks by going to audibletrial.com slash everything everywhere, or by clicking on the link in the show notes. In 1783, the Continental Congress was in session in Philadelphia when they were besieged by Revolutionary War veterans who hadn't been paid.

known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, it highlighted into Congress the need for the federal government to have its own area which it could control which wasn't reliant on any particular state government. James Madison echoed this sentiment in Federalist Paper No. 43 and spoke of a need for a special area outside of the states which the federal government could control directly. When the Constitution was finally passed, Article 1, Section 8 gave Congress the right to establish a, quote, district not exceeding 10 miles square, as may by session of particular states and the acceptance of Congress become the seat of the government of the United States. It didn't say where such a district was to be, nor did it mandate that such a district be created. It only said that it could be created.

It should be noted the odd language used in the passage. It says, not exceeding 10 miles square. The current area of the federal district is 68 square miles, which seems. seems to be in violation of the Constitution at first glance. That's because 10 miles square isn't the same thing as 10 square miles, and more on that in a bit. The establishment of the federal district along the Potomac came about as a result of the compromise of 1790.

Alexander Hamilton and his federalists wanted the national government to assume state debts from the war, and the southern states were against it. The compromise allowed for the new capital to be located in the south in exchange for the assumption of state debt. The exact location was selected by George Washington, who had his own plantation, Mount Vernon, nearby along the Potomac River in Virginia. The original district was a square 10 miles on a side, aka 10 miles square. Approximately two-thirds of the land was donated by Maryland and one-third by Virginia.

There were two towns that already existed in the area which became the new federal district, Georgetown, Maryland, and Alexandria, Virginia. The new district was named Columbia, which is a feminized version of Columbus. If you remember back to my episode on the name of the United States, Columbia was one of the names floated. The district became official with the Residence Act of 1790 and the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, which actually organized the district. Within the federally controlled district, a new city was created just east of Georgetown called Washington, named after George Washington. At the time, Washington, D.C. was distinct from Georgetown D.C. or Alexandria, D.C., all of which were separate cities within the District of Columbia. The district was also divided into two counties. Washington County consisted of all of the land given by Maryland on the east bank of the Potomac River, and not in Georgetown or Washington City.

Alexandria County consisted of everything west of the Potomac, not including the city of Alexandria. There was nothing in the place where the new capital of Washington was to be located. That meant that everything had to be created from scratch. The general plan for the new city of Washington was developed by Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who was a Frenchman who came to the U.S. to fight in the Revolutionary War. L'Enfant laid out a design for the city, which is still used today. The design, called the L'Enfant plan, put the entire city on a grid. The center of the grid is the U.S. Capitol building.

There were then also major boulevards that went diagonally through the grid. The city today is divided into quadrants with the capital building at the center using the same plan. The War of 1812 actually saw the city sacked by the British. They burned the White House, the Capitol building, and many other important structures for the fledgling federal government. This actually caused a vote in Congress to move the federal district north, but it failed on an 83-74 vote in the House. Several times so far I've mentioned that the district was on both states. sides of the Potomac River. And the district isn't that way today. Today, it's only on the eastern bank of the river. Because the capital was on the east bank of the river, all of the development

was taking place there. The West Bank, formerly part of Virginia, was totally neglected. Also, as with most everything in the early 19th century in America, the big issue was also slavery. The people on the West Bank were concerned that slavery would be abolished in the district, so they petitioned to be returned to Virginia. In 1846, the Virginia, the Virginia, the Virginia Virginia legislature formally requested that their land be returned, and on July 9, 1846, Congress agreed. The part which was returned is now known as Arlington County, Virginia, and it looks like the missing puzzle piece to make Washington, D.C. a square. This return was known as retrocession, and I'll be talking about it more in a bit. This is why Washington, D.C. today looks like a square

cocktail napkin with about a third of it torn off. Today, only the parts given by Maryland make up the district. In 1850, the sale of slaves was outlawed in the district, while owning slaves was still legal. The location of Washington proved important in the Civil War. With the secession of southern states, Washington found itself literally boarding a foreign hostile country. Much of the Union and Confederate efforts during the war was expended in and around Washington. With all the southern members of Congress no longer present, slavery was formally abolished on April 16, 1862, which made it an attractive place for freed slaves to settle. After the war, the district exploded in population. By 1870, there were 132,000 residents in the district, 75% more people than it had in

1860. Washington, however, was poorly managed. The streets weren't paved, and basic sanitation was lacking. There was a movement to actually move the federal district somewhere west to reflect the movement of the U.S. population westward. One idea was to actually move the capital to St. Louis, which, at least from a geographic perspective, actually kind of made sense. The city could be reached by most of the major waterways in the country at the time. Instead, Congress passed the Organic Act of 1871. This totally reorganized how the district was managed. There was no longer a separate charter for the cities of Georgetown and Washington.

Now there was just one government for the whole district. Moreover, the act specified, quote, That portion of said district included within the present limits of the city of Washington shall continue to be known as the city of Washington, unquote. So technically speaking, there is no separate city of Washington within the District of Columbia anymore. However, by law, the area formerly known as the City of Washington can still be called the City of Washington, and informally, the entire district is called Washington. Georgetown, formerly a separate city, is today just a neighborhood within Washington, D.C. For the most

part, federal office buildings tried to stay within the boundaries of the district, although later on this was abandoned as there simply wasn't enough room. Today you'll find many federal offices, like the Pentagon, located in nearby Virginia and Maryland. Almost since the district was founded, there have been questions about its status. The district of Columbia is unique in the United States. It isn't a state, and it isn't a territory. I think it's fair to say that the founders never really envisioned a federal district with hundreds of thousands of people living in it. Nevertheless, that is exactly what happened. The problem is really straightforward. The residents of the District of Columbia are American citizens, yet they do not have any voting representation in Congress.

Also, unlike citizens in U.S. territories, they are taxed as if they live in a state. In 1871, as part of the Organic Act, the district was granted a non-voting representative in Congress, but the position was eliminated just four years later in 1875. It wasn't brought back until 1970. The Washington, D.C. representative can do anything any other member of Congress can do, except for voting on bills on the House floor. They can also vote in committee, just not in the final vote. The problem of representation was partially addressed with the 23rd Amendment, which granted the federal district, never mentioning Washington by name, votes in the electoral college the same as the smallest U.S. state. In 1978, Congress approved the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment, and it was sent to the states for ratification.

It wouldn't have made Washington DC a state per se, but it would have treated the district for all purposes of representation as if it were a state, and it would have repealed the 23rd Amendment, which would have then been redundant. However, only 16 of the 38 states needed for ratification ever approved it. The issue of DC statehood is one that's been around for a long time. The problem that the District of Columbia has is that it's not a U.S. territory. Puerto Rico, for example, has a much easier path to state. because it can do exactly what Hawaii, Alaska, and almost every other state had to do. The district, however, is hard-coded into the Constitution, especially with the 23rd Amendment. For the whole district, as it's defined today, to become a state, would require some sort of constitutional amendment. There have been several ideas to get around this problem, but they all

have their own issues. One would be redefining the boundaries of the federal district. The proposal here is to shrink it down to the area around the Capitol building, the White House, and the National Mall. Everything else would then become the new territory of Columbia. This new territory could then just apply for statehood like any other territory. The problem with this is the 23rd Amendment, which would give the new tiny district, probably consisting of just a few dozen people, three full electoral votes. In fact, the only people who might actually live in that area, depending on where the boundary is drawn, might be the presidential family. So even this would require some sort of constitutional amendment

unless you want to give the sitting president three free electoral votes every election. The other idea is retrocession. A third of the district was returned back to Virginia already. The idea here would just be to give the rest of the land back to Maryland and not have a federal district at all. This would give everyone in the city of Washington representation in Congress, but it would be done through Maryland. The 23rd Amendment could still exist, but it would be rendered moot if there wasn't a federal district to apply it to. However, pretty much everyone in the district is against retrocession,

and polls in Maryland also don't show support for retrocession. Likewise, most people still want to have some sort of federal district, even if it doesn't have the exact same boundaries as the current one. If D.C. did become a state, another issue would be what to call it. The name Washington is already taken. Suggestions for the name of the state have included Columbia, New Columbia, Potomac, and Douglas, named after Frederick Douglass, who lived there for 18 years. It would then be called the Douglas Commonwealth, thereby keeping the initials D.C. The District of Columbia is a unique place in the geography of the United

States. It is a sui generis entity that isn't a territory or a state, yet has some of the aspects of both without really the benefits of either. The Associate Permanent. producer of Everything Everywhere daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit. If you know someone you think would enjoy the show, please share it with them. Also remember, if you leave a five-stop review, I'll read your review on the show.