The news and recent events in the United States at the moment is... disheartening, scary,
and uncertain.
Yet, even in the midst of all this, small pockets of positive changes are occurring,
some, that have been a long-time coming, some, that restore trust, when little can be found.
One such change has come to the fore-front in some respects, a vote on change withing
congress, the first one in nearly 30 years.
This vote has not to do with reform, but the age old statement that founded this nation
so many years ago.
Taxation.. without representation.
Here, people have driven their eyes too, in an effort to see a guiding hand and the scene
of so much more.
The scene of the federal government, the scene of national treasures, the scene of the attack
on Lafayette Square, and possibly the scene of the 51st state of the United States.
Today, we will be covering: The District of Columbia.
Otherwise known as Washington DC, and its quest for statehood.
The District was created in 1790 out of necessity.
During the Revolutionary war, the seat of the national congress changed many times,
with Philadelphia, being the first fixed location post independence.
However, this would not stay the case for long.
In June of 1783.
A mob of angry soldiers stormed the capital, demanding payment for their service during
the war, in what is called the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783.
Since congress lacked the ability to have a standing army, protection landed at the
feet of the states, however, Pennsylvania's governor John Dickenson, was sympathetic to
the soldiers cause, and refused to raise the militia to protect the national congress.
While the Mutiny was eventually put down, the location of the congress would shift a
handful of times over the next few years, eventually coming back in Philadelphia in
1787.
However, one of the major effects from this, was that the congress decided that they needed
to create a federal district, not reliant on any states military protection.
In comes the Residence Act of 1790, which created the District of Columbia, located
on the banks of the Potomac River, this district would be created from land belonging to Maryland
and Virginia, making the capital somewhat in the center of the nation.
In creating the district, the national congress gave them this power via the Constitution:
in Article 1, section 8.
Stating in quote �To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over
such District not exceeding ten Miles square (This will be important later), as may, by
Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government
of the United States.� Plus a bit more, but that's not important... least not to me.
Multiple states would offer land up for the creation of this district, but eventually
the Potaomic river was agreed on after a compromise over state debt.
With a small section from Maryland, and a smaller section from Virginia, forming Washington
DC.
Yet, it wasn't exactly that simple, it's the federal government.
It can never be that simple.
George Washington requested that the city of Alexandria in Virginia, be added to the
federal district, why exactly did that occur?
Not 100% sure, but it just did.
They did have a stipulation that was added to the act, that would prevent any federal
buildings to be constructed on the southern side of the potaomic river, so even though
Alexandria was added to the district, no federal buildings would be constructed in the city.
With the passage of the 1801 organic acts.
The citizens within the DC zone, no longer had voting rights in their native states of
Maryland or Virginia, and instead, would be subject to federal over-sight.
A tad ironic considering the Revolution War basis...
The treatment that DC and its citizens received from the national government, who ended up
having control over virtually all economic aspects of the district, was... pretty poor.
Congress lacked loyalty to the city's residents and was reluctant to provide support.
Congress did eventually provide funding for the Washington City Canal in 1809, with building
beginning in 1810 and the canal opening in late 1815, connecting the Anacostia River
with Tiber Creek.
During the War of 1812, British forces conducted an expedition in mid August of 1814, that
took and burned the capital city, routing the American militia at the battle of Blansberg,
with the militia within the Capital retreating without firing a single shot Shortly after,
president James Madison and congress, fled as well, watching DC burn, as night fell.
Most of the federal buildings, safe the post office and marine barracks were burnt to the
ground.
DC, would need to be re-built.
On the flip side of the river.
The populace of Alexandria, had long petitioned congress to have them be excluded from the
federal district, but it wasn't until the 1830's that such a thing really started to
pick up support within the city.
This was in part due to the general stagnation of the city in comparison to Georgetown on
the flip side of the potomic, a fear that abolitionist forces would forbid slavery in
DC, meaning that the main economic drive for Alexandria would be gone, and an increase
of pro-slavery districts within the Virginia assembly, which at the time, was on the verge
of being tipped in the favor of anti-slavery members.
From 1840 to 1846, the city petitioned Congress and the Virginian legislature to approve retrocession,
with the latter finally agreeing in February of 1846, so long as congress did as well.
Congress would agree in July, and the city was added back into Virginia, with DC losing
around a third of its size.
A proposal to have the Maryland section returned to the state was also suggested at the time,
leaving DC as nothing more then just the white house and federal buildings, but it didn't
achieve much support, and it legally isn't possible in modern times, without a constitutional
amendment.
During the Civil war, Slavery would be outlawed within the district with the passing of the
Compensated Emancipation Act.
This act, passed in April of 1862, granted all in DC freedom, with a compensation being
given to the slaveholders.
Black individuals would be given 100 dollars, if they agreed to leave the united states,
and settle in either Haiti or Liberia.
The latter, which was a US colony.
Many freed black individuals would settle in DC after this bill, and in combination
with a large garrison force for the duration of the war, the population would rapidly grow,
going from 75,000 in 1860, to around 130,000 in 1870.
Even with the rapid growth of population, the area was still poorly maintained, having
nothing more then dirt roads, and extremely bad sanitation standards.
In response to these poor conditions, Congress passed the Organic Act of 1871, which revoked
the individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, and created a new territorial
government for the whole District of Columbia.
The act provided for a governor appointed by the President, a legislative assembly with
an upper-house composed of eleven appointed council members and a 22-member house of delegates
to be elected by residents of the District, as well as an appointed Board of Public Works
charged with modernizing the city.
The governor appointed, installed a large amount of modernization improvements, yet
also bankrupted the entire city in the process, forcing the federal government to remove all
of local institutions, and have a three member board, appointed by the president, over-see
local operations.
Segregation would be in-stilled in many federal institutions in 1913 by president Woodrow
Wilson, something that would hold until the 1950's.
This would be changed in the 50's largely due to President Harry Truman removing segregation
in the Armed Forces and federal workplaces in 1948.
The 1954 Bolling v. Sharpe supreme court case, ending segregation within the public schooling
in the district.
And on March 29, 1961, Congress would adopt the 23rd amendment to the constitution, that
granted DC electoral college votes, in equal to the state with the lowest amount of EC
votes, the reason this was done, was largely due to the growing civil rights movement in
the 1950's, and DC being a black majority, and it being a major harbor of the movement.
On August 28, 1963, Washington took center stage in the Civil Rights Movement, with the
March on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln
Memorial.
When doctor king was assassinated in 1968, a large amount of riots occurred within DC
(there were a lot more reasons for the riots, such as extremely high un-employment for the
black residents, deeply segregated housing, and the police being 80% white in a 67% black
city.
The Assassination was just the major tipping point) pushed out a lot of businesses, and
encouraged more individuals to leave the city, creating a mass exodus of the population.
This would see a gradual decline of DC's population over the years, going from a high of 805,000
people in 1960, all the way down to 572.000 in 2000.
And even now, the number of DC residents, hasn't returned to pre riot numbers.
In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, ceding some of its power over
the city to a new, elected city council and mayor, with Walter Washington, being the cities
first elected mayor.
In 1978, Congress sent the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment to the states for
ratification.
This amendment would have granted the District representation in the House, Senate, and Electoral
College as if it were a state.
The proposed amendment had a seven-year limit for ratification, and only sixteen states
ratified it in this period, meaning that it failed.
Due to this failure, a push for statehood came from the districts population, with them
drafting a constitution in 1982, and a second one five years later.
To this end, the district votes on who they elect as shadow representatives, consisting
of one house member, and two senators.
These members are not recognized in congress, and while they have the ability to vote in
committees, they have no authority outside of it, nor can they propose their own bills
outside of committee or propose amendments.
DC statehood bills would get introduced in every single congress since 1980, but only
once did it get a vote on the house floor.
Being defeated in November of 1993, by a vote of 277 to 153, even with then president Bill
Clinton, being vocally in favor of it.
So, that brings us to the present day.
Where just yesterday, June the 26th Of 2020.
The house of representatives voted in favor of DC statehood for the first time ever in
this nations history.
But then the question is: what's next?
And the truth is honestly: nothing.
The bill for DC statehood would need to go to the senate, and get confirmed by the senate.
However, the current senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has stated that he refuses
to bring the bill to the senate floor, equating statehood for DC as �full-bore socialism�.
Insert clip here
So, it's obvious that so long as he's the majority leader, DC statehood is dead in the
water.
But outside of the political aspects, what other reasons are people against DC statehood?
Well, you normally hear four real objections, which I will list out here and counter to
some degree.
Keep in mind, this will have some of my own personal biases in it.
So please take that in mind:
Firstly, people say that the federal government would have too much influence over the state,
as the largest employer by far, would be the federal government.
And this has been the only point that doesn't I've actually never seen a counter too, granted,
how much this should affect statehood is a very big question.
Secondly: They say that the state has no rural population, and would only serve the interests
of urban areas in congress.
The normal counter-argument to this, is that the senate and even house of reps.
Is slanted in favor of the less populated and rural states anyway, as each state gets
two senators no matter the size, and the house of representatives has been capped at 435
members since 1929.
In the senate, a senator from Wyoming has 54 times the power per citizen, then a senator
from Texas has, think of that.
Your vote is 54 times more powerful in Wyoming, just because less people live there, and the
same power advantage exists in the house of reps, but to a much lesser scale.
My point is, if it can go one way, it should be able to go the other.
The third point: Is that DC is too small of a land area, and too small of a population:
A 1830's congressional law set the required population to 60,000 for a territory to become
a state, and currently, DC has 12 times that number, and even has more population then
two states currently, soon to be four states, and that number isn't going to go anywhere
but up as times goes on.
For the land area issue, no where does it write that states have to be of a certain
size, and remember when I talked about article 1, section 8 of the constitution earlier.
DC is larger then ten square miles, yet is still subject to virtually all federal oversight.
Now, I'm not a constitutional lawyer, or a lawyer at all.
And lastly, States cannot be formed from parts of other states: This one is interesting,
as it is claiming that because DC was formed from land that belonged to Maryland in the
long long ago.
That DC is still a part of Maryland, technically, kinda, sorta, and this may have actually been
an okay argument, if the residence of DC could vote in Marylands elections but they can't.
Nor did Maryland need to be consulted when an island in the potamic, which was a part
of DC, was given to Virginia in 1945.
Now, it has been suggested that Maryland simple gets the land back that it gave to the federal
district, and the populace become a part of Maryland again, yet, Maryland has said over
and over again, that it doesn't want the land back, and the citizens of DC have instead
opted for statehood, as shown in the 2016 referendum.
So, with all that information in mind.
Do you think that DC should be given statehood?
Should these 700,000 voiceless Americans, no longer need to scream �Taxation without
Representation� Say so down in the comments below, hope you enjoyed the video.
And I'll catch you all at another time.