District Of Columbia (until 1871)
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The District of Columbia was created in 1801 as the
federal district A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they e ...
of the United States, with territory previously held by the states of Maryland and Virginia ceded to the
federal government of the United States The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...
for the purpose of creating its federal district, which would encompass the new
national capital A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encompasses the g ...
of the United States, the City of Washington. The district came into existence, with its own judges and marshals, through the
District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, officially An Act Concerning the District of Columbia (6th Congress, 2nd Sess., ch. 15, , February 27, 1801), is an organic act enacted by the United States Congress in accordance with Article 1, Sec ...
; previously it was the Territory of Columbia. According to specific language in the U.S. Constitution, it was 100 square miles (259 km2). The district encompassed three small cities: Alexandria, formerly in Virginia, Georgetown, formerly Maryland, and the deliberately planned central core, the City of Washington. Both the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
and the
United States Capitol The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the seat of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, which is formally known as the United States Congress. It is located on Capitol Hill ...
were already completed and in use by 1800 as called for by the 1791
L'Enfant Plan The L'Enfant Plan for the city of Washington is the urban plan developed in 1791 by Major Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant for George Washington, the first president of the United States. History L'Enfant was a French engineer who served in ...
for the City of Washington, although the city was not formally chartered until 1802. Beyond those cities, the remainder of the district was farmland organized by the 1801 Act into two counties, Washington County, D.C., on the Maryland side, and
Alexandria County, D.C. Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county is ...
, on the Virginia side, encompassing today's
Arlington County, Virginia Arlington County is a County (United States), county in the Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the Washington, D.C., District of Co ...
, and the independent city of
Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
. The district was governed directly by the U.S. Congress from the beginning. Alexandria City and County were ceded back from the federal government to the commonwealth of Virginia in 1846, in a process known as
retrocession The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdictio ...
, anticipating the 1850 ban on slave trading (but not slavery) in the district. Washington and Georgetown retained their separate charters for seventy years, until the
District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 is an Act of Congress that repealed the individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown and established a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia. Though Congress ...
. That act cancelled the charters of the towns and brought the entire area within the district borders under one district government, ending any distinction between "the District of Columbia" and "Washington", making the two terms effectively synonymous.


Choice of location

Congress determined, in the Residence Act of 1790, that the nation's capital be on the Potomac, between the
Anacostia River The Anacostia River is a river in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States. It flows from Prince George's County in Maryland into Washington, D.C., where it joins with the Washington Channel to empty into the Potomac River at Buzzard Point. ...
and today's
Williamsport, Maryland Williamsport is a town in Washington County, Maryland, United States. The population was 1,868 at the 2000 census and 2,137 as of 2010. Geography Williamsport is located at (39.598496, −77.818464). According to the United States Census Bu ...
, and in a federal district up to 10 miles square. The exact location was to be determined by President
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
, familiar with the area from his nearby home and properties at Mt. Vernon, Virginia. Its trans-state location reflected a compromise between the Southern and Northern states. Virginia lobbied for the selection, an idea opposed by New York and Pennsylvania, both of which had previously housed the nation's capital. Maryland, whose State House was older than that of Virginia, and like Virginia a
slave state In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were not. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states ...
, was chosen as a compromise. At Washington's request the City of Alexandria was included in the district, though with the provision that no federal buildings could be built there. The new capital district was at about the center of the country. About 2/3 of the original district was in Maryland and 1/3 in Virginia, and the wide Potomac in the middle. The future district was surveyed in 1791–92; 24 of its surviving stone markers are in Maryland, 12 in Virginia. (See Boundary Markers of the original District of Columbia.) Washington decided that the capital's location would be located between the mouth of the
Anacostia River The Anacostia River is a river in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States. It flows from Prince George's County in Maryland into Washington, D.C., where it joins with the Washington Channel to empty into the Potomac River at Buzzard Point. ...
and Georgetown, which sits at the Potomac's
head of navigation The head of navigation is the farthest point above the mouth of a river that can be navigated by ships. Determining the head of navigation can be subjective on many streams, as the point may vary greatly with the size or the draft of the ship be ...
.


Political representation


Governing bodies

As specified by
Article One of the United States Constitution Article One of the United States Constitution establishes the legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, federal government, the United States Congress. Under Article One, Congress is a bicameral legislature consisting of ...
, in fact as one of the enumerated powers of section 8, Congress assumed direct administrative control of the federal district upon its creation by the
District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, officially An Act Concerning the District of Columbia (6th Congress, 2nd Sess., ch. 15, , February 27, 1801), is an organic act enacted by the United States Congress in accordance with Article 1, Sec ...
. There was no district governor or executive body. The U.S. House created a permanent Committee on the District of Columbia in January 1808, and the U.S. Senate established its counterpart in December 1816. These committees remained active until 1946. Thus the U.S. Congress managed the detailed day-to-day governmental needs of the district through
acts of Congress An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called private laws), or to the general public ( public laws). For a bill to become an act, the text must pass through both house ...
—an act authorizing the purchase of fire engines and construction of a firehouse, for instance, or an act to commission three new city streets and closing two others in Georgetown. The five component parts of the district operated their own governments at the lower level. The three cities within the district ( Georgetown, the City of Washington, and
Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
) operated their own municipal governments, each with a continuous history of mayors. Robert Brent, the first mayor of the City of Washington, was appointed directly by
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
in 1802 after the city's organization that year. The remaining rural territory within the district belonged either to Alexandria County D.C., (district land west of the Potomac outside the City of Alexandria, formerly in Virginia) or to Washington County, D.C., (the unincorporated east side, formerly in Maryland, plus islands and riverbed). Both counties operated with boards of commissioners for county-level government functions. Both counties were governed by levy courts made of presidentially appointed Justices of the Peace. Prior to 1812, the levy courts had a number of members defined by the president, but after that Washington County had 7 members. In 1848, the Washington County levy court was expanded to 11 members, and in 1863 that was reduced by two to nine members.


Disenfranchisement

The language of the establishing act of 1801 omitted any provision for district residents to vote for local, state-equivalent, or federal representatives. This omission was not related to any constitutional restriction or, apparently, any rationale at all. Legal scholars in 2004 called the omission of voting rights a simple "historical accident", pointing out that the preceding
Residence Act The Residence Act of 1790, officially titled An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States (), is a United States federal statute adopted during the second session of the First United States Co ...
of July 16, 1790, exercising the same constitutional authority over the same territory around the Potomac, had protected the votes of the district's citizens in federal and state elections. Those citizens had indeed continued to cast ballots, from 1790 through 1800, for their U.S. House representatives and for their Maryland and Virginia state legislators.
James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for hi ...
had written in the ''
Federalist No. 43 Federalist No. 43 is an essay by James Madison, the forty-third of ''The Federalist Papers''. It was published on January 23, 1788, under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all ''The Federalist'' papers were published. This paper conti ...
'' that the citizens of the federal district should "of course" have their will represented, "derived from their own suffrages." The necessary language simply did not appear in the 1801 legislation. The prospect of
disenfranchisement Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...
caused immediate concern. One voice from a public meeting in January 1801, before the bill's passage, compared their situation to those who fought against British
taxation without representation "No taxation without representation" is a political slogan that originated in the American Revolution, and which expressed one of the primary grievances of the American colonists for Great Britain. In short, many colonists believed that as they ...
in the Revolutionary War—20 years prior. Despite these complaints the bill went into effect as written. Given exclusive and absolute political control, Congress did not act to restore any of these rights until the 1960s. The district still has no voting representation in Congress, and the decisions of its long-sought local government established in 1973 are still subject to close congressional review, annulment, and budget control.


Retrocession (1847)

Residents of Alexandria saw no economic advantage from being in the District. No federal buildings could be built on the south side of the Potomac, nor did they have representation in Congress. Some resistance was expressed immediately. One leading figure in the fight to retrocede through the 1820s was
Thomson Francis Mason Thomson Francis Mason (1785 – 21 December 1838) was an American lawyer, planter and politician who served as the mayor of Alexandria (then in the District of Columbia, but now Virginia) between 1827 and 1830, and as a justice of the peace for m ...
, who was elected mayor of Alexandria, D.C., four times between 1827 and 1830. Also Alexandria was a center of the profitable slave trade – the largest slave-trading company in the country,
Franklin and Armfield The Franklin and Armfield Office, which houses the Freedom House Museum, is a historic commercial building in Alexandria, Virginia (District of Columbia retrocession, until 1846, the District of Columbia). Built c. 1810–20, it was first used ...
, was located there – and Alexandria residents were afraid that if the District banned the slave trade, as seemed likely, this industry would leave the city. To prevent this, Arlington held a referendum, through which voters petitioned Congress and the state of Virginia to return the portion of the District of Columbia south of the Potomac River (Alexandria County) to Virginia. On July 9, 1846, Congress retroceded Alexandria County to Virginia, after which the district's slave traders relocated to Alexandria. The district's slave trade was outlawed in the
Compromise of 1850 The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–Ame ...
. The penalty for bringing a slave into the district for sale, was freedom for the slave. Southern senators and congressmen resisted banning slavery altogether in the District, to avoid setting a precedent. The practice remained legal in the district until after
secession Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics le ...
, with the
District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act An Act for the Release of certain Persons held to Service or Labor in the District of Columbia, 37th Cong., Sess. 2, ch. 54, , known colloquially as the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act or simply Compensated Emancipation Act, w ...
signed by Lincoln on April 16, 1862, which established the annual observance of
Emancipation Day Emancipation Day is observed in many former European colonies in the Caribbean and areas of the United States on various dates to commemorate the emancipation of slaves of African descent. On August 1, 1985, Trinidad and Tobago became the fir ...
.


Organic Act of 1871

The
District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 is an Act of Congress that repealed the individual charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown and established a new territorial government for the whole District of Columbia. Though Congress ...
created a single new district corporation governing the entire federal territory, called the District of Columbia, thus dissolving the three major political subdivisions of the district (Port of Georgetown, the City of Washington, and Washington County) and their governments. By this time the county also contained other small settlements and nascent suburbs of Washington outside its bounded limits, such as
Anacostia Anacostia is a historic neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C. Its downtown is located at the intersection of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. It is located east of the Anacostia River, after which the neighborhood is nam ...
, which had been incorporated in 1854 as Uniontown; Fort Totten, dating at least to the Civil War; and
Barry Farm Barry Farm is a neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C., located east of the Anacostia River and bounded by the Southeast Freeway to the northwest, Suitland Parkway to the northeast and east, and St. Elizabeths Hospital to the south. The nei ...
, a large tract bought by the
Freedmen's Bureau The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was an agency of early Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a ...
and granted to formerly enslaved and free-born African Americans in 1867. The newly restructured district government provided for a governor appointed by the president for a 4-year term, with an 11-member council also appointed by the president, a locally elected 22-member assembly, and a five-man Board of Public Works charged with modernizing the city. The first vice-chair of that Board of Public Works was real-estate developer
Alexander Robey Shepherd Alexander Robey Shepherd (January 30, 1835 – September 12, 1902), was one of the most controversial and influential civic leaders in the history of Washington, D.C., and one of the most powerful big-city political bosses of the Gilded Age. He ...
, the architect and proponent of the consolidating legislation. From September 1873 to June 1874, Shepherd would serve as the second, and final, governor of the District. The
Seal of the District of Columbia This is a list of symbols of the District of Columbia. Insignia Species Geology Culture See also * Outline of the District of Columbia References {{State symbols Symbols * District of Columbia ) , image_skyline ...
features the date 1871, recognizing the year the district's government was incorporated.


References

{{District of Columbia History of slavery in Virginia History of the District of Columbia 19th century in the United States History of Virginia Slavery in the United States 1801 establishments in the United States