Why Isn’t Washington, D.C. a State? – History

Leading up to the American Revolution, among the colonists'chief problems about the British Empire was that it imposed”tax without representation”– a slogan that Washington, D.C. has because adopted as its unofficial slogan. In 2000, D.C. started printing”Taxation

Without Representation “on all of the city's basic license plates, and in 2016, the city updated it to“End Taxation Without Representation.”The license plates reference the reality that D.C. residents pay federal taxes without having any voting agents in the U.S. Congress, and they're part of a long history of D.C.'s defend the very same voting rights and self-governance as the 50 states.

After Reconstruction, Congress Abolishes D.C.'s Government Washington, D.C. is the ancestral home of the Nacotchtank individuals, likewise called Anacostans. After British colonists strongly drove them out of their land, it entered into Maryland and Virginia. In 1790, both of these states ceded the area to establish the District of Columbia as the capital of the United States. At the time there had to do with 3,000 people living in D.C.– too few to become a state– and white men who owned residential or commercial property in D.C. continued to enact either Maryland or Virginia as they had previously. The Capitol in Washington, D.C., circa 1852. Buyenlarge/Getty Images Beginning in the early 19th century, Congress established a series of various government models that permitted voters to choose some regional leaders while stripping them of their previously-held right to vote for president or elect voting members of Congress. Then in the 1870s, Congress removed D.C. of its local representation too. White congressmen didn't desire newly-enfranchised black males running the country's capital. During Reconstruction, black Americans made up about a third of D.C.'s population. As soon as black men won the right to vote in

local D.C. elections in 1867, they rapidly established themselves in the city's city government. Congress reacted by taking apart that government through new laws in 1871 and 1874 that offered the president– whom D.C. locals still could not choose– the sole power to designate D.C. leaders. The president might consult with Congress when designating these leaders, however due to the fact that D.C. citizens could not elect voting members of Congress , they had no way to influence these choices. The president, congressmen and many federal team member stayed immune to these changes due to the fact that they were signed up to enact their home states. D.C.'s constraints on voting and self-governance only applied to full-time homeowners. And, like the

racist ballot restrictions that southern states utilized to prevent black men from voting after Reconstruction, these restrictions were specifically implied to suppress black political power. John Tyler Morgan, a previous Confederate soldier who signed up with the U.S. Senate in 1877, was explicit about this intent. He said Congress had”to burn down the barn to eliminate the rats … the rats being the negro population and the barn being the government of the District of Columbia.”

READ MORE: When Did African Americans Get the Right to Vote?

Civil Rights Era Brings Change

The 1870s system that denied D.C. residents the best elect their own city government– in addition to the congressional members and president who manage that government– remained in place for almost a century. During that time, D.C.'s black population grew. In 1957, D.C. became the country's first predominantly-black city. In 1970, the black population peaked at over 537,000 individuals, or 71 percent of the city's population. By then, many white locals had relocated to the residential areas of Maryland and Virginia where they could delight in complete ballot rights. Black D.C. residents combated to alter their city's unequal status throughout the civil liberties motion, and won some key triumphes. The first was the right to vote for the president and vice president through the 23rd Amendment, validated in 1961. The city held its first presidential election in 1964, voting extremely for the sitting president Lyndon B. Johnson over Barry Goldwater, a Republican senator from Arizona who ‘d voted versus the Civil Rights Act earlier that year.

Still, there were drawbacks to this victory. Although D.C.'s latest census population of over 760,000 individuals made it more populated than 11 states, it could not receive more electors than the lowest-populated state (that was Alaska, with roughly 226,000 people). Because 1964, D.C. has constantly had 3 electors, the most affordable number possible, despite its population size.