Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren bog obam here. On June, the U. S.
Speaker 1: House of Representatives passed historic legislation that would transform the
Speaker 1: District of Columbia into the nation's fifty first state. The
Speaker 1: bill would give the district's current seven hundred and five thousand,
Speaker 1: seven hundred and forty nine residents the opportunity to elect
Speaker 1: a congress member and two senators with full voting rights
Speaker 1: for the first time in the nation's history, though the
Speaker 1: bill still faces an uphill battle in the U. S. Senate. Currently,
Speaker 1: Washington d C has a non voting delegate to the House,
Speaker 1: Eleanor Holmes Norton, who introduced the statehood legislation, but has
Speaker 1: no say in its passage, as well as to shadow
Speaker 1: senators who similarly cannot vote on legislation. The bill would
Speaker 1: shrink the federal capital to a small area encompassing the
Speaker 1: White House, capital buildings, Supreme Court, and other federal buildings
Speaker 1: along the National Mall. The rest of the city would
Speaker 1: become the fifty first state. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said
Speaker 1: in a news conference. For more than two centuries, the
Speaker 1: residents of Washington d C, the District of Columbia, have
Speaker 1: been denied their right to fully participate in their democracy.
Speaker 1: Pelosi said that the importance of giving Washington d C.
Speaker 1: Full voting rights was demonstrated earlier this month when the
Speaker 1: administration of President Donald Trump deployed federal law enforcement agents
Speaker 1: and National Guard troops against protesters in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Without the resident's approval. House Majority Leader Sunny Hoyer said,
Speaker 1: this is not just an issue of local governance and fairness,
Speaker 1: it's a major civil rights issue as well. At this point,
Speaker 1: the legislation is a largely symbolic statement that few expect
Speaker 1: to pass, at least for now, because it would have
Speaker 1: to get through the Republican controlled U. S. Senate, where
Speaker 1: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated in an interview with Fox
Speaker 1: News that he would deny it a vote even if
Speaker 1: the Senate did approve it. Trump most likely would veto
Speaker 1: the measure. Trump said to The New York Post in May,
Speaker 1: Why so we can have two more Democrats senators and
Speaker 1: five more Congressmen. No, thank you, That will never happen.
Speaker 1: But the current controversy raises another question. Why didn't the
Speaker 1: nation's founders make Washington d C. A state in the
Speaker 1: first place, But when they decided to create a new
Speaker 1: national capital, why did they choose to deny residents the
Speaker 1: same representation in the national government that the rest of
Speaker 1: the nation citizens have. As historians explain, Washington's lack of
Speaker 1: full representation has mainly to do with two things. First,
Speaker 1: there was a desire on the part of some of
Speaker 1: the founders to have a strong federal government that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be dependent upon the state it was in for services
Speaker 1: and protection. But it also has something to do with
Speaker 1: Southern slaveholders desire to have a national capital in their
Speaker 1: territory with weak self governance so that slavery wouldn't face
Speaker 1: any local political resistance. Even after the Civil War, segregationists
Speaker 1: in Congress fought for many years to keep control over
Speaker 1: the district's administration and deny any power to the city's
Speaker 1: largely black population. On that first count, though, an early
Speaker 1: U s military mutiny was a primary event that convinced
Speaker 1: the founders to keep Washington, d C. From statehood. Ec Initially,
Speaker 1: Philadelphia served as the nation's capital, but the Confederation Congress,
Speaker 1: which was the predecessor of the present legislative branch, found
Speaker 1: itself in a difficult situation. In June of three, that's
Speaker 1: when Pennsylvania militiamen who had been furloughed after the Revolutionary
Speaker 1: War decided to march to Philadelphia to protest the government
Speaker 1: taking away their jobs and not paying them what they
Speaker 1: were owed. When these mutineers arrived in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: government began negotiating with them, but rumors started to spread
Speaker 1: among the nervous national legislators that the soldiers might loot
Speaker 1: the government chartered Bank of North America if they didn't
Speaker 1: get their money. A committee of delegates led by Alexander
Speaker 1: Wilton demanded the Pennsylvania state government put down the rebellion,
Speaker 1: but the state government declined, saying that the protesters weren't violent.
Speaker 1: In the view of some historians, that actually was just
Speaker 1: fine with Hamilton's, who was looking to advocate for a
Speaker 1: central government with its own police powers over its domain.
Speaker 1: Hamilton's persuaded an Ally, the then President of Congress, to
Speaker 1: convene a session on a weekend, even though there weren't
Speaker 1: enough members around to reach a quorum, so that it
Speaker 1: would create the impression that they were menaced by the protest.
Speaker 1: Hamilton's then chastised state leaders for failing to protect the
Speaker 1: federal government against the soldiers and thus putting it in
Speaker 1: a weak and disgusting position. The handful of legislators then
Speaker 1: fled to New Jersey, perhaps specifically to add to the drama.
Speaker 1: A few years later, the Constitution's framers specified in Article one,
Speaker 1: Section eight, clause seventeen that the national capital should be
Speaker 1: located in a district quote not exceeding ten miles square
Speaker 1: that would be controlled by the federal government and not
Speaker 1: by any date. That meant that members of Congress wouldn't
Speaker 1: be dependent upon local or state officials to protect them
Speaker 1: from future mobs of aggrieved citizens, and, as future President
Speaker 1: James Madison noted in Federalist forty three, by not being
Speaker 1: dependent upon a state, Congress would avoid potential for corruption
Speaker 1: quote an imputation of awe or influence equally dishonorable to
Speaker 1: the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy.
Speaker 1: Southerners and Northerners in the new government worked out a
Speaker 1: compromise in which the capital would be located in the
Speaker 1: South in exchange for Southern Congress members dropping their opposition
Speaker 1: to the federal government, paying off Northern States debts from
Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War. The location along the Potomac River was
Speaker 1: attractive to George Washington because it was less than twenty
Speaker 1: miles or about thirty two kilometers from his Mountain Vernon estate,
Speaker 1: and because he had a vision of turning the capital
Speaker 1: into a prosperous riverport and commercial hub. In eighteen o one,
Speaker 1: Congress passed the Organic Act, which took away district residents
Speaker 1: right to vote for congressional representatives, and the following year
Speaker 1: granted a charter to a portion of the district the
Speaker 1: city of Washington, which was allowed to elect a twelve
Speaker 1: member city council. The mayor initially was appointed by the U.
Speaker 1: S President, though in eighteen twenty the law was changed
Speaker 1: to allow a mayoral election as well as for that
Speaker 1: second count. Washington, d C. Was situated between two slave states,
Speaker 1: Maryland and Virginia, which helped protect the slavery there from
Speaker 1: northern influence. But we spoke via email with J. D. Dickey,
Speaker 1: the author of the book Empire of Mud, the Secret
Speaker 1: History of Washington, d C. He said that district became
Speaker 1: a bulwark of Southern legislative power and slave trading and
Speaker 1: human bondage became legion there, and so, with the population
Speaker 1: in the district largely made up of enslaved people and
Speaker 1: disenfranchised citizens, the only people who could vote federally or
Speaker 1: hold federal power of any kind were congressmen elected by
Speaker 1: voters who didn't live there. In the first half of
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, Washington became a center for the domestic trade,
Speaker 1: home to one of the busiest markets involved in the
Speaker 1: sale of human beings. It was a sort of place
Speaker 1: where free black man such as Solomon Northrope, whose memoir
Speaker 1: was adapted into the film Twelve Years as Slave, ran
Speaker 1: the danger of being kidnapped and thrown into the slave
Speaker 1: pen that was located at what's now the Federal Aviation
Speaker 1: Administration's headquarters at eight hundred Independence Avenue Southwest. But we
Speaker 1: also spoke via email with Chris Myers Ash, who's the
Speaker 1: co author, along with George Derrek Musgrove, of the book
Speaker 1: Chocolate City, A History of Race and Democracy in the
Speaker 1: Nation's Capital. Ash explained it developed as a southern city,
Speaker 1: not a northern one. Slavery was embedded into the fabric
Speaker 1: of the city from its inception, and the slave trade
Speaker 1: quickly became a major industry. After emancipation and a brief
Speaker 1: flowering of interracial democracy, the city lost itself government, and
Speaker 1: city leader is embraced Southern style segregation in customs and
Speaker 1: social relations. D C was a Southern city until the
Speaker 1: late twentieth century. The issues of self government and statehood
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. Are intertwined with race. Ash says
Speaker 1: the Washington had limited self rule for much of the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. In the eighteen seventies, Congress took that away.
Speaker 1: For the next century, Washington was run largely by Southern segregationists,
Speaker 1: such as Senator Theodore Bilbo, a Mississippian who had the
Speaker 1: unofficial title of Mayor of Washington. He once warned in
Speaker 1: a speech that the voting rights were granted in Washington,
Speaker 1: blacks quote would soon have control of the city. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Washington's residence did achieve some rights granted two other American citizens.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty one, the twenty third Amendment gave them
Speaker 1: the right to vote in presidential elections, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three they regained the right to elect council members
Speaker 1: and the mayor. In nineteen seventy eight, Congress passed a
Speaker 1: institutional amendment that would have given Washington residents representation in Congress,
Speaker 1: but it had a seven year window for ratification, and
Speaker 1: by the time that expired in only sixteen states had
Speaker 1: approved it. In another effort to pass a bill in
Speaker 1: the House to grant statehood to Washington failed by a
Speaker 1: vote of two hundred and seventy seven to just one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty three, but statehood advocates didn't give up.
Speaker 1: The current legislation, whose two hundred and twenty five co
Speaker 1: sponsors include Speaker Pelosi, is on a path to pass
Speaker 1: on a party line vote. The new bill gets around
Speaker 1: the Constitution's Article one by carving out of space in
Speaker 1: the capital for government buildings, which would remain under federal control,
Speaker 1: while converting Washington's mayor to the equivalent of a state governor.
Speaker 1: The current Washington statehood legislation would create the state of
Speaker 1: Washington d C, with the d C standing no longer
Speaker 1: for District of Columbia, but rather Douglas Commonwealth. Thus, the
Speaker 1: state would draw it's new name from President George Washington
Speaker 1: and abolitionist Frederick Douglas, thereby differentiating it from the Washington
Speaker 1: state that already exists. In the Pacific Northwest. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Patrick Jake Tiger and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: For more on the lots of other topics, visit how
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