You can read the actual line at the National Archives. From its beginning, it has been embroiled in political maneuvering, sectional conflicts and issues of race, national identity, compromise and, of course, power.
Like many decisions in American history, the location of the new city was to be a compromise: Alexander Hamilton and northern states wanted the new federal government to assume Revolutionary War debts, and Thomas Jefferson and southern states who wanted the capital placed in a location friendly to slave-holding agricultural interests. He planned a grid system, at which the center would be the Capitol building.
Even before coming of age, DC was nearly completely destroyed. During the War of against Great Britain, enemy forces invaded the city and burned much of it to the ground, including the newly completed White House, the Capitol and the Library of Congress including all of its books. After the devastation, the city remained small, especially in terms of permanent residents. Soon it would become smaller in physical size as well. In , the portion of the city that had originally belonged to Virginia was retroceded, after the voters of Alexandria elected to leave DC, feeling that they had been left out of development on the other side of the river.
You can still see some surviving, original markers for the District today. The city only increased in size as a result of the Civil War. Slaves owned in Washington were emancipated on April 16, , nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation, and it therefore became a hub for freed slaves.
After, it remained a home to a significant and vibrant African American population, which included abolitionist Frederick Douglass. A substantial army was set up just to protect the capital during the war, and the federal government grew around this administration.
The expansion of streetcar lines in the midth century spurred creation of new suburbs. Start your free trial today. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you.
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