A Better Solution Than Statehood for DC

An op-ed by Jonathan Horn in the Wall Street Journal provides a little historical background:

In the spring of 1861, Union officers in Washington looked with fear at the Arlington Heights rising from the Virginia banks across the Potomac. With Virginia seceding from the Union, Confederate forces could fortify the position and inflict serious damage on the capital. “The president’s house and department buildings in its vicinity are but two and a half miles across the river from Arlington high ground, where a battery of bombs and heavy guns, if established, could destroy the city,” warned the officer in command of Washington’s defenses.

It did not have to be this way. Arlington had sat comfortably inside the District of Columbia’s borders, which Congress in 1790 had charged then-President George Washington with drawing along the Potomac. Washington had plotted a 10-by-10-mile square, oriented like a diamond, straddling the river and encompassing land ceded by both Maryland and Virginia. But in 1846, with Congress’s permission, residents on the Virginia side held a referendum on their future and voted overwhelmingly to leave the federal district and rejoin their native state.

Even President Washington’s adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis, who owned the pillared mansion crowning the Arlington Heights and had long opposed breaking up the diamond-shaped federal district, had come around on the idea and cheered the outcome. The government buildings were on the Maryland side of the river, and residents of the Virginia side had tired of having no representation in Congress, which had legislative power over the federal district and could one day have restricted the region’s profitable slave trade or even freed its slaves altogether.

Then as now, views on the constitutionality of shrinking the federal district varied. Sen. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina insisted that nothing in the Constitution prohibited the federal government from returning land it no longer needed. Rep. John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts thought otherwise. He declared the act “unconstitutional and void.”

and in doing so suggests a better solution than statehood for Washington, DC. The borders of the nation’s capitol should be reduced to the area immediately surrounding the White House, National Mall and Capitol and the remaining land ceded back to Maryland. That satisfies the goal of providing representation to the residents of that space, should not provoke a political battle, and would not require a constitutional amendment or approval by the states.

4 comments… add one
  • CuriousOnlooker Link

    But it would not give you those two extra senators from a particular party.

    Retrocession requires the approval of Maryland and Maryland has shown little interest so far. Also the 23rd amendment would need to be repealed (not appointing electors isn’t enough; since even 3 vacant electors still count against the majority of the whole college required to win the Presidency).

    I agree retrocession is the most just and practical way of solving DC representation, it just won’t happen.

  • PD Shaw Link

    I’m not sure you’ve drawn the conclusion the author advocates, but it seems like the logical one to make. He draws a lesson from the Civil War about a minor engagement, when the real action was in Maryland where mobs were blocking troops and supplies to the Capital and burning bridges. If Arlington had been within DC at the time, Union troops would still have occupied it for the same reasons and the same risks. Lines on a map don’t provide security — how is the Pentagon secured?

    Really, as long as mass gatherings are permitted on the Lawns, the necessary security perimeter is pretty tight, much less than five miles out.

  • Also the 23rd amendment would need to be repealed

    It is likely to require amendment in any case. In general U. S. law does not operate like British law to the extent that very minor issues in punctuation or spelling are treated differently. The relevance of that is that as long as the 23rd amendment remains in place the residents of the district are entitled to vote on additional electors regardless. That the name was changed wouldn’t make a difference.

  • CuriousOnlooker Link

    Yes, that is a more complete analysis — the 23rd amendment would have be repealed on any status change of DC (statehood or retrocession).

    In the absurd case, the President would be the only resident of the shrunken district and could effectively vote themselves 3 extra electors.

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