Zainab Ilyas

· 24 Dec 2021

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Washington DC is in what State?

Washington D.C. is not located in any of the 50 US states. It is located in the District of Columbia, which is what D.C. stands for.

The first seat of the United States government was in Philadelphia, where members of the Continental Congress gathered. However, immediately after the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress recognised the necessity to establish a capital independent of and subservient to any of the United States' states. In 1790, the Founding Fathers of the United States agreed to create a new, permanent capital and federal district in an undeveloped area that included property from the US states of Maryland and Virginia. This territory would later become Washington, D.C., the United States of America's present capital.

How Washington D.C. Became The US Capital

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania served as the country's capital before Washington, D.C. became the nation's capital. At the time, having the capital in Philadelphia made sense since it was close to both the Northern states, where slavery was outlawed, and the Southern ones, where slavery was lawful. When the Philadelphia Munity took place in 1783, however, the city's role as the US capital became a concern.

The Continental Congress was trying in 1783 to figure out how to pay the Revolutionary War men who fought against the British. A number of soldiers from Lancaster, Pennsylvania marched to Philadelphia and blocked the doors of the Congress, enraged about not being paid. At the same time, Pennsylvania's governor declined to deploy state forces to defend federal senators. Members of Congress eventually slipped out of the Continental Congress building, now known as Independence Hall, and made their way to Princeton, New Jersey. The Congress went on to visit additional US cities in the years after that. The Congress's last stop was New York City, however delegates did return to Philadelphia in 1787 to draught the US Constitution.In order to avoid future crises like the Philadelphia Mutiny, an article was inserted to the Constitution that authorised Congress to create a special federal area that would be under direct federal jurisdiction rather than relying on a state government for safety. But where would a district like this be located?

Two cities were offered for the new federal district when Congress assembled in 1789: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Germantown, Pennsylvania, the latter of which was immediately outside Philadelphia. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, on the other hand, proposed that the federal district be established in an undeveloped territory that included portions of Maryland and Virginia. This was part of a bigger bargain suggested by Hamilton, which included fellow Founding Fathers James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. The new federal district would be placed in a location that was friendly to the slave-holding states of the South, who worried that a capital in the North would be more sympathetic to the Abolitionist movement, which campaigned to abolish slavery across the country. In exchange, the South agreed to settle the Northern states' outstanding obligations incurred during the Revolutionary War.The Residence Act, which established the new federal district and established the permanent capital of the United States in the region where the city of Washington now stands, was enacted to achieve this compromise.

The city was formed in 1790 on the precise area where George Washington, the first President of the United States, chose along the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. The states of Maryland and Virginia agreed to give up the area where the new capital city and federal district would be built. The city was renamed Washington in honour of the first US President in September 1791. The Territory of Columbia was given to the new federal area after Christopher Columbus, who was utilised as a patriotic allusion to the United States during the Revolutionary War. The District of Columbia was established in 1871 when the Territory of Columbia was renamed.

The inhabitants of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania pushed hard to keep the capital from moving to the new federal district for 10 years, even promising President Washington a beautiful home to dwell in. But it was all in vain. The eruption of a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 hampered efforts to maintain the US capital in the city, heightening concerns about the area's safety. Additionally, native Virginians, including Founding Fathers like as Washington, Madison, and Jefferson, were looking forward to having a capital close to home. As a result, on May 15, 1800, the US Congress adjourned from Philadelphia and began its relocation to the new federal district. On June 11, 1800, Philadelphia's reign as the United States capitol came to an end. Since then, Washington, D.C. has changed dramatically.

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