DC Statehood - Simply Unconstitutional
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
April 29, 2021
The relevant portion of Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution states the “Congress shall have Power to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dockYards, and other needful Buildings;” [sic]
It is there where the Founding Fathers of these United States of America designated, with neutrality, and no power over nor beneath, the District that would serve as the seat of the Federal government of this nation. As a separate and independent district, it would not be a state, it would not be part of a state, and it would not participate in the affairs of the nation as a state.
This decision, made by the Founding Fathers, was neither based upon political gains for one party or another nor any racial advantage or animus at the time of the adoption of the Constitution in 1787. For the United States Congress, regardless of the party in the majority, to vote granting statehood status upon the District of Columbia is illegal and unconstitutional.
The District was built on a swamp, ostensibly, and upon arrival in the new capitol city late November 1800, First Lady Abigail Adams’ assessment reflected such. “I arrived… at this place… a new country with Houses scattered over a space of ten miles, and trees & stumps in plenty.” (1) Too few of the houses had been completed to provide for the increasing numbers of administration officials arriving for the waning months of John Adams’ single term in office. Most people resided in the longer established Alexandria, VA and Georgetown.
There is no mention of voting rights for the residents of the District in Article I, Section 8 because the District was not designed to be a permanent residential District. First of all, the Founding Fathers did not envision politicians and government workers becoming career fixtures in Washington. The Founding Fathers expected people to serve their country as representatives of the people for a term or two and then return to their farms, businesses, law practices, medical practices, or other vocations. Likewise with their staffs as well as the staffs of the presidents’ administrations. And as such, in maintaining their heretofore permanent residences in their home states, would vote via absentee ballot there, as opposed to in Washington, which as of yet, had no government of its own - as was the design of the Founding Fathers. It was their desire that the Congress would oversee the Federal Capitol District.
As for the state of the White House, then simply called the President’s House, arriving in its incomplete state, Abigail Adams described it as “a castle of a House,” overlooking the Potomac and a view of Alexandria, which was preferable to Adams, considering the alternative of Georgetown was not to her liking. Georgetown was “the very dirtyest Hole I ever saw for a place of any trade… it is only one mile from me but a quagmire after every rain,” in her assessment. (2)
President John Adams called the condition of the President’s House “habitable.” So drafty, “Abigail had to keep thirteen fires going all day to make it livable…. Someday it would be finished, properly furnished, and adequately staffed. At the moment the Adamses could not afford to hire enough servants to run such a house, and the enormous public rooms had no plaster, paint, or furniture. Abigail used the great east room to hang her laundry. In its present condition it was good for little else.” (3)
Now, in 2021, in a Washington, DC the Founding Fathers would hardly recognize, the government is an unwieldy behemoth with two million employees spread around Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and of course DC itself. But those who live willingly in DC, knew what they were getting into, insofar as choosing to reside in the District and not a state. No one was forced to live in the District. As the Federal Capitol District, Washington is governed by a mayor and a city council. Although it has a population larger than that of Vermont and Wyoming, it is just smaller than 1/18 the size of Rhode Island, the current smallest state in the Union.
The current push for DC statehood is an overt power grab by the Democrats. Since being granted the right to vote for president in 1961 via the 23rd Amendment, there have been 15 presidential elections between 1964 and 2020, with the Democrat candidate winning DC in all 15 by overwhelming margins.
Washington, DC is a city that voted 92 percent for Joe Biden and 5.4 percent for Donald Trump in 2020; a city that last voted for a Republican candidate with more than 10 percent of the vote in 1988 when George Herbert Walker Bush earned 14.3 percent of the vote; a city that gave its highest percentage of the vote to a Republican in 1972 for Richard M. Nixon with 21.56 percent. As of March 31, 2021 the DC Board of Elections statistics indicate only 5.66 percent of the voters are registered Republican.
Admitting DC to the Union as the 51st state is a guaranteed two additional Democrat senators and one additional Democrat representative in perpetuity. With a 52-50 Democrat advantage in the Senate they could ram through the entirety of the most progressive, most expensive, most anti-American, most anti-Capitalist, most damaging, most debt increasing agenda in the history of the United States, driving the nation into socialism, and on the verge of bankruptcy.
In the current climate of severe political correctness, the era of so-called cancel culture there’s an overwhelming hysteria to define everything as racist or racially motivated. This is particularly of concern regarding DC statehood which, at 47.75 percent, has the largest percentage of Black residents in the nation. According to US Rep. Ayana Pressley (D-MA), not supporting DC “statehood is racist and racism kills.”
Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), introduced S. 51, “A bill to provide for the admission of the State of Washington, DC into the Union,” along with 38 co-sponsors on January 26. Through April 13, six additional senators have joined as co-sponsors, bringing the total to 45 senators - all Democrats, named below, endorsing DC statehood. This bill is the companion to HR 51 Washington, DC Admission Act, introduced by DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-D) on January 4, already passed in the House, 216-208, on April 22, in a straight party line vote. Norton called the imperative of DC statehood a “moral obligation.”
Tammy Baldwin (WI) Michael Bennet (CO) Richard Blumenthal (CT)
Cory Booker (NJ) Sherrod Brown (OH) Maria Cantwell (WA)
Ben Cardin (MD) Bob Casey (PA) Chris Coons (DE)
Catherine Cortez-Masto (NV) Tammy Duckworth (IL) Dick Durbin (IL)
Dianne Feinstein (CA) Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) Margaret Hassan (NH)
Martin Heinrich (NM) John Hickenlooper (CO) Mazie Hirono (HI)
Tim Kaine (VA) Amy Klobuchar (MN) Patrick Leahy (VT)
Ben Ray Lujan (NM) Edward Markey (MA) Bob Menendez (NJ)
Jeff Merkley (OR) Chris Murphy (CT) Patty Murray (WA)
Jon Ossoff (GA) Alex Padilla (CA) Gary Peters (MI)
Jack Reed (RI) Jacky Rosen (NV) Bernie Sanders (VT)
Brian Schatz (HI) Chuck Schumer (NY) Tina Smith (MN)
Debbie Stabenow (MI) Jon Tester (MT) Mark Warner (VA)
Raphael Warnock (GA) Elizabeth Warren (MA) Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)
Ron Wyden (OR) Chris Van Hollen (MD)
Since the major point of consternation is eradicating the long running “taxation without representation,” as is advertised on DC licence plates, a solution that should, but won’t, satisfy people on both sides of the issue, is to retrocede the residential land back to the State of Maryland. This would not be the first time for such an occurrence. The western half of the District was returned to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1847. According to The Wall Street Journal, “local leaders have opposed such a move.” (04/23/21)
Of course local leaders have rejected this very valid solution, because, while it enfranchises the voting citizens of the District - which supposedly was the goal of the statehood movement, the real motive is the addition, in perpetuity, of two Democrat senators and one Democrat representative. Because this exceptional solution fails to expand the power of the Democrat Party, it is rejected out of hand. This is the same brand of power grab by the Democrats that is pushing a court packing scheme, not to equalize the power structure on the Supreme Court, but to reverse it with a four justice demand that would give the liberals a supposed seven to six majority over the conservatives. (Supposedly, because Chief Justice John Roberts does not act like a true conservative.) This same power grab backfired royally when attempted by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937.
Voters of all stripes must fight back against this blatant power grab which ultimately leads to one party rule in the United States for an unlimited amount of time. Reasonable people, if there still are any on the far left, must understand that the DC claim of “taxation without representation” is both valid and solvable without disrupting the current structure of the body politic. Retrocede the residential and other non-Federal government buildings land back to Maryland as Douglass County. (The proposed name for the 51st state is the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.) In adding the new Douglass County to Maryland, the Free State would be granted an additional Congressional representative (probably Norton), to be taken from New York, due to lose at least one seat after the 2020 Census reapportionment.
I defy anyone to name a single Democrat in either house of Congress that would fight this hard, in violation of the Constitution, for DC statehood were the aforementioned numbers reversed to the GOP advantage. Hearing crickets, we move on.
In Federalist 43, written by James Madison under the pseudonym Publius, as part of the Federalist Papers, Madison outlines in Section Two how maintaining the independence or neutrality of the Federal District would prevent jealousies amongst the several states.
This is necessary to prevent “a dependence of the members of the general government on the State comprehending the seat of the government, for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy. This consideration has the more weight, as the gradual accumulation of public improvements at the stationary residence of the government would be both too great a public pledge to be left in the hands of a single State, and would create so many obstacles to a removal of the government, as still further to abridge its necessary independence.” So wrote Madison in the document published January 23, 1788.
For the entirety of Federalist 43: https://www.teaparty911.com/federalist-papers/federalist-43/
In order to repeal the 23rd Amendment, three-quarters of the 50 state legislatures would have to vote to repeal - a virtual impossibility. Additionally, 22 Republican state Attorneys General sent a letter to Joe Biden opposing DC statehood as unconstitutional. Those AGs represent the states of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they composed the Constitution. There is a necessity in keeping the Federal Capitol District neutral and separate from the 50 states. There is a greater imperative to maintaining the separation of powers between the three branches of the government. Give the full time DC residents their right of taxation with representation and retrocede that land back to Maryland. Retain the Federal Capitol District that would continue to include the Capitol Building, White House, Supreme Court, National Mall, cabinet department buildings, and the other Federal buildings.
To grant Washington, DC statehood (and unbalance the American flag with a 51st star) is an unconstitutional power grab designed to ultimately turn this country from a republic into a socialist tyrannical nation. This would not be a single term that could be undone with the election of the next Republican president. The damage that would be inflicted upon the American people would be in perpetuity, where this generation would be required to teach future generations what a free nation was like. Fighting DC statehood is right, moral, and constitutional. The silent majority must remain silent no longer.
Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.
Notes
(1) Withey, Lynne Dearest Friend A Life of Abigail Adams, Simon & Schuster 1981, P. 274
(2) Ibid., P. 275
(3) Ibid.
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