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From Biracial Democracy to Direct Rule: The End of Self-Government in the Nation's Capital, 1865–1878

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Robert Harrison
Robert Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Wales Aberystwyth
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Extract

There has always been something problematic, if not anomalous, about the political status of the District of Columbia. In theory, the federal government reigns supreme. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution allows Congress to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” in the territory that houses the seat of government, but it is not clear whether that rules out some measure of popular representation in local government. For Congress to exercise exclusive authority over the capital of the Republic, in denial of the inhabitants' right to govern their own affairs, might seem a stark contradiction of the founding principles of American government. “This, happening at the seat of a nation which boasts of its democratic government,” observed a writer in the Atlantic Monthly in 1909, during a period when the District was subject to direct federal control, “constitutes a solecism of the first magnitude.” Over the 204 years of its residence there, Congress has both allowed and disallowed local representation. For most of its first seventy years, Washington was governed by an elected mayor and councils. (The city of Georgetown and the rural sections of the District, known as Washington County, had their own separate governing arrangements.) The conduct of municipal government in the antebellum period was not dissimilar to that in other cities of comparable size, with the important distinction that Washington, like the rest of the District, was subject to the supreme authority of Congress. That authority, however, was exercised fitfully by a national legislature whose preferred stance toward the District was one of benign neglect. Whatever practical inconvenience might result from this arrangement was not judged sufficient to warrant a serious reconsideration, that is, until the Civil War and its aftermath drastically raised the stakes and altered the significance of governing the District.

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Articles
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , April 2006 , pp. 241 - 269
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Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2006

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References

Notes

1. Woodruff, Clinton R., “Charter Making in America,” Atlantic Monthly, 103 (05 1909), 631–633Google Scholar.

2. For a historical review of the relationship between the federal government and the District of Columbia, see Diner, Steven J., “Statehood and the Governance of the District of Columbia: A Historical Analysis of Policy Issues,” Journal of Policy History 4 (1992): 389–417Google Scholar. On antebellum Washington, see Green, Constance M., Washington: Village and Capital, 1800–1878 (Princeton, 1962), chaps. 5–8Google Scholar; Gillette, Howard Jr., Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. (Baltimore, 1995), 1–36Google Scholar; Gillette, Howard Jr., ed., Southern City, National Ambition: The Growth of Early Washington, D.C. (Washington, D.C., 1995)Google Scholar. For a useful description of local government in 1865, see Whyte, James H., Uncivil War: Washington during the Reconstruction, 1865–1878 (New York, 1958), 17–21Google Scholar.

3. New York Times, 26 December 1870.

4. For an account of Reconstruction in the District, see Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty, 45–68; Masur, Katherine, “Reconstructing the Nation's Capital: The Politics of Race and Citizenship in the District of Columbia, 1862–1878” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2001)Google Scholar; Johnson, Thomas R., “Reconstruction Politics in Washington: ‘An Experimental Garden for Radical Plants,’” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 50 (1980): 180–190Google Scholar; Whyte, Uncivil War; Green, Washington, 291–382; Williams, Melvin R., “A Blueprint for Change: The Black Community in Washington, D.C., 1860–1870,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 48 (1971–1972): 359–393Google Scholar; Harrison, Robert, “An Experimental Station for Law-Making: Congress and the District of Columbia, 1861–1878” (forthcoming, Civil War History, 03 2007)Google Scholar.

5. Ames, Mary C., Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capital, as Woman Sees Them (Hartford, Conn., 1875), 67–69Google Scholar; Harper's Monthly, quoted in Lessoff, Alan, The Nation and Its City: Politics, “Corruption,” and Progress in Washington, D.C., 1861–1902 (Baltimore, 1994)Google Scholar, 3. On the growth of federal power after 1865, see Bensel, Richard F., Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority, 1859–1877 (Cambridge, 1990)Google Scholar; Keller, Morton, Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth-Century America (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), part 1Google Scholar. On the impact of the war on American nationalism, see ibid., 38–46; Lawson, Melinda, Patriotic Fires: Forging a New Nationalism in the Civil War North (Lawrence, Kan., 2002)Google Scholar; O'Leary, Cecilia, To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism (Princeton, 1999)Google Scholar; Grant, Susan-Mary, “From Union to Nation? The Civil War and the Development of American Nationalism,” in Grant, Susan-Mary and Reid, Brian Holden, eds., The American Civil War: Explorations and Reconsiderations (Harlow, Essex, 2000), 333–357Google Scholar. For descriptions of the physical condition of antebellum and Civil War Washington, see Leech, Margaret, Reveille in Washington, 1861–1865 (New York, 1942), 5–11; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 3–4, 15–26Google Scholar.

6. New York Times, 26 December 1870. For an interpretation of Washington's history based on the continuing tension between these ideals, see Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty.

7. For accounts of the rise and fall of the Territorial Government, see Maury, William M., Alexander “Boss” Shepherd and the Board of Public Works (Washington, D.C., 1975)Google Scholar; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 44–129; Summers, Mark W., The Era of Good Stealings (New York, 1993), 137–147Google Scholar; Whyte, Uncivil War, 90–177, 203–36, 267–84; Bryan, Wilhelmus B., A History of the National Capital, 2 vols. (New York, 1914–1916), 2:574–642Google Scholar; Green, Washington, 332–62, 386–95; Howe, Franklin H., “The Board of Public Works,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 3 (1900): 257–278Google Scholar.

8. Washington National Republican, 18 December 1874.

9. Masur, “Reconstructing the Nation's Capital,” 338–89. See also Maury, Alexander “Boss” Shepherd, 49–50; Whyte, Uncivil War, 279–80.

10. Abbott, Carl, Political Terrain: Washington, D.C., from Tidewater Town to Global Metropolis (Chapel Hill, 1999), 71Google Scholar; Gillette, From Justice to Beauty, 45. See also ibid., 58–72; Lessoff, Nation and Its City.

11. See, for example, Congressional Globe, 39th Cong., 1st sess. (hereafter cited in the form CG, 39.1), 174, 179; Washington Daily Morning Chronicle, 16 September 1865, 4 and 13 July 1866.

12. On Bowen's troubled mayoralty, see Tindall, William, “A Sketch of Mayor Sayles J. Bowen,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 18 (1915): 25–43Google Scholar; Whyte, Uncivil War, 71–89; Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty, 55–61; Green, Washington, 312–22; Williams, “Blueprint for Change,” 383–93.

13. Van Z. Cox, William, “Matthew Gault Emery,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 20 (1917): 19–45Google Scholar. Cf. Washington Evening Star, 5 October 1869, 17 January 1870.

14. Washington National Intelligencer, 17 February, 29 December 1869; Evening Star, 10 April 1869; CG, 41.3:642. See also Evening Star, 8 March 1866, 5 June 1868, 16 February 1869, 17 January, 7 March, and 5 April 1870; National Intelligencer, 12 March 1869; letters from “HK” in Chronicle, 20 and 27 January 1868. As Susan Margaret Thompson has shown, Congress in this period was seriously overextended and inefficient in the use of its time. The “Spider Web”: Congress and Lobbying in the Age of Grant (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985), 48–51. See also Alexander, DeAlva S., History and Procedures of the House of Representatives (New York, 1916), 213–225Google Scholar; Schmeckebeier, Lawrence, The District of Columbia: Its Government and Administration (Baltimore, 1928), 3–6Google Scholar.

15. Mayor Richard Wallach to Secretary of the Interior James Harlan, in Washington Daily Morning Chronicle, 14 December 1865. See also memorial of Mayor and Councils to Congress, 7 December 1863, House Committee on the District of Columbia, HR37-G3.5, RG292, NARA; Journal of the 65th Council (Washington, D.C., 1868), 687–691Google ScholarPubMed.

16. Report of the Board of Public Works of the District of Columbia from its Organization until November 1, 1872, 42.3, Ho. Exec. Doc. 1 (1872); CG, 41.2:4536; 42.3:201; Evening Star, 22 May 1868; New York Times, 4 December 1872; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 34–35; Green, Washington, 325–27. For objections to federal appropriations for the paving of Pennsylvania Avenue, see CG, 41.2:4535–36, appendix 361–65; 41.3:1656–62.

17. Quoted in Evening Star, 17 June 1869. See also National Intelligencer, 17 February, 12 March 1869, Evening Star, 5 June 1868; New York Times, 15 January 1869.

18. Evening Star, 13 January 1870.

19. For accounts of meetings, see Evening Star, 22 and 26 October 1867, 18 January, 12 March 1868; National Intelligencer, 18 January 1868. See also Petition of Citizens of the District of Columbia for the Organization of a Single Local Government for the District, 41.1 (March 1869), Sen. Misc. Doc. 24; Evening Star, 26 February, 5 March 1867; Chronicle, 18 January 1868; Green, Washington, 332–34; Bryan, History of the National Capital, 2:569–72.

20. A petition to Congress in favor of a new form of government in 1871 was signed, it was claimed, by two-thirds of the property interests of the District. A Republican Alderman estimated that the eighty signatories of a petition against renewal of the charter were large property holders with more than $10 million worth of assets among them. Petition dated 17 February 1871, Container 5, Shepherd MSS, Library of Congress; Journal of the 65th Council (Washington, D.C., 1868), 475–476Google Scholar; Evening Star, 28 January 1868. See Lessoff, Nation and City, 44–71, for an analysis of the “improvers” and ibid., 10–12, on “promotional governance.” On Shepherd's career, see Maury, Alexander “Boss” Shepherd; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 47–51; Tindall, William, “A Sketch of Alexander Robey Shepherd.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 14 (1911): 49–66Google Scholar.

21. Evening Star, 18 and 28 January 1870.

22. New National Era, 27 January 1870; Chronicle, 27 January, 3 February 1868; Evening Star, 18 January 1868, 24 January, 25 February 1871; National Intelligencer, 22 October 1867. The racial subtext to the reformers' case is explored by Masur, “Reconstructing the Nation's Capital,” 294–97. On biracial democracy, see Harrison, Robert, “Race, Radicalism, and Reconstruction: Grass-Roots Republican Politics in Washington, D.C., 1867–74,” American Nineteenth Century History 3 (Fall 2002): 73–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. For examples of Republican opposition to governmental reform, see Resolutions of the Board of Common Council, 17 February 1868, Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, SEN40A-H5.1, RG46, NARA; Chronicle, 3 February 1868, 27 January, 22 February, 8 March 1870, 23 January 1871; Evening Star, 18 and 29 January, 3 February 1870, 25 January 1871; New National Era, 27 January, 10 February 1870. See also Masur, “Reconstructing the Nation's Capital,” 297–312. It may be significant that some of Bowen's Republican opponents attached themselves to the cause of governmental reorganization during the winter and spring of 1870, giving members of the House and Senate District Committees an impression of substantial bipartisan support for the territorial plan just at the moment when they were giving serious consideration to the matter. Several, like Mayor Matthew Emery, later reverted to opposing the scheme. See Evening Star, 13 January 1871; Cox, “Matthew Gault Emery,” 43.

24. Evening Star, 13, 15, and 18 January, 21 and 28 February, 4 March 1870; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 53–54. A bill providing for commission government had been introduced by Senator Lot M. Morrill in May 1866, but, at a time when congressional Republicans were contemplating black suffrage for the District, it fell on sterile ground. CG, 39.1:2481, 3191–93; Evening Star, 9 and 11 May 1866; Chronicle, 15 May 1866; Bryan, History of the National Capital, 2:550–53.

25. CG, 41.2:3912–14; Evening Star, 21 March, 28 May 1870; Chronicle, 22 March 1870; Whyte, Uncivil War, 91.

26. It seems that Shepherd was responsible, in association with Burton Cook, the chairman of the House District Committee, for the transformation of the bill, a shadowy process that is virtually undocumented. Evening Star, 21 January 1871; Green, Washington, 335; Whyte, Uncivil War, 103.

27. CG, 41.3, 641–47, 685–88; Evening Star, 20, 21 and 23 January 1871; Whyte, Uncivil War, 91, 100–104; Maury, Alexander “Boss” Shepherd, 3–4; Green, Washington, 335–38. Important amendments, particularly concerning the Board of Public Works, were added in conference. See Chronicle, 14 February 1871, Evening Star, 31 January, 2, 13 and 16 February 1871. The final text can be found in U.S. Statutes at Large, 41.3, ch. 62 (16 February 1871): 419–29.

28. Tindall, “Sketch of Alexander Shepherd,” 54.

29. CG, 41.3, 687, 642. The Star, reporting earlier on another local bill, noted that “nearly every Senator who spoke expressed the opinion that the present mode of Government for the District is wretchedly defective and needs a speedy change.” Evening Star, 31 January 1870.

30. CG, 41.3:686, 643. See also CG, 41.3:642 (Cook). On Stewart's career, see Garraty, John A. and Carnes, Mark C., eds., American National Biography, 24 vols. (New York, 1999), 20:755–57Google Scholar; Elliot, Russell B., Servant of Power: A Political Biography of Senator William M. Stewart (Reno, Nev., 1983)Google Scholar. On his links with Washington real estate interests, see Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 41 and 159–60.

31. See the debate in CG, 41.3:643–45. See also Diner, “Statehood and Governance,” 391–93.

32. CG, 41.3:1612. The editor of a short-lived Democratic newspaper, the Washington Daily Patriot, later told a congressional investigating committee that, as he understood it, when the Territory was established, “The idea was that the objection to the importation of negroes to override the taxpayers was to be obviated by this new government.” U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the District of Columbia, Affairs in the District of Columbia, 42.2 (1872), Ho. Rep. 72, 337. See also the remarks of Charles A. Eldredge in Congressional Record, 43d Cong., 2d sess. (hereafter cited as CR, 43.2): 505.

33. CG, 41.3:642; Evening Star, 23 January 1871.

34. CG, 41.3:647; Evening Star, 20 January 1871. George W. Julian attempted to insert a women's suffrage amendment, which failed by 55 votes to 117. CG, 41.3:646.

35. CG, 41.3:688. To take a crude measure, if those Republican senators who had voted for a stricter enforcement policy more often than not in those roll calls on Reconstruction in which the party was divided (that is, ten or more Republicans voted against the majority of the party) are termed radicals and those who more often voted against stricter enforcement are termed moderates, thirteen radicals and twelve moderates later voted to refer the bill to committee, while ten radicals and thirteen moderates voted against the motion. If we look more closely at individual roll calls, we find associations with the territorial vote (using Yule's Q) of .49 (reconstruction of Georgia: test oath), .28 (admission of Virginia: right to vote), .21 and 0 (admission of Georgia: delay legislative elections, suspend habeas corpus), .17 (enforcement of Fifteenth Amendment). CG, 41.2:228, 643, 2821, 2829, 3682. In a comparison with Republican voting patterns in the Fortieth Congress, those survivors from the earlier Congress who are identified by Michael Les Benedict as Conservatives voted 2–10 in favor of the motion, Radicals 13–6. Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction, 1863–1869 (New York, 1974), 360–362, 365–70, 373–75Google Scholar.

36. Voting on Reconstruction issues more often followed party lines in the House than in the Senate, but there were significant intraparty divisions among Republicans (with a minority amounting to forty or more) in the following roll calls (association with voting on the territorial bill in brackets): admission of Virginia (.61); removal of political disabilities (.59); reconstruction of Georgia (.05); removal of political disabilities (.49). CG, 41.2:503, 1468, 4796; 41.3:151. If Republican representatives who voted for a stricter enforcement policy more often than they did not in those roll calls are termed radicals and those who more often voted against stricter enforcement are termed moderates, eighteen radicals and forty-six moderates voted for the territorial bill, while twenty-four radicals and seventeen moderates voted against.

37. Evening Star, 9 February 1870. See also CG, 41.3:642 (Cook), 685 (Hamlin), 686 (Stewart).

38. African American voters were gratified when the Legislative Assembly tightened up the local civil rights law. Nor could they be disappointed with the large proportion of black laborers employed on the streets and sewers and the other improvements authorized by the Board of Public Works. Thomas R. Johnson estimates that about a third of municipal employees were African American. See Johnson, “City on a Hill,” 186–237 passim.

39. On the scale and scope of the improvements, see the summary in U.S. Senate, Report of the Joint Select Committee of Congress Appointed to Inquire into the Affairs of the District of Columbia, 43.1 (1874), Sen. Rep. 453, xv–xvi; District of Columbia, Board of Public Works, Second Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1873)Google Scholar. See also New York Times, 4 December 1872; Evening Star, 29 July 1873; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, chap. 3; Maury, Alexander “Boss” Shepherd. The reliance on large-scale borrowing to finance urban development during this period was of course not confined to Washington. Cf. Scobey, Empire City; Einhorn, Robin L., Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833–1872 (Chicago, 1991)Google Scholar; and, more generally, Teaford, Jon C., The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870–1900 (Baltimore, 1984), 285–293Google Scholar; Monkkonen, Eric, America Becomes Urban: The Development of U.S. Cities and Towns, 1780–1980 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), 138–144Google Scholar.

40. Affairs in the District of Columbia (1872), 586–87; Evening Star, 2 March 1874; Maury, Alexander “Boss” Shepherd, 8 and 47–48; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 116–17; Green, Washington, 348–49. There was a widespread expectation, as Norton Chipman, the District's delegate to Congress, remarked, “that the general government shall take upon itself a just share of expenditure in making the capital a type and exponent of American ideas and institutions.” Quoted in Bryan, History of the National Capital, 2:607. The fact that President Grant urged “liberal appropriations” for the District in repeated messages to Congress encouraged such expectations. Richardson, James L., ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897, 10 vols, (Washington, D.C., 1904), 7:154, 254Google Scholar.

41. CG, 42.3:1973–74, 2011–12, 2023; Evening Star, 17 December 1872, 3 March 1873. The $3.5 million appropriated in 1872–73 was, however, more than had been expended on the District over the previous seventy years. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Legal Relations of the United States and the District of Columbia, 43.1 (1874), Ho. Rep. 627. Lessoff, Alan, “The Federal Government and the National Capital: Washington, 1861–1902” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1990), 211–212Google Scholar.

42. Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 73–76. For examples of complaints, see Emily E. Briggs (“Olivia”) to Alexander R. Shepherd, 29 April 1873; Lucy R. Freeman to Shepherd, 15 August 1873, Shepherd MSS, Library of Congress.

43. CG, 42.2:504–6; Washington Daily Patriot, 25 January 1872; Chronicle, 22 January 1872. The memorials that prompted the investigation are reprinted in Affairs in the District of Columbia (1872), 1–11. On the functions of accusations of corruption and the broader con-text in which they were made, see Susan Margaret Thompson, The “Spider Web”: Congress and Lobbying in the Age of Grant, 58–69; Summers, Era of Good Stealings.

44. Affairs in the District of Columbia (1872), i–xii; Green, Washington, 349–51; Whyte, Uncivil War, 129–41; Alexander “Boss” Shepherd, 39–40; Ingle, Negro in the District of Columbia, 67–75.

45. “How Shall We Govern the National Capital?” Nation, 18 (11 June 1874), 375–76; “The District Investigation,” Nation, 18 (25 June 1874), 407–8; Chronicle, 28 January 1874; Whyte, Uncivil War, 144–64, 173–77, 205–33; Green, Washington, 357–60; Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty, 63–65.

46. Affairs of the District of Columbia (1874), i–xxix; New York Times, 17 June 1864; Evening Star, 16 June 1874; Chronicle, 9 and 17 June 1874; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 97–98. For a summary of the evidence, see Summers, Era of Good Stealings, 139–45; Whyte, Uncivil War, 207–33. Why did the committee not recommend the indictment of Shepherd for his management of affairs? It seems that many Republicans believed the plan of improvements to have been worthwhile, though hastily executed and poorly managed. They also feared, as the Democrats hoped, that the incriminating evidence might come dangerously close to Grant himself. Also crucial, as Senator Allen Thurman, a Democratic member of the committee, admitted, was the desire to present a unanimous report. See the discussion in CR, 43.2:1207–8.

47. CR, 43.1:5116–24, 5154–56; New York Times, 9, 10, and 18 June 1874; Evening Star, 9, 18, and 19 June 1874; Chronicle, 18 June 1874; Whyte, Uncivil War, 225–27, 230–31; Bryan, History of the National Capital, 2:626–28. For the text, see U.S. Statutes at Large, chap. 337 (20 June 1874).

48. Legal Relations of the United States and the District of Columbia; New York Times, 27 January 1874; Evening Star, 5 June 1874; Chronicle, 6, 9 June 1874; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 102–3, 117–18; Whyte, Uncivil War, 223–24; Bryan, History of the National Capital, 2:625–27.

49. See, for example, New York Times, 26 and 27 June 1874; “The Condition of the District of Columbia,” Nation, 20 (7 01 1875), 5–6Google Scholar.

50. CR, 43.2:98–100, 121–22, 1104–7, 1165–66, 1171–72; Evening Star, 8, 17, and 19 December 1874; Chronicle, 8 and 22 December 1874; National Republican, 9 and 11 December 1874; New York Times, 8 February 1875. Later in the session Congress decided on a 1.5 percent tax rate, implying that the United States would provide half of the expenses. CR, 43.2:2065–66, 2077–80. On Morrill's career, see American National Biography, 15:884–85. For constitutional arguments, see especially CR, 43.2:128–29 and 1110–11 (Thurman), 188–94 and 1166–69 (Merrimon).

51. CR, 43.2:1169–70. See also CR, 43.2:1170–71 (Thurman).

52. As Masur observes, most of those who spoke took a stand on the issue of black suffrage. Even as they “disavowed the significance of race,” they made it clear that it stood “at the forefront of their thinking.” Masur, “Reconstructing the Nation's Capital,” 385–91.

53. CR, 43.2:122, 126–29, 166–67; 45.2:3606. See also Bayard's remarks in CR, 44.1:788. Bayard was an extreme racist even by Democratic standards. See Baker, Jean H., Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y., 1983), 205–210Google Scholar. On changing party strategies on the issue of black suffrage, see Grossman, Lawrence, The Democratic Party and the Negro: Northern and National Politics, 1868–1892 (Urbana, Ill., 1976), 15–59Google Scholar.

54. CR, 43.2:120–21, 1103–4. See also CR, 43.2:165–66 and 1107–8 (Sargent), 167–68 (Flanagan), 1107–8, 1160–65 (Wright); National Republican, 18 and 24 February 1875; Chronicle, 11 and 15 December 1874. On Morton, see American National Biography, 15:956–58.

55. CR, 43.2:1169–70. Few Senate roll calls on Reconstruction issues in the Forty-third Congress generated significant intraparty divisions, but if we go back to the Forty-second Congress we find that Republican senators who voted for an elective commission were also more likely to vote for amendments that would strengthen the civil rights bill than those who voted against it. Fourteen supporters of an elective commission voted for a stronger civil rights bill more often than not; for seven, the reverse was true. Among Republican opponents of an elective commission, the equivalent numbers were two and six. In voting on Sumner's local mixed schools bill in the same Congress, thirteen supporters of an elective commission voted with Sumner more often than not; four more often against him. Among Republican opponents of an elective commission, the equivalent numbers were four and three.

56. See especially the first three roll calls at CR, 43.2:1250. See also CR, 43.2:1202, 1206.

57. Only three Republicans—Fenton, Tipton, and Sprague—voted to keep it alive. Morrill and Stewart did not vote. CR, 43.2:1275. See also Evening Star, 8 January 1875; National Republican, 15 February 1875.

58. Alan Lessoff observes that the four-year delay in implementing a plan for the permanent government of the District allowed both residents and federal officials to become familiar with the operation of the temporary commission and to get used to the idea of doing without popular representation. “Federal Government and National Capital,” 187.

59. CR, 45.2:1921–23; Evening Star, 13 February 1878; Bryan, History of the National Capital, 634–37.

60. CR, 45.2:2530. See also CG, 45.2:1926 (Jones), 2527–28 (Townsend), 3215 (Hanna); Evening Star, 11 February, 29 March 1878.

61. CR, 45.2:2579; Evening Star, 16 and 19 April 1878. There were also objections to the proposed ten-year residential qualification for commissioners, which would rule out the incumbent members of the temporary commission. Evening Star, 20 and 30 April 1878. The vote in favor of the motion divided by party was Democrats 63–51, Republicans 31–73. For more detailed analysis of House voting on the bill, see Lessoff, “Federal Government and National Capital,” 222–30.

62. CR, 45.2:3211–18, 3242–47; Evening Star, 9 May 1878; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 121–22. The vote divided by party was Democrats 66–56, Republicans 25–75. CR, 45.2:3246. For a defense of the 50:50 principle, see CR, 45.2:2528 (Townsend), 3245 (Blackburn).

63. CR, 45.2:3604–6, 3607–9; Evening Star, 10, 13, and 18 May 1878.

64. CR, 45.2:3779–80; Evening Star, 22, 27, and 28 May 1878.

65. Indeed, some of the bills Democratic managers, like Joseph C. S. Blackburn of Kentucky, had become distinctly unenthusiastic about it. See, for example, CR, 45.2:4320–21.

66. CR, 45.2:4319–21, 4348; Evening Star, 10 June 1878. Lessoff reckons that no more than two dozen members, drawn equally from the two parties, voted against the conference report because it excluded suffrage. Only Mark Dunnell of Minnesota and Jacob D. Cox of Ohio explicitly cited that as a reason. CR, 45.2:4321; Lessoff, “Federal Government and National Capital,” 229–30.

67. Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 113.

68. Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty, 66.

69. CR, 44.1:3891. Another leading Democratic congressman, Aylett H. Buckner of Missouri, observed that among taxpayers “there is one almost universal and according sentiment … that they shall have no more popular government in this District.” CR, 44.1:2717. See also CR, 44.1:4127 (Thurman); 45.2:1922 (Blackburn).

70. Evening Star, 9 and 23 November, 4 March 1878. See also Petition of Citizens of the District of Columbia, 1 June 1874, SEN43A-H6, RG 46, NARA; Evening Star, 30 November, 5 December 1874, 19 and 26 January, 3 and 4 February 1875, 13 April 1876, 29 January, 16, 25 and 28 February 1878; Chronicle, 26 and 29 November 1874; New York Times, 4 February 1876, 21 December 1877; Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 118–21.

71. “How Shall We Govern the National Capital?”; Horatio King to Editor, Chronicle, 17 December 1874; Evening Star, 2, 29, and 30 January, 4 February, 4 March, 2 May 1878; Masur, “Reconstructing the Nation's Capital,” 338–65. See also Dodd, Walter F., Government of the District of Columbia: A Study in Federal and Municipal Administration (Washington, D.C., 1909), 51Google Scholar; Ingle, Edward, The Negro in the District of Columbia (Baltimore, 1893), 67–76, 81–83Google Scholar. Compare this with depictions of the linkage between allegedly corrupt carpetbag politicians and a “malleable” black electorate in the South, as, for example, in James Pike's, ShepherdThe Prostrate State: South Carolina under Negro Government (New York, 1935)Google Scholar. See Richardson, Heather Cox, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post–Civil War North, 1865–1901 (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), 89–121Google Scholar.

72. Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 119.

73. Quigley, David R., “‘The Proud Name of ‘Citizen’ has Sunk’”: Suffrage Restriction, Class Formation, and the Tilden Commission of 1877, American Nineteenth Century History 3 (Summer 2002): 71 and 69–92 passimGoogle Scholar. On the Tilden Commission and the New York suffrage restriction movement, see also Beckert, Sven, The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896 (Cambridge, 2001), 211–232Google Scholar; Mandelbaum, Seymour, Boss Tweed's New York (New York, 1965), 169–172Google Scholar; Scobey, Empire City, 257–61. On the taxpayers' movement, see especially Yearley, Clifton K., The Money Machines: The Breakdown and Reform of Governmental and Party Finance in the North, 1860–1920 (Albany, N.Y., 1970), chap. 1Google Scholar; and, for the South, Richardson, Death of Reconstruction, 111–21. On the antidemocratic tendency in liberal reform politics, see also McGerr, Michael, The Decline of Popular Politics (New York, 1986), 45–52Google Scholar; Keyssar, Alexander, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in America (New York, 2000), esp. 119–127Google Scholar; Quigley, David, Second Founding: New York City, Reconstruction, and the Making of American Democracy (New York, 2004), 111–174Google Scholar; Sproat, John G., The “Best Men”: Liberal Reformers in the Gilded Age (New York 1968), esp. 250–257Google Scholar; Teaford, Unheralded Triumph, 17–24; Keller, Affairs of State, 115–21.

74. “A New Experiment of City Government,” Nation, 15 (21 11 1872): 328–330Google Scholar; “How Shall We Govern the National Capital?”; “The District Investigation”; Summers, Era of Good Stealings, 145. For analogies with Tammany Hall, see Crane, John H., More about the Washington Tammany (Washington, D.C., 1873)Google Scholar; Adams, Francis C., Our Little Monarchy (Washington, D.C., 1873)Google Scholar.

75. Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 118–23, 208–25.

76. See, for example, platform of District Republican party in J. H. Smallwood and A. M. Green to Sayles J. Bowen, 19 January 1876, Bowen MSS, Library of Congress; memorial of meeting at Lincoln Hall, 11 January 1875, SEN43A-H6; petition for suffrage, 2 October 1876, SEN44A-H5, RG46, NARA; CR, 45.1:165; National Republican, 3, 11, and 24 December 1874, 21 January 1875; Chronicle, 8 June, 25 and 26 November, 6 and 17 December 1874.

77. CG, 41.3:687–88; CR, 44.1:4125; 43.1:2088–89; 45.2:2114. See also CG, 41.3: 642–43 (Cook and Wood); CR, 43.2:166–67 (Saulsbury); 45.2:1922 (Hendee).

78. Diner, “Statehood and Governance,” 397; CG, 41.3:687.

79. Abbott, Political Terrain, 71. On the growing influence of a business-orientated Republicanism in shaping policy toward the District, see Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 41–71; Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty, 61–68.

80. CR, 43.1:4166–67; 43.2:1105–6. For varying explanations of the end of Reconstruction, see Gillette, William, Retreat from Reconstruction, 1867–1879 (Baton Rouge, 1979)Google Scholar; Richardson, Death of Reconstruction; Michael Les Benedict, “Reform Republicans and the Retreat from Reconstruction,” in Anderson, Eric and Moss, Alfred A. Jr., eds., The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin (Baton Rouge, 1991), 53–77Google Scholar; Foner, Eric, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York, 1988), esp. 524–587Google Scholar; Abbott, Richard H., The Republican Party and The South: The First Southern Strategy, 1855–1877 (Chapel Hill, 1986), 204–232Google Scholar; Hirshson, Stanley P., Farewell to the Bloody Shirt: Northern Republicans and the Southern Negro, 1877–1893 (Bloomington, 1962)Google Scholar; De Santis, Vincent P., Republicans Face the Southern Question: The New Departure Years, 1877–1897 (Baltimore, 1959)Google Scholar; Brock, W. R., An American Crisis: Congress and Reconstruction, 1865–1867 (London, 1963), 274–304Google Scholar; Vann Woodward, C., “Seeds of Failure in Radical Race Policy,” in Woodward, American Counterpoint: Slavery and Racism in the North-South Dialogue (Boston, 1971), 163–183Google Scholar; Riddleberger, Patrick W., “The Radicals' Abandonment of the Negro during Reconstruction,” Journal of Negro History 45 (04 1960): 88–102Google Scholar; Wang, Xi, The Trial of Democracy: Black Suffrage and Northern Republicans, 1860–1910 (Athens, Ga., 1997)Google Scholar. Wang is especially helpful in tracing continuing Republican support for black suffrage after 1877.

81. Quoted in Gillette, Between Justice and Beauty, 68.

82. Sadly, the imposition of direct rule would not mean that congressmen gave any less time to local affairs or that that they treated them with any more diligence and understanding than they had before. On congressional management of District affairs after 1878, see Lessoff, Nation and Its City, 130–63; Green, Constance M., Washington: Capital City, 1879–1950 (Princeton, 1962), 21–28Google Scholar; Harrison, Robert, “The Ideal of a Model City: Congress and the District of Columbia, 1905–1909,” Journal of Urban History 15 (1989): 435–463Google Scholar.

83. On the impact of the reform Republicans, see Benedict, “Reform Republicans and Retreat from Reconstruction”; Riddleberger, “Radicals' Abandonment of the Negro”; Sproat, “Best Men,” 29–44. On the interrelatedness of the Reconstruction of the South and “the Reconstruction of the North,” see Foner, Reconstruction, 461–88; Richardson, Death of Reconstruction; Scobey, Empire City, 251–61; Quigley, Second Founding.

84. CR, 43.1:2331.