415] FROM THE MIDDLE O^^ THE I9TH CENTURY II7 



With the successful conclusion of the Revolutionary War 

 the selection of a federal capital became imminent. The 

 central points of the thirteen states were in Maryland and 

 Viriginia. In March, 1783, New York tendered Kingston ; 

 in May, Maryland urged the choice of Annapolis; in June, 

 New Jersey offered a district below the falls of the Dela- 

 ware. Virginia, having Georgetown for its object, invited 

 Maryland to join in a cession of equal portions of territory 

 lymg together on the Potomac ; leaving Congress to fix its 

 residence on either side."^^ The following year a Congres- 

 sional Committee reported in favor of the location on which 

 Washington now stands and the offers made by Maryland 

 and Virginia were accepted.®^ But on September 7, 1846, 

 that part of the District derived from Virginia was retro- 

 ceded to the Old Dominion upon a petition of its occupants, 

 by a vote of 763 to 222.®^ 



In the United States the next occasion for the change of 

 territorial inter-state relations by popular decision came 

 with the issues involved in the slave question and their 

 aftermath, the Civil War. 



On the loth of December of the year i860, the Legisla- 

 ture of the State of Louisiana met and passed a bill author- 

 izing a convention, to be held on January 23 of the follow- 

 ing year with the object of considering the question of seces- 

 sion. On January 25, that body passed an ordinance of 

 secession by 113 yeas and 17 nays. A motion to submit 

 the ordinance to a popular decision, a plebiscite, was de- 

 feated by a vote of 84 against 45." The secession ordinance 



"1 G. Bancroft, History of the United States of America, the au- 

 thor's last revision, New York, 1885, vol. vi, pp. 97-98. 



"Mbid., p. 98. 



»3 W. F. Dodd, The Government of the District of Columbia, 

 Washington, 1909, p. 32. See also The Encyclopedia Americana, 

 District of Columbia. 



"* E. McPhcrson, The Political History of the United States of 

 America during the Rebellion, Washington, D. C, 1804, pp. 3-4. A 

 widely held doctrine of American constitutional theory is to the 

 effect that a constitutional convention is to be construed as represent- 

 ing the entire people in their original sovereign capacity and tliat, 

 therefore, a vote of such a body is to be deemed equivalent to a 



