United States
As provided by the Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, the seat of the United States government is a federal district known as the District of Columbia. When created in 1790, the District comprised 100 square miles (260 km2) of land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia. Columbia was a poetic name for the United States used at the time.
The City of Washington was built in the center of the District, but other towns were also located in the territory such as Georgetown and Alexandria. The United States Congress returned the Virginia portion of the District back to that state in 1846. The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 revoked the charters of the individual cities of Washington and Georgetown, and instead created a single government for the whole District of Columbia. The City of Washington no longer exists; however, the name continues in use and the city is often referred to as just Washington, D.C.
Since the Home Rule Act of 1973, the District of Columbia has been run by an elected mayor and city council. Congress retains ultimate authority over the District and has the right to review the local budget and taxes, overturn laws passed by the city council, and terminate home rule. District residents pay federal taxes and are represented by a single, non-voting member in the United States House of Representatives.
Because of the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, the people of the District of Columbia are allowed to vote for President of the United States. The District is allotted three electoral votes, equal to that of the least populous state. Before this, the residents of the District were not afforded the right to vote for the President who resides within their territory. The District still does not have voting representation in Congress, however, despite having a larger population than that of the least populous state, Wyoming.
Read more about this topic: Capital Districts And Territories
Famous quotes related to united states:
“The popular colleges of the United States are turning out more educated people with less originality and fewer geniuses than any other country.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)
“And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get it—Spain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United States—but do we want it? In these years we will see.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Prior to the meeting, there was a prayer. In general, in the United States there was always praying.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Europe and the U.K. are yesterday’s world. Tomorrow is in the United States.”
—R.W. ‘Tiny’ Rowland (b. 1917)
“Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)