How could this have happened?

The history of the District of Columbia is a long, complex story, with lots of fist-shaking and failed legislation. The short version goes something like this:

The Declaration of Independence pumped a fist in 1776 and the British conceded with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. After years of operating under the rag-tag Articles of Confederation, a young America ratified the Constitution, which took effect in 1789. It provided for a new city to be the seat of the federal government.

^{*brooding ominous theme*}

George Washington chose the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers for the "Federal City". Virginia and Maryland ceded lands for the city, and French architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant began the 10-square mile conception in 1791.

The Constitution, however, implemented on the new city the same rule the founding fathers rebelled against under British rule. Article I, 8, Paragraph 17 of the Constitution gave Congress "exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district." This "District Clause" was a concession to the urgent need for a new constitution for the nation, and troubled the founding fathers.

Hamilton, for example, proposed giving the city Congressional representation upon achieving a specified population. Madison assured that "a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them." At the New York convention to ratify the Constitution, Thomas Tredwell bemoaned, "subjecting the inhabitants of that district to the exclusive legislation of Congress, in whose appointment they have no share or vote, is laying a foundation on which may be erected as complete a tyranny as can be found..."

Early District residents became saddled with subsidizing federal construction, but they continued to vote in Maryland or Virginia. That ended when Congress moved into DC in 1801 and passed the Organic Acts, effectively stripping District residents of all voting rights.