The Seat of Government
The jurisdiction of the United States over the District of Columbia vested on the first Monday of December, 1800.[1334] By the act of February 27, 1801,[1335] the District was divided into two counties and in the following year the city of Washington was erected into a municipality.[1336] The present form of government dates from 1876; all legislative powers with respect to District affairs are retained by Congress, while an executive board of three commissioners vested with ordinance powers is appointed by the President.[1337] As a municipal corporation, the District has the legal capacity to sue and be sued.[1338] But the District Commissioners are merely administrative officers, having only the ministerial powers given them by statute; accordingly they were found to have no power to submit a claim against the District to arbitration.[1339]
NATURE AND EXTENT OF RIGHTS CEDED TO UNITED STATES
In ceding the territory which became the District of Columbia, both Maryland and Virginia provided that the United States should not acquire any right of property in the soil except by transfer by the individual owner. This proviso was held not to prevent the Federal Government from exercising the power of eminent domain within the District.[1340] Under the agreement made between the original proprietors of the land on which the city of Washington was laid out, and the Commissioners appointed by the President to survey, define and locate the district for the seat of government, the United States became the owner in fee of the streets of the city although the trustees never carried out their agreement to convey them.[1341] Both the right of dominion and of property of navigable waters and of the soil under them in the District, which originally had been granted by Charles I, King of England to the Lord Proprietary of Maryland, and to which Maryland succeeded upon the American Revolution, became vested in the United States by the cession from Maryland.[1342]
RETROCESSION OF ALEXANDRIA COUNTY
Originally the District of Columbia embraced the maximum area permitted by the Constitution. In 1846, however, Congress authorized a referendum on the question of retroceding Alexandria County to Virginia, and declared that jurisdiction should be relinquished to that State if a majority of the voters in the county voted in favor of the change. The proposal was approved, whereupon, without any further action by Congress, Virginia declared the county annexed and resumed full jurisdiction over it. Thirty years later, in a suit to recover taxes paid to the State, the Supreme Court called the retrocession "a violation of the Constitution" but held that since Congress had recognized the transfer as a settled fact, a resident of the county was estopped from challenging it.[1343]
Under the act of July 16, 1790,[1344] which provided for the establishment of the seat of government, State laws were continued in operation until Congress created a government for the District. The Supreme Court intimated that this was "perhaps, only declaratory of a principle which would have been in full operation without such declaration."[1345] In 1801 Congress declared that the laws of Virginia and Maryland "as they now exist, shall be and continue in force" in the respective portions of the District ceded by those States.[1346] The only effect of the cession upon individuals was to terminate their State citizenship and the jurisdiction of the State governments over them;[1347] contract obligations were not affected,[1348] and liens on property for debt were continued.[1349]
STATUS OF THE DISTRICT TODAY
Chief Justice Marshall ruled in the early case of Hepburn v. Ellzey[1350] that the District of Columbia is not a State within the meaning of the diversity of citizenship clause of article III. This view was consistently adhered to for nearly a century and a half in the interpretation of later acts of Congress regulating the jurisdiction of federal courts.[1351] In 1940, however, Congress expressly authorized those courts to take jurisdiction of nonfederal controversies between residents of the District of Columbia and citizens of a State. By a five-to-four decision that statute was held constitutional, but the Justices who voted to sustain it were not in agreement as to the grounds of the decision.[1352] Three found it to be an appropriate exercise of the power of Congress to legislate for the District of Columbia without reference to article III.[1353] Six members of the Court rejected this theory, but two of the six joined in upholding the act on another ground which seven of their brethren considered untenable,—namely, that Hepburn v. Ellzey was erroneously decided and that the District of Columbia should be deemed to be a "State" within the meaning of article III, section 2.[1354]