JUDICIAL INTERPRETATIONS
District of Columbia
On May 3d, 1802 an Act was passed to incorporate the City of
Washington. (2 Stat. at L. 195.) It invested the mayor and
common council (the latter being elected by the white male
inhabitants) with all the usual powers of municipal bodies, such
as the power to pass by-laws and ordinances; powers of
administration, regulation and taxation; amongst others
specially named, ... p. 233
This general review of the form of government which
prevailed in the District of Columbia and the City of Washington
prior to 1871 is sufficient to show that it was strictly
municipal in its character; p. 233
In 1871 an important modification was made in the form of
the district government -- a Legislature was established, with
all the apparatus of a distinct government. By the Act of
February 21st, of that year, entitled "An Act to Provide a
Government for the District of Columbia (16 Stat. at L. 419), it
was enacted (sec. 1) that all that territory of the United States
included within the limits of the District of Columbia be created
into a government by the name of the District of Columbia by
which name it was constituted a "a body corporate for municipal
purposes," with power to make contracts, sue and be sued, and "to
exercise all other powers of a municipal corporation not
inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.
p 233
This Constitution lasted until June 20th, 1874, when an Act
was passed entitled "An Act for the Government of the District of
Columbia, and for other purposes." (18 Stat. at L. 116) By this
Act the government established by the Act of 1871 was abolished.
p 234
By a subsequent Act, approved June 11th, 1878 (20 Stat. at
L. 102), it was enacted that the District of Columbia should
"remain and continue a municipal corporation," as provided in
section two of the Revised Statutes relating to said District,
and the appointment of commissioners was provided for, to have
and to exercise similar powers given to the commissioners
appointed under the Act of 1874. All rights of action and suits
for and against the District were expressly preserved in status
quo. p. 234
All municipal governments are but agencies of the superior
power of the State or government by which they are constituted,
and are invested with only such subordinate powers of local
legislation and control as the superior Legislature sees fit to
confer upon them. p. 234
The people are the recognized source of all authority, state
or municipal, and to this authority it must come at last, whether
immediately or by circuitous route. Barnes v. District of
Columbia, 91 U.S. 540, 545 [23: 440, 441]. p 234
Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for this court, in the case
of Hepburn v. Ellzey, 6 U.S. 2 Cranch, 445 [ 2:332 ], where the
question was whether a citizen of the District could sue in the
circuit courts of the United States as a citizen of a State. The
court did not deny that the District of Columbia is a State in
the sense of being a distinct political community; but held that
the word "State" in the Constitution, where it extends the
judicial power to cases between citizens of the several "States,"
refers to the States of the Union. It is undoubtedly true that
the District of Columbia is a separate political community in a
certain sense, and in that sense may be called a State; but the
sovereign power of this qualified State is not lodged in the
corporation of the District of Columbia, but in the government of
the United States. Its supreme legislative body is Congress.
The subordinate legislative powers of a municipal character which
have been or may lodged in the city corporations, or in the
District of Columbia, do not make those bodies sovereign. Crimes
committed in the District are not crimes against the District,
but against the United States. Therefore, whilst the District
may, in a sense, be called a State, it is such in a very
qualified sense. No more than this was meant by Chief Justice
Taney, when, in the Bank of Alexandria v. Dryer, 39 U.S. 14 Pet.
141, 146 [10: 391], he spoke of the District of Columbia as being
formed, by the Acts of Congress, into one separate political
community, . . . p. 234
We are clearly of the opinion that the plaintiff is a
municipal corporation, having a right to sue and be sued, and
subject to the ordinary rules that govern the law of procedure
between private persons.
[The Metropolitan Railroad Company v. District of Columbia]
[132 U.S. 231 (1889)]
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