August 26 marks the 85th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted America's women the right to vote. Washington women had achieved this a decade earlier -- but not without a long struggle dating back to the Territory's first legislature. Speaking of which, agitation for the separation of Washington from Oregon formally began on August 29, 1851, with a little gathering at Cowlitz Landing. It climaxed three years later, but only after Congress changed the new territory's proposed name of "Columbia" to Washington in order to, we kid you not, avoid confusion with the District of Columbia.They must be kidding. I don't care what they say, they must be joking.
Hmmmm. Here's HistoryLink's article with the relevant information (bottom of article). Hmmmm. On Feb. 8, 1853, House Resolution Number 348 to create Columbia Territory passed out of committee and onto the House floor for debate. During debate, Rep. Richard H. Stanton of Kentucky proposed the name change, to prevent confusion and to honor "The Father of the Country." The House redrew the boundaries, tripled the size of the territory, and passed the bill, with the name change, on Feb. 10. On March 2 the Senate passed what it needed to pass and sent the matter to the President, who also agreed to the plan.
Eek. How could they see that "Columbia" would be confusing (which it would have been), but not understand that "Washington" would be worse, if anything?
All right, perhaps we can agree that those politicians didn't quite think things through as well as they might have. What's the excuse for the folks in power when it came time for statehood? States don't have to have the same names as the territories that preceded them, do they? Surely by November 11, 1889, the downsides to having a state and a national capital with the same name were becoming obvious?
No comments:
Post a Comment