Lincoln Goes National

 After the Civil War, historians began writing American history as though the domination of all Americans by the Federal Government was inevitable. Yet for a large part of our history the seat of the Federal Government, Washington DC, did not exist and when it was created, it was not located in any of our states. We chose a separate location for it taking small portions of land from the states of Virginia and Maryland. Abraham Lincoln declared in his inaugural speech of March 4th 1861 that the Federal Government was a “national” government yet it possessed no national territory except the District of Columbia which was a stateless district. The Constitution never uses the word “national” or “nation” or “Federal Government” anywhere. It says its purpose is to form “a more perfect union…for the united states of America” and it then enumerates the limited powers that the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the new government possess.

Daniel McNeill

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