D.C

What is the meaning of the letters D and C in the name of the capital of the United States , Washington , D.C.?

To answer the question , we must go back about two-hundred years , to the beginning of the United States . The states approved a Constitution for the country in 1788 . But they could not decide where to build the permanent capital . Northern states did not want the capital in the south because of slavery . The southern states did not want it in the north . Several places were proposed , but Congress could not agree no one .

Then Thomas Jefferson of Virginia invited Alexander Hamilton of New York to dinner to discuess the dispute . Two congressmen from Virginia were also there . The four men talked politics .

Southern votes had defeated a bill in Congress that Mr.Hamilton wanted very much to be approved . It would have required the federal government to pay the money owed by the states for fighting the war to gain independence from Britain .

The two Virginia congressmen agreed to change their votes against the bill . And Mr.Hamilton agreed to find northern votes to support a proposal to build the capital along the Potomac River between the states of Virginia and Maryland . That is how Congress agreed to build the capital in a federal area on land provided by the two states .

A year later , officials announced that the city would be called Washington , in honor of the country’s first President , George Washington . The later federal area would be named the District of Columbia . Columbia had become another name for the United States , one that was used by poets and other writers . The name came from Christopher Columbus , the explorer who sailed from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean to the Western Hemisphere .

Today , Washington, D.C. is known to those who live in the area as the District .