By Senator Tom Cotton.

Our country faces real challenges today-for example, anti-American mobs are roaming the streets in many cities, tearing down statues of our greatest statesmen, men like Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant, and George Washington, after whom this capital city is named.

But the Democrats aren’t doing anything about that problem. Oh no, on the contrary. The mob is in many ways the youth movement of the Democratic Party, so they’re perfectly content to look the other way-or even cheer it on. I mean, have you heard Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, or Nancy Pelosi denouncing mob rule in our streets? Me either.

But instead, the Democrats have found another pressing issue: the House is voting tomorrow on a bill to make Washington, D.C. a state.

If that sounds insane, you’re not alone: more than two-thirds of the American people oppose D.C. statehood, according to a Gallup poll last summer. By some estimates, D.C. statehood is less popular even than defunding the police. So why are the Democrats pushing for it?

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The answer is simple: power. The Democrats want to make Washington a state because they want two new Democratic senators in perpetuity. The Democrats are angry at the American people for refusing to give them total control of the government for going on a decade now. So they want to give the Swamp as many senators as your state has. They want to make Washington a state to rig the rules of our democracy and try to give the Democratic Party permanent power.

But in so doing, Democrats are committing an act of historical vandalism as grotesque as those committed by the Jacobin mobs roaming our streets. In their rush to make Washington a state, they disregard the clear warnings of our Founding Fathers.

If the Democrats succeed in forcing through D.C. statehood, they’ll do so only as a narrow faction that scorns the history of our country and seizes power against the will of the people, who want Washington to remain what it has been for more than 200 years: the Federal City, our nation’s capital.

The District of Columbia is unusual-though not unique-among capitals of the world in that it didn’t grow naturally over the centuries but was purpose-built as the capital of our nation.

The Founders created Washington as a “Federal City” so that the operations of government would be safe and free from domination by the states around it.

James Madison wrote in Federalist 43 that “the indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it.” It’s so obvious as to be self-evident. Without complete control over its territory, Madison wrote, the government “might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted with impunity.” Hostile magistrates or an angry mob might interfere with the people’s elected representatives or even usurp the government.

This was no abstract concern for the Founders. Just five years before Madison wrote those words, several hundred mutinous soldiers assailed the Congress in Philadelphia, where it met at the time. They issued demands to Congress for money and “wantonly pointed their muskets” at Independence Hall. Pennsylvania’s governor rejected Congress’s pleas for help, saying he’d wait until the mob committed “some actual outrages on persons or property” before sending in the state militia. Congress ultimately had to adjourn and flee to New Jersey while Washington sent in troops to put down the mutiny.

This mutiny was an “insult” and “interruption” of the sort Madison refers to in Federalist 43. The Founders made Washington, D.C. independent so that the federal government would never again be at the mercy of a mob or hostile state.

The wisdom of this decision was on display just days ago, when violent riots erupted near the White House, setting fire to a historic church and committing other acts of vandalism and destruction across the city.

Those riots were contained thanks to an impressive show of force by federal law-enforcement officers under federal control. One can only imagine how much worse the destruction would’ve been if those federal officers hadn’t been there-if most of Washington was under the control not of the federal government but of a left-wing politician like Muriel Bowser, who frequently takes the side of rioters against law enforcement.

Would you trust Mayor Bowser to keep Washington safe if she were given the powers of a governor? Would you trust Marion Barry? More important: should we risk the safety of our capital on such a gamble?

Of course, the Democrats will argue their statehood bill doesn’t entirely eliminate federal control of Washington because it preserves a small “federal district” that encompasses the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, the National Mall, and a few other government buildings.

What a humbling demotion from the grand “Federal City” that President Washington and Pierre L’Enfant envisioned more than 200 years ago, which they hoped would rival Paris in size and ambition. By contrast, look at this ridiculous map. Look at it. The Democrats propose to turn Washington into little more than a gerrymandered government theme park, surrounded on all sides by a new state-controlled, of course, by the Democrats.

The federal government’s safety and independence cannot be assured by such a laughable district. Again, look at it-it has got 90 sides!

A mere city block-less than 200 yards-separates the White House from the proposed boundaries of a new state, governed at present by a politician who hates the president. The Supreme Court and several congressional office buildings are right on the edge of the map, separated from the new Democratic state by the width of a single city street. In the event of an emergency like the Philadelphia Mutiny of 1783, those narrow boundaries could jeopardize the operations of the federal government.

Consider also what’s not included in the Democrats’ new District of Columbia. The headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security would be outside the federal government’s control, as would be the headquarters of the FBI and the FCC, which governs all communications in the country.

The seat of government would also be separated for the first time from its military bases: Fort McNair in southwest Washington, the Marine Barracks in southeast Washington, and Bolling Air Force Base across the river.

Washington’s roughly 200 foreign embassies would no longer be in the federal district but in the Democrats’ new state, giving it unusual prominence in foreign affairs-precisely the kind of special treatment the Founders hoped to avoid by created a federal city.

And while the proposed federal district would have access to a single power plant, undoubtedly it would rely on the Democrats’ new state for many basic utilities-not just power, but water, sewage, and telecommunications. It would also rely on the new state, as well as Virginia, for access by land. The civil servants and officers of the federal government would have no choice but to reside in a different state on which they would wholly depend for access to the federal zone.

Now, these may seem like minor or obscure problems. And in peaceful times, maybe they are. But recognize the truth: the government of the most powerful nation in the world wouldn’t have control of critical infrastructure necessary for its own safety, functioning, and independence in a crisis.

Maybe that seems like a remote danger, though one should think better after the riots earlier this month-to say nothing of the Civil War itself, when our seat of government faced imminent danger of encirclement by hostile forces.

In fact, the danger was so severe that President Lincoln wanted Washington to be enlarged-not diminished-to include the area south of the Potomac that was retroceded to Virginia in 1846. He said, “the present insurrection shows, I think, that the extension of this District across the Potomac at the time of establishing the capital here was eminently wise, and consequently that the relinquishment of that portion of it which lies within the state of Virginia was unwise and dangerous.”

How much more unwise and dangerous would it be to shrink the federal district even further, to just a few buildings on a 90-sided map? But that’s exactly what the Democrats propose to do.

And those are just the practical, prudential problems. D.C. statehood also presents a grave constitutional conundrum. Attorneys General as diverse as Bobby Kennedy and Ed Meese understood that the 23rd Amendment forecloses the Democrats’ statehood proposals.

The 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961, gave Washington residents a meaningful vote in presidential elections. The amendment grants three electoral votes to, in its own words, “the District constituting the seat of Government of the United States.”

But of course, the Democrats’ new state will also be entitled to its own three electoral votes. Yet if the 23rd Amendment isn’t repealed, the rump “federal district” will retain its three electoral votes. The practical effect, of course, would be to increase the Swamp’s electoral power in presidential elections.

Even the radical Democrats can’t ignore this thorny problem. Their bill calls for the swift repeal of the 23rd Amendment. But they would allow Washington to become a state before the amendment is repealed.

But there’s no assurance that the amendment would actually be repealed. The Constitution has been amended on only 18 occasions in our nation’s history. It’s not a walk in the park in the best of times. Yet the Democrats want you to think they can pull off an amendment to alter the Electoral College in the midst of a presidential election.

In the meantime, D.C. statehood, along with the the 23rd Amendment, will lead to absurd consequences. The small “federal district” with its three electoral votes would have virtually no residents….