1.
Maryland
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The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
2.
Maryland House of Delegates
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The Maryland House of Delegates is the lower house of the legislature of the State of Maryland. It consists of 141 delegates elected from 47 districts, the House of Delegates Chamber is in the Maryland State House on State Circle in Annapolis, the state capital. The State House also houses the Maryland State Senate Chamber and the offices of the Governor, each delegate has offices in Annapolis, in the nearby Casper R. Taylor Jr. The Lower House often fought with the Upper House for political influence in the colony, the Upper House consisted of the Governor and his Council, all personally appointed by Lord Baltimore and Proprietor of the Province, and thus tended to protect his interests in Maryland. Conversely, the Lower House tended to push for change in the colony. In this context, the Lower House continually fought for power by asserting exclusive rights in certain legislative areas, such as levying taxes. The Governor also had some measure of control over the Lower House in the seventeenth century. Despite the fact that each county was entitled to elect four delegates and this enabled the Governor to control the Lower Houses membership. In 1689, the transfer of Maryland from a colony to a royal colony temporarily quieted the disputes between the Lower House and the Governor and Council. Appointed by the crown, the governors allowed the Lower House substantial latitude with its legislative agenda. The first General Assembly under Royal Authority, in 1692, passed 85 acts in a single session, the Lower House immediately acted to remove the Governors influence over the election of delegates. Now, elected delegates could attend the session without the need for a writ from the Governor. At the same time, standing or continuing committees were established and these eliminated the Lower Houses reliance on ad hoc committees and created the first modern legislature in Maryland. During this period, the Lower House became known as the House of Delegates, the Maryland Constitution of 1776 formally established the modern House of Delegates. Initially, representation was based on geography as the voters of each county elected four delegates, beginning with the 1838 elections, each county elected at least three and up to six delegates depending on its population. Baltimore City elected the number of delegates as did the most populous county, but after 1840. Reapportionment was required after every federal census in an attempt to equal representation. The current pattern for distribution of seats in the House of Delegates began with the legislative apportionment plan of 1972 and has been revised every ten years thereafter, the plan created 47 legislative districts, many of which cross county boundaries to delineate districts relatively equal in population
3.
Farmville, Virginia
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Farmville is a town in Prince Edward and Cumberland counties in the U. S. state of Virginia. The population was 8,216 at the 2010 census and it is the county seat of Prince Edward County. The Appomattox River traverses Farmville, along with the High Bridge Trail State Park, at the intersection of US15, VA45 and US460, Farmville is the home of Longwood University and is the town nearest to Hampden–Sydney College. Near the headwaters of the Appomattox River, the town of Farmville was formed in 1798, Farmville was the end of the line for the Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation System between 1795 until 1890. African Americans built the canal system, tobacco and farm produce could be loaded into a James River bateau in Farmville and sent to Petersburg, Virginia. The canals were used until railroads became common, many of the boatmen who worked in the Upper Appomattox Navigation, near Farmville were free people of color, who lived in the Israel Hill community. Israel Hill was home to free African American laborers, craftsmen and farmers freed around 1810, people of African and European descent worked for the same wages, built a church together and could be defended in court within the 350 acre town. John Flournoy was the first to mine coal near Farmville and he started in 1833 working on a seam, which was two feet thick. In 1837 the General Assembly granted a charter to “The Prince Edward Coal Mining Company” to mine and this company was still in operation into the 1880s. Another coal pit in the 1880s was worked on the W. W, the coal from this small pit was used to fuel his blacksmith shop on the same property. Farmville has coal deposits because it sits on the Farmville Basin, one of the Eastern North America Rift Basins west of modern day, in the 1850s, the Southside Railroad from Petersburg to Lynchburg was built through Farmville between Burkeville and Pamplin City. The route, which was subsidized by a contribution from Farmville, required a crossing of the Appomattox River slightly downstream. The Virginia General Assembly chartered the Piedmont Coal Company for John Dalby in 1860, the mine was near Buckingham Plank Road, Virginia State Route 600 in Cumberland, a mile and a half west of Raines Tavern, Virginia. Without rail transportation close to Raines Tavern, the transportation cost of getting the coal to Farmville, the coal was sold locally to people in the area for heating their homes. During the American Civil War, the continued to operate. Coal was still there, though, Daddow and Bannon documented seven or eight coal seams, Robert E. Lee retreated through Farmville as he escaped the Union Army in the Civil War. Farmville was the object of the Confederate Armys desperate push to get rations to feed its soldiers near the end of the American Civil War, the rations had originally been destined for Danville, but an alert quartermaster ordered the train back to Farmville. Despite an advance of the commanded by Fitzhugh Lee, the Confederate Army was checked by the arrival of Union cavalry commanded by Gen. Philip Sheridan
4.
Howard County, Maryland
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Howard County is a county located in the central part of the U. S. state of Maryland. As of the 2010 census, the population was 287,085 and its county seat is Ellicott City. Howard County is included in the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD Metropolitan Statistical Area, however, recent development in the south of the county has led to some realignment towards the Washington, D. C. media and employment markets. The county is home to Columbia, a planned community of approximately 100,000 founded by developer James Rouse in 1967. Howard County is frequently cited for its affluence, quality of life, with an estimated median household income of $108,844 in 2012, Howard County had the third-highest median household income of any U. S. county in 2013. The main population center of Columbia/Ellicott City was named second among Money magazines 2010 survey of Americas Best Places to Live, Howard Countys schools frequently rank first in Maryland as measured by standardized test scores and graduation rates. In 2010, the center of population of Maryland was located in the Howard County town of Jessup and he was the fifth governor of Maryland from 1788 to 1791. The lands of prehistoric Howard County were populated by Native Americans, the Maryland Historical Trust has documented sites along the Patapsco, Patuxent, Middle and Little Patuxent River valleys. In 1652, the Susquehannock tribes signed a treaty with Maryland. In 1800, the center of U. S. population as calculated by the US Census Bureau was found in what is now Howard County. In 1838, Dr. William Watkins of Richland Manor proposed the Howard District of Anne Arundel County, after several adjournments, the area of western Anne Arundel County was designated the Howard District in 1839. The district had the status as a county except that it was not separately represented in the Maryland General Assembly. In 1841, the county built its first courthouse in Ellicott City, at the January 1851 constitutional convention, Thomas Beale Dorsey submitted a petition led by James Sykes. A committee was formed with Dorsey, Bowie, Smith, Harbine, after several postponements, the district was erected officially as Howard County on March 7,1851. The plantations of modern Howard County used slave labor as early as 1690, at the time of the Underground Railroad, some Howard County residents assisted slaves who were escaping to freedom. This was particularly risky, as many prominent plantation families were Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War, Maryland was exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation, later abolishing slavery in the update of the Maryland Constitution in November 1864. On May 1,1883 Howard County joined Anne Arundel and Hardford County in liquor prohibition, by 1899, Howard County contained 400 miles of dirt and 48 miles of stone roads, including three paid turnpikes maintained by 118 men. Most traffic consisted of loads delivered to rail crossings, in 1909, County Commissioners Hess, Werner and ONeil were charged with malfeasance regarding contract bids
5.
Democratic Party (United States)
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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social-liberal platform, supporting social justice. Today, the House Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists, the partys philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It seeks to provide government intervention and regulation in the economy, the party has united with smaller left-wing regional parties throughout the country, such as the Farmer–Labor Party in Minnesota and the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business, the New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South, after the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most southern whites and many northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller and less supportive after the 1970s, white Evangelicals and Southerners became heavily Republican at the state and local level in the 1990s. However, African Americans became a major Democratic element after 1964, after 2000, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, the LGBT community, single women and professional women moved towards the party as well. The Northeast and the West Coast became Democratic strongholds by 1990 after the Republicans stopped appealing to socially liberal voters there, overall, the Democratic Party has retained a membership lead over its major rival the Republican Party. The most recent was the 44th president Barack Obama, who held the office from 2009 to 2017, in the 115th Congress, following the 2016 elections, Democrats are the opposition party, holding a minority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a minority of governorships, and state legislatures, though they do control the mayoralty of cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D. C. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and that party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. They have been liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy both parties changed position several times and that party, the Democratic-Republican Party, came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republican party still had its own factions, however. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828, Jacksonians believed the peoples will had finally prevailed, through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president
