for emancipation, once it became law in January 1863.7 During the spring of 1862 Shepherd voiced opinions about race questions on several occasions during Common Council debates, strongly opposing the black suffrage movement that was gaining ground among Radical Republicans in Congress. In early March he made his first official commentary on race. This occurred following resolutions by the Metropolitan Police Board that requested repeal of the Washington and Georgetown black codes restricting the movements of blacks after 10:00 p.m. Shepherd introduced an unsuccessful amendment for review of the ordinances, noting that he did not desire to stir up agitation on the subject or to offend any member of the board. Shepherd said that his resolution was not meant to anticipate repeal by the board but rather to show respect for the police.8 The intent of the amendment is not clear, although Shepherd’s proposal to review police ordinances might imply that he was raising a question of whether or not the police board had the authority to call for revision of the black codes, all of which were in any event repealed that spring.9 At the end of March he joined a 14–4 Common Council majority in passing a joint resolution with the Board of Aldermen opposing the congressional emancipation bill.10
In April, during a council debate on an education bill, Shepherd observed that he hoped that the discussion of the “negro question” was at an end, adding that he considered the subject a “hobby [horse]” that politicians ought not to ride in seeking office; he wished to see agitation on the subject ended.11 Shepherd made one of his most categorical statements on the black vote in 1864, in response to reports that he supported a congressional bill to provide the franchise for adult male residents of the District, regardless of race. The press reported that Shepherd
was opposed to the principle of allowing negroes to vote, in toto. A certain class of people were now trying to force the negroes to sit in the [horse] cars, with white people, but he . . . was not quite up to that standard. This negro-equality question was now being forced upon the people by the red-mouthed abolitionists in the United States. He . . . could not favor it, and yet he considered that his unionism was of a high standard. He was in favor of the President’s proclamation to free the slaves, but he was not in favor of putting them on an equality with white men.12
During his first term on the Common Council, Shepherd pushed hard but unsuccessfully to include a loyalty oath as a voting requirement. Failing this, he later proposed changing the Washington City charter to include such an oath. Shepherd linked his support for a loyalty oath with opposition to a congressional bill regarding residency requirements for Washington voters. During a congressional debate about the proposal to require only a six-month residency for Washington City voters, without regard to property owner ship, he objected, again unsuccessfully, on the grounds that it would be unjust to property holders to permit recent residents to influence elections.13 Furthermore, he argued that such a short residency requirement would also be unjust to property holders since “it would be abused by a class, such as teamsters, etc.,” who would take advantage of it for whiskey and money.14
Despite the failure of these initiatives, they strengthened Shepherd’s public image as a member of the Unconditional Union faction on the council and as a spokesman for property owners. He was a self-made businessman who had seen the disappearance of his father’s estate and subsequent family difficulties, and as a result he had developed firm views on the centrality of property as a qualification for political participation, a position on which he never wavered. Realizing that he was creating a political image that resonated with voters, Shepherd continued to stake out hard-line positions on loyalty to the Union, winning a third term on the Washington Common Council in 1863.
During this period Shepherd drew criticism from some Washington politicians who complained that they were being branded insufficiently loyal to the United States. They accused Shepherd and his supporters of having labeled them “copperheads,” a derogatory term for Southern-leaning Northerners. By taking a leading position on the Unconditional Union ticket and dramatizing the loyalty issue, Shepherd created an awkward situation for local, conservative, often Georgetown-based figures whose political sympathies were frequently with the South.
Shepherd’s debating style was always confident and occasionally aggressive. From the beginning he demonstrated a willingness to use his imposing physical presence to support a legislative position; one challenge during his term on the Elections Committee brought the response that he would allow no one to “asperse” him. Speaking in a loud tone and with a belligerent attitude, Shepherd told the other speaker to take his seat, and both men appeared ready to fight. Nothing ensued, however, and Shepherd closed by defending the members of his committee from the charge of unfairness.15 During one debate he contended that he did not care about “appearances, ridiculous or not. . . . The only question was whether it was right,” adding that he would do his duty and let others think what they might.16
During his three terms on the Common Council, Shepherd maintained a steady criticism of Congress’s refusal to provide local government with taxing authority while at the same time providing concessions and franchises to outside corporate investors in the capital. Responding to an article in a local paper critical of the District for neglect of Pennsylvania Avenue, he commented bitterly that “when a railroad franchise, or gas company, or anything of that sort was asked [of Congress], it was rushed straight through; but when the city asked for power to tax property for necessary improvements, to make this city a pride for its people, instead of a disgrace, we were snubbed or kicked out until the adjournment of Congress.”17 Among Shepherd’s targets was the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. He saw the railroad, which had a rail station near the Capitol and tracks across the mall that disfigured the vista of the Capitol, as a corporate bully that had political influence with Congress and would be an obstacle to his plans to rationalize the development of the city.
Balancing family life with his business and political affairs, Shepherd married Mary Grice Young in January 1862, and he and his bride moved into their first home, a comfortable brick row house at 358 Tenth Street W.18 Shepherd’s Washington residences would reflect his growing financial success, culminating in the mansion at 1705 K Street some ten years later. Although his mother remained in her nearby Ninth Street residence until after the end of the war, she helped the newlyweds settle into their new home. The couple’s first child, Mary Young Shepherd, was born in early December 1862 at their new home, where Shepherd’s mother no doubt was able to help out with the growing family.
Because Shepherd was a businessman whose major activities were equipping homes with heating, lighting, and plumbing systems, as well as developing real estate and constructing homes, he understood the importance of optimism and stability to encourage investment in local real estate. The constant attacks on Washington for its shortcomings were a threat to such local investment and encouraged attempts to “remove” the capital to some other part of the country. Local newspapers, informed observers such as the recorder of deeds, and the principal real estate brokers and developers of the time were vocal in attributing stuttering investment—public as well as private—in Washington to the threat of retrocession to Mary land and “removal” of the capital to the West. Retrocession had already occurred once, when Congress returned the Alexandria City and County portion of the original ten-mile square across the Potomac River to Virginia in 1846. Agitation and uncertainty had a negative influence on attitudes and property values, something Shepherd well understood.19 Consequently, as early as the Civil War, Shepherd had begun to take steps to identify and respond to the threat of capital removal, which he believed would crush the life out of Washington and his growing investments in land and buildings.
Article I, section 8, of the Constitution gave Congress exclusive jurisdiction over an area of up to ten miles square anticipated for cession by the states. Early debates over local governance of the nation’s capital wereunited on one key point: executive authority should be vested in an appointee of the president of the United States, not an individual elected by the residents. As an appointee, the mayor, it was thought, “could not fail to administer local affairs in harmony with the national administration.”20 Nonetheless, by 1802 this concept had shifted to a congressional decision to delegate administration of local affairs to the local government, thereby granting limited freedom to residents to manage what concerned them more than it did the general government.