If it weren't for slavery, New York City wouldn't be in the mess we're in today—that is to say, the mess of New York State. After a detour during the mid-late 1700s, when the country's founding fathers were drafting the United States Constitution in the sweltering provisional capital of Philadelphia, Alexander Hamilton lobbied fiercely for his second home, New York City, to become the official capital of the new union. Had compromises not been necessary to satisfy the slave states—namely, a capital a little closer to home—New York City could be a federal district today. And maybe it should be anyway.