District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act

The act

The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, or simply Compensated Emancipation Act, was a law that ended slavery in Washington, D.C. by paying slave owners for releasing their slaves. Although not written by him,^[1] the act was signed by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 16, 1862. April 16 is now celebrated in the city as Emancipation Day.

History

Proposals to emancipate all slaves in the District of Columbia date back to at least 1839.^[2] In 1848, Rep. Daniel Gott gave an impassioned speech to the House of Representatives against the proposed emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia.^[3] Gott described the actions of abolitionists of the northern states as "impertinent interference with the slaves" and "impertinently intruding themselves into the domestic and delicate concerns of the South, understanding neither the malady to be corrected nor the remedy to be applied".^[3]

In 1849, when he was still a congressman, Lincoln introduced a plan to eliminate slavery in Washington, D.C., through compensated emancipation; the bill failed.^[4]

In December 1861, a bill was introduced in Congress for the abolition of slavery in Washington, D.C.^[5] Written by Thomas Marshall Key,^[6] and sponsored by Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, the bill passed the Senate on April 3 by a vote of 29 in favor and 14 against.^[7] It passed the House of Representatives on April 11.^[8]^[9] Lincoln had wanted the bill to include a provision to make emancipation effective only after a favorable vote from the citizens of the District of Columbia.^[10]^[11] He also wanted the bill to delay implementation until after a certain amount of time after the bill was signed.^[10] Neither provision was included in the bill.^[10]^[11] Lincoln signed the bill on April 16, 1862,^[12] amid ongoing Congressional debate over an emancipation plan for the border states. Following the bill's passage, Lincoln proposed several changes to the act, which were approved by the legislature.^[13]

The passage of the Compensated Emancipation Act came nearly nine months before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. The act, which set aside $1 million,^[4] immediately emancipated slaves in Washington, D.C., giving Union slaveholders up to $300 per freed slave.^[14] An additional $100,000^[15] allocated by the law was used to pay each newly freed slave $100 if he or she chose to leave the United States and colonize in places such as Haiti or Liberia.^[16]

In Washington, D.C., April 16 has been celebrated as Emancipation Day since 1866. An annual parade was held to commemorate the signing of the act until 1901, when a lack of financial and organizational support forced the tradition to stop;^[17] it restarted in 2002.^[18] In 2000, the Council of the District of Columbia made April 16 a private holiday—or one on which city employees are not given a free day off—and on July 9, 2004, council member Vincent Orange proposed making the day a public holiday.^[19] 2005 marked the first year that Emancipation Day was celebrated as an official city holiday in Washington, D.C.^[20]

Outcome

The emancipation plan relied on a three-person Emancipation Commission to distribute the allotted funding. In order to receive compensation, former slaveholders were required to provide written evidence of their ownership, as well as state their loyalty to the Union. Most of the petitioners were white, but some blacks also filed for compensation, having once bought their family members away from other owners. In the end, almost all of the $1 million appropriated in the act had been spent.^[21]

As a result of the act's passage, 3,185 slaves were freed.^[22] However, the older fugitive slave laws were still applied to slaves who had run from Maryland to Washington, D.C. The slaves were still subject to the laws, which supposedly applied only to states, until their 1864 repeal.^[22]

Although the compensated emancipation model was not later adapted by the U.S. government, the act signified the forthcoming demise of slavery in the United States.^[14] The act was the only compensated emancipation plan enacted in the United States.^[4]

The act has one characteristic that remains to this day. When the limit to file income tax returns in the United States, April 15, falls on a Sunday, the due date would normally be advanced to Monday, April 16. However, since April 16 is a holiday in the District of Columbia, it applies to IRS offices there as well, thus the due date is advanced for the entire country to Tuesday, April 17.

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Supplemental legislation

Following Lincoln's concerns over the version of the bill that he signed, the U.S. Senate approved a supplement to the original Compensated Emancipation Act.^[23] The amendment passed on July 12, 1862, allowing former slaves to petition for compensation if their masters had not done so. Under the supplemental act, claims made by blacks and whites were weighted equally, whereas previously, the testimonies of blacks—enslaved or free—were discarded if challenged by a white person.^[24]^[25]

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References

↑ Guelzo 2009, p. 128
↑ "From our Correspondent". The Baltimore Sun. February 9, 1839. p. 4.
1 2 "The District of Columbia and Slavery". The Baltimore Sun. December 28, 1848. p. 1.
1 2 3 Reiner 2006, p. 57
↑ Burgess 1901, p. 78
↑ Wheeler, Linda. "The true author of D.C.’s Emancipation Act is uncovered", The Washington Post (April 14, 2014).
↑ "Emancipation in the District". The New York Times. April 4, 1862. p. 4.
↑ "Abolition in the District of Columbia". The New York Times. April 12, 1862. p. 4.
↑ McQuirter 2009, pp. 12–13
1 2 3 "Emancipation in the District—Mr. Lincoln's Opinions". The New York Times. April 15, 1862. p. 4.
1 2 "Mr. Lincoln's Views on Slavery—His Course Towards the South". The New York Times. November 5, 1860. p. 4.
↑ "Thirty-Seventh Congress—First Session". The Baltimore Sun. April 17, 1862. p. 4.
↑ Burgess 1901, pp. 79–82
1 2 "The District of Columbia Emancipation Act". Featured Documents. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
↑ Rodriguez 2007, p. 275
↑ Burgess 1901, p. 82
↑ Gay 2007, p. 150
↑ Gillespie, Lisa (April 5, 2011). "D.C. Statehood & Emancipation Day Linked". The Georgetowner. Georgetown Media Group. Retrieved July 8, 2011.
↑ Aarons, Dakarai I. (July 10, 2004). "Emancipation Day May Go Public". The Washington Post. The Washington Post Company. p. B02. Retrieved July 8, 2011.
↑ Gay 2007, p. 149
↑ McQuirter 2009, p. 13
1 2 Zavodnyik 2011, p. 15
↑ Basler 1953, p. 192
↑ "Supplemental Act of July 12, 1862". Featured Documents. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 8, 2011.
↑ McQuirter 2009, pp. 13–14

Bibliography

Basler, Roy P., ed. (1953). The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 5. Rutgers University Press.
Burgess, John W. (1901). The Civil War and the Constitution. Charles Scribner's Sons.
Gay, Kathlyn (2007). African-American Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations. Omnigraphics. ISBN 978-0-7808-0779-2.
Guelzo, Allen C. (2009). Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-2861-1.
McQuirter, Marya Annette (2009). Scott, Stephanie D, ed. Ending Slavery in the Nation's Capital (PDF). Office of the Secretary of the District of Columbia.
Reiner, Karl (2006). Remembering Fairfax County, Virginia. The History Press. ISBN 978-1-59629-096-9.
Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2007). Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia. 1. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-544-5.
Zavodnyik, Peter (2011). The Rise of the Federal Colossus: The Growth of Federal Power from Lincoln to F.D.R. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-39293-1.

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