[Note: This diary has nothing to do with Unitary Moonbat's excellent series]
A week from today, the District of Columbia will be celebrating Emancipation Day, 147 years ago, Abraham Lincoln signed "An Act for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia." It was the first time that the federal government had freed any slaves, and the only time that the slaveowners were compensated for their slaves thus freed.
Having just spent the last year researching the topic, and just self-published a book about the matter, I figure this would be a good opportunity to outline the whole story, as it does have interesting parallels in todays battles over the District.
Follow me over the fold.
That the new federal district as created in 1790 would be a slave-owning district was pretty much foreordained by the fact that both states which gave up land for it were slave states, and that between them, Maryland and Virginia had over ½ the slaves in the United States (with VA owning the overwhelming majority) Although one source claimed that one legislator made a single, joking, reference to slavery in the District, I was unable to find even that.
In spite of this, as early as 1805, an attempt was made to free the DC slaves. It went for nought, and it wasn't until 1827 that the abolitionist movement really got started. The influx of petitions that this engendered caused Congress to leap into action: In 1836, they passed the Pinckney Resolutions, which formalised the fact that Congress would ignore any petitions. This was meant to reduce the discussions of slavery; all they really did was make the discussions about whether or not they'd discuss slavery, rather than discussing slavery itself.
In 1840, even these discussions were cut off with the infamous gag rule, which formalised the above resolutions (which had to be repassed each session) and instead made them house rules, applicable forever.
Fortunately, by this time the Slave Power (the Southern politicians who kept slavery alive, as well as their Northern enablers) was beginning to weaken, and 4 years later, the gag rule was repealed.
It was in this unsettled time that a young representative from the 7th District of Illinois joined the House. Abraham Lincoln had been elected as a Whig in the 1846 election, to begin a term in December of 1847.
Lincoln spent most of his time dealing with issues related to his positions on the Post Office and Expenditures of the War Department committees, but slavery was always on the agenda, as well. Lincoln usually voted with the abolitionists, but occasionally would break with them when he felt that the resolution they were trying to pass was too inflammatory.
He also voted against a bill that would have emancipated the DC slaves, but this was simply because he had his own bill to that end that he wished to introduce. Lincoln actually read the bill on the floor, and it was a well thought-out bill that included his most cherished beliefs, that emancipation would come only after a referendum of all (white, male) citizens of the city, as well as compensation for the slaveowners thus deprived of their property.
Lincoln claimed that he had spoken with a number of important citizens of the city and that they were all for it. The result of all this was that others shouted that they wished to know the names of these individuals; no attempt was made to vote on the bill itself. Lincoln never propertly introduced it, and instead went back to Illinois and his law practice.
Finally, after he had returned as president, and the least tractable of the slave-owning states had seceded was the issue brought up successfully.
In December 1861, Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson, staunch abolitionist and future vice-president, introduced a bill that would emancipate the DC slaves, and pay their owners for their loss. The bill was debated heavily for a couple of months, with amendments being offered that would have distributed the slaves pro rata to the northern states (An amendment so stupid even the Senator who promulgated it voted against it) and eventually passed pretty much as originally introduced.
Lincoln signed the bill on April 16th, 1862, in spite of the fact that it didn't include a referendum on the matter. Which was a good thing, as the District residents didn't seem terribly excited about the bill, even though that there were only about 3,000 slaves in the District, vs. 11,000 freemen (and 75,000 white inhabitants) Lincoln's reticence can probably be traced back to his fear of angering the border states which continued to have slaves.
Mary Tremain, in her book Slavery in the District of Columbia: The Policy of Congress and the Struggle for Abolition describes the reason the fight had been so intense:
The determination to resist abolition in the District was not formed because they cared for [This should probably read ‘about’ –ed] slavery there. The three thousand slaves, more or less, made not the slightest difference to the Southern States. The claim that the District must be held as a necessary ‘outpost’ was absurd. They did not really believe that the government would interfere with slavery in the States: the most fanatical of the abolitionists never had claimed that the Constitution gave that right. The South depended even more than they professed to do upon moral support. They had persuaded themselves that slavery was right, or, at least, that it was a less evil than emancipation. Slavery in the District served merely as a gauge by which to measure the anti-slavery sentiment of the country. As soon as a majority of the nation should be induced to declare not merely the abstract principle that slavery was wrong, but that it could and should be remedied by legislation, the position of the South would be shaken. Because of the moral influence in their own States of such a declaration, they were determined it should not be made. This is precisely the reason, also, that the abolitionists were so persistent.
So. What does this have to do with current events? Basically, I found it instructive in how DC was used back then, as now, as a political football. That the aim of this law was most admirable, while today, DC seems to be used to further the loony agenda of the right wing (Vouchers! Gun laws!) can't mask the fact that the city remains remarkably beholden to outside influences, and is not allowed to make its own way.
If you're interested in more, I will be talking about this next Tuesday, at the Naval Lodge three blocks from the Capitol here in DC. More information, especially in how to reserve a (free!) spot, see here.
Or if you want to get the whole story, you can buy the book Abraham Lincoln and the End of Slavery in the District of Columbia from Lulu.