The 1860s were marked as one of the most difficult time periods for the United States of America since it was when the country went into civil war. With slavery and many conflicting ideas flooding the country, the United States was falling apart and at its most divided time (ever). In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln decided to fix the issues at hand. Some of those issues included slavery, the separation of the North and South, and the Civil War itself. Today, Abraham Lincoln is generally known as one of the greatest and most respected president who took charge of a country in need and created changes that had a positive influence over the United States. One of Lincoln’s biggest achievements as president of the United States was the Emancipation Proclamation which freed slaves and allowed black soldiers to fight for the Union.
Slavery had long existed in Washington DC ever since the birth of the city in 1790 when Congress created the federal territory from lands held by slave states of Virginia and Maryland. Due to its location, Washington became the center of slavery trading. As the South began to develop as a prime market for cotton, the need for slave labor was exponentially high, so there was a continuous need for more slaves and the market of it continued. Soon, The Compromise of 1850 prohibited slave trading in the nation’s capital, but it did not emancipate any of the slaves that worked for D.C. slaveholders at the time of the compromise. By the 1860s, there were about four millions salves, approximately thirteen percent of the U.S. population at its time.
On April 16th,1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act which ended slavery in Washington, DC. At the time, about 3,300 slaves were held in the District, outnumbered two to one by free black residents. In order to free them, Congress paid slaveholders an average of $300 per slave. In result, the congress paid $5,400 in 1862, which is worth nearly $150,000 in current day value. This day marks as the starting point in slavery emancipation - a long-held goal of abolitionists. Moreover, The Congress also offering freed slaves $100 if they wanted to voluntarily leave the U.S. Soon, President Lincoln proposed the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet in the summer of 1863 and many of them found it unappealing and was worried that the Proclamation might sound too radical. President Lincoln did not give up and showed his firm commitment to the necessity and justice of the Proclamation to the cabinet. And after the victory at Antietam, Lincoln finally persuaded his cabinet to support him. Four years later, after the Civil War ended and the 1865 ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, slavery was officially abolished nationwide.
President Lincoln considered the Emancipation Proclamation the most important aspect of his legacy. “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper,” he mentioned. “If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it." On January 4, 2005, legislation was signed to make Emancipation Day an official public holiday in the District of Columbia. It is also celebrated in other places in the US, the emancipation of slaves is celebrated in Florida (May 20), Puerto Rico (March 22) and Texas (June 19). So, if you're running behind on your paperwork, or just hoping to hold onto your money a bit longer, you've got a few extra days this year thanks to President Abraham Lincoln.
Ben Wu
By Ben Wu