District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation 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, 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.

Proposals to emancipate all slaves in the District of Columbia date back to at least 1839. 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. 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".

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.

In December 1861, a bill was introduced in Congress for the abolition of slavery in Washington, D.C. Written by Thomas Marshall Key, 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. It passed the House of Representatives on April 11. 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. He also wanted the bill to delay implementation until after a certain amount of time after the bill was signed. Neither provision was included in the bill. Lincoln signed the bill on April 16, 1862, 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.

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