150 Years of the DC Emancipation Act
In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the DC Emancipation Act, the National Archives has released this short documentary video. Archivists discusses the petitions filed by owners and enslaved persons; how the process worked, and how the University of Nebraska’s new website, Civil War Washington (www.civilwardc.org) will make the petitions available to researchers.
Lucius Fox
Chief Executive Officer of Wayne Enterprises
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The District of Columbia Emancipation Act
On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia. Passage of this act came 9 months before President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The act brought to conclusion decades of agitation aimed at ending what antislavery advocates called “the national shame” of slavery in the nation’s capital.
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Judgment in the U.S. Supreme Court Case Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sanford, March 6, 1857
The 11-year struggle for freedom by the enslaved Dred Scott and his wife culminated in one of the Supreme Court’s most criticized decisions. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney read the majority opinion of the Court, which stated that slaves were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts; the opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a federal territory. The decision was overturned by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution, which abolish slavery and declare all persons born in the United States to be citizens.
Cover Sheet Summarizing Disposition of the Dred Scott Case by the U.S. Supreme Court, 03/06/1857
In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated).
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