Slavery in the District of Columbia

rdf:langString Slavery in the District of Columbia

rdf:langString The slave trade in the District of Columbia was legal from its creation until 1850, when the trade in enslaved people in the District was outlawed as part of the Compromise of 1850. That restrictions on slavery in the District were probably coming was a major factor in the retrocession of the Virginia part of the District back to Virginia in 1847. Thus the large slave-trading businesses in Alexandria, such as Franklin & Armfield, could continue their operations in Virginia, where slavery was more secure. Ownership of enslaved people remained legal in the District. It was not until the departure of the legislators from the seceding states that Congress could pass in 1862 the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. The Act provided partial compensation, up to $300 per slave, to slave owners. It was paid from general federal funds. Even though the compensation was small, as before the war a productive slave was worth much more than $300, it is the only place in the United States where slave owners received any compensation at all for freeing their slaves. Some slave owners, rather than manumitting (freeing) their enslaved workers for this small compensation, took them to Maryland and sold them there, which was completely legal. Abolitionists' view of the authority of Congress. Abolitionists nationally, led politically by Massachusetts Representative and former President John Quincy Adams, focused on slavery in the District. According to them, as they explained at length and repeatedly, under the Constitution, Congress had full control over the laws of the District, including laws regarding slavery. States' rights had nothing to do with it. As the powerful Southern legislators realized, and they had blocked it for this reason, it was the first step toward making slavery—according to them, a positive good—illegal in the entire country. The Emancipation Proclamation came 5 months after slavery ended in the District. The drive to eliminate slavery in the District of Columbia was a major component in the anti-slavery campaign that led to the Civil War. Congress, under the leadership of former president John Quincy Adams, now Representative from strongly anti-slavery Massachusetts, was flooded with many petitions for action on the subject. They passed the gag rules, automatically tabling the petitions and preventing them from being read, discussed, or printed. Rather than resolving anything, these rules outraged Northerners and contributed to the growing polarization of the country over slavery.