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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. ==History== 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,〔Wheeler, Linda. ("The true author of D.C.’s Emancipation Act is uncovered" ), ''The Washington Post'' (April 14, 2014).〕 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. The passage of the Compensated Emancipation Act came nearly nine months before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. The act, which set aside $1 million,〔 immediately emancipated slaves in Washington, D.C., giving Union slaveholders up to $300 per freed slave.〔 An additional $100,000 allocated by the law was used to pay each newly freed slave $100 if he or she chose to leave the United States and colonize in places such as Haiti or Liberia. In Washington, D.C., April 16 has been celebrated as Emancipation Day since 1866. An annual parade was held to commemorate the signing of the act until 1901, when a lack of financial and organizational support forced the tradition to stop; it restarted in 2002. In 2000, the Council of the District of Columbia made April 16 a private holiday—or one on which city employees are not given a free day off—and on July 9, 2004, council member Vincent Orange proposed making the day a public holiday. 2005 marked the first year that Emancipation Day was celebrated as an official city holiday in Washington, D.C. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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