[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 16, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3438-H3439]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 D.C. EMANCIPATION COMMEMORATION SPEECH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Coble). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Manzullo] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, today commemorates one of the most 
significant events that has ever taken place in the history of this 
great country. One hundred thirty-four years ago today Congress 
emancipated over 3,000 slaves owned by residents of the District of 
Columbia. This city's slaves were the first to be freed in our 
country--9 months before President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation 
Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863.

[[Page H3439]]

  Sometime in the early 1860's, while this Nation was embroiled in a 
civil war, a conversation took place between Senator Charles Sumner of 
Massachusetts and President Abraham Lincoln. Sumner asked the 
President, ``Mr. President, do you realize who is the largest 
slaveholder in the United States?'' The President had to think, and the 
Senator said, ``It is you, Mr. President.''
  At the time there were over 3,000 slaves in the District of Columbia 
who were stuck in slavery and bondage and could be freed by an act of 
Congress. That conversation began a monumental epic in the history of 
this country. Within a short period, the House of Representatives and 
the Senate passed legislation, and on April 16, 1862 President Lincoln 
signed the D.C. Emancipation Proclamation.
  Mr. Speaker, let me read to you from a history of the Nation's 
Capital written by M. Bryant in 1960 that explains the significance of 
the D.C. Emancipation Proclamation. He said:

       The proclamation brought to a close an issue about which 
     the anti-slavery Congress had raged for years. As well as 
     placed on the statute books the preliminary measure of what 
     proved to be national policy that would not merely destroy 
     the chains from the slaves, but raise them to civil and 
     political equality.

  That was done with an act of Congress.
  The Congress could not really set free the slaves in the District of 
Columbia though. What Congress did was to recognize what God intended 
from the beginning: that all men are created equal, and all men are 
created free. All Congress could do was to recognize that which God had 
intended.
  Abraham Lincoln affixed his signature to that great document. That 
began the pealing of bells in the District of Columbia. The pealing of 
the bells said the Nation's Capital shall no longer be a stronghold for 
slavery.
  Here are the words of the document that was the precursor of the 
Emancipation Proclamation:

       Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of 
     Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress 
     assembled, that all persons held to service or labor within 
     the District of Columbia by reason of African descent are 
     hereby discharged and freed of all claims of service of 
     labor. From and after passage of this Act, neither slavery or 
     voluntary servitude shall hereafter exist in said district.

  Those were the words.
  Nine months later he did something else quite significant. Spurred on 
by Congress to set the slaves free in the District of Columbia, 
President Lincoln, by Executive proclamation, issued the Emancipation 
Proclamation. Two years ago, I took to the Library of Congress my 
family and Loretta Carter Hanes--the wonderful lady who, along with her 
son, Peter, has revived the D.C. Emancipation Commemoration ceremony in 
this city. There, we read the words of one of the original drafts of 
the Emancipation Proclamation. It was an extremely moving event. 
Reading these words, Loretta's knees buckled and she turned to me and 
said: ``I have to sit down because of the majesty of seeing one of the 
original drafts penned by Abraham Lincoln.''
  This is one of the few documents Lincoln signed with his full first 
name, ``Abraham''. Lincoln did this because he wanted these two 
documents, the two Emancipation Proclamations, to be among the most 
remembered and revered of everything that he signed into law as a 
President. Listen to these words:

       That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, 
     1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or 
     designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be 
     remanded as the United States, shall be thenceforward and 
     forever free.

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