[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 175 (Tuesday, November 13, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H13529-H13535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING THAT THE GREAT HALL OF THE CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER SHALL BE 
                       KNOWN AS EMANCIPATION HALL

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
bill (H.R. 3315) to provide that the great hall of the Capitol Visitor 
Center shall be known as Emancipation Hall.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 3315

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. DESIGNATION OF GREAT HALL OF THE CAPITOL VISITOR 
                   CENTER AS EMANCIPATION HALL.

       (a) In General.--The great hall of the Capitol Visitor 
     Center shall be known and designated as ``Emancipation 
     Hall'', and any reference to the great hall in any law, rule, 
     or regulation shall be deemed to be a reference to 
     Emancipation Hall.
       (b) Effective Date.--This section shall apply on and after 
     the date of the enactment of this Act.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) and the gentleman from Arkansas 
(Mr. Boozman) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.


                             General Leave

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
and to include extraneous material on H.R. 3315.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  H.R. 3315 is a bill to designate the great hall located in the 
Capitol Visitor Center as ``Emancipation Hall.'' As we all know, the 
new Capitol Visitor Center is the most recent and largest addition to 
the United States Capitol in its 212-year history.
  The great hall will include information and ticketing desks and 
provide an area where Americans from across the country and where 
people from all over the world can gather to take in scenic views of 
the Capitol or prepare to tour the 580,000 square foot Visitor Center.
  The great hall will also serve as a central gathering space in the 
Capitol Visitor Center. It encompasses 20,000 square feet and its 
dimensions are 100 feet by 200 feet, with a ceiling height of 35 feet. 
It is indeed a majestic addition to the Capitol. There will be statues 
from Statuary Hall on display throughout the great hall, if I may so, 
hopefully, finally, statues from the Capitol of the United States; the 
District of Columbia. The plaster model of the Statue of Freedom from 
the Senate Russell building will be featured in the cellar rotunda. The 
wall and column stone in the great hall is sandstone from Pennsylvania. 
The floor stone is marble from Tennessee and dolomite from Wisconsin. 
The black granite in the water features of the great hall comes from 
California. It is remarkable and impressive as a public space befitting 
this Capitol.
  In 2004, congressional leaders directed the Architect of the Capitol 
to produce a report on the history of slave labor in the construction 
of the Capitol itself. The completed 29-page report examined the 
efforts of slaves that helped build the Capitol, other Federal 
buildings, and the White House, which at the time was known as the 
President's House. Although the record was incomplete because of 
limited documentation of slave labor, the evidence available and 
historical context in the report provided several indications that 
slaves and freed African Americans played a significant role in 
building the physical symbols and the Capitol itself.
  H.R. 3315 was introduced to acknowledge the work of many who were 
forced to work on building the U.S. Capitol. On Wednesday, November 7, 
the congressional task force completed its work and included in its 
list of recommendations a specific recommendation to honor slaves who 
built the Capitol.
  Mr. Speaker, I am a third-generation Washingtonian. My great 
grandfather, Richard Holmes, was a runaway slave from a plantation in 
Virginia. He arrived here in the 1850s, and that's how our family began 
here. He was freed in a congressional emancipation 9 months before the 
Emancipation Proclamation. This emancipation was a Civil War 
emancipation bill issued earlier than the more famous Emancipation 
Proclamation.
  He worked on the streets of the capital. I have no evidence that he 
worked on the Capitol itself. Indeed, there was no mention of the work 
of slaves or African Americans on this Capitol even in official Capitol 
histories until recent decades.
  This Capitol has stood for 212 years without even acknowledging, in 
some small way, perhaps a marker, something to indicate that slaves, 
many of them quite skilled because they were hired out as ``hired 
Negroes'' in order to bring the greatest revenue to their slave owners, 
and therefore, it behooved him or her to hire out those Negro hires, as 
they were called, who could benefit the slave owner the most.
  These are nameless African Americans. Nothing in the Emancipation 
Hall and nothing that we do now will make us understand who they are. 
The very least we can do, if we are adding to this Capitol, is to 
finally acknowledge their work in building this extraordinary building 
that was called from its earliest beginnings, the Temple of Liberty, or 
perhaps now that we have founded the great hall, it will be more worthy 
of that name.
  When I visited the center, I was very impressed by it; but in the 
early days of its construction, I asked, How are you going to 
commemorate the fact that slaves worked on the original Capitol? And 
there was something, along with many other historical remembrances, 
that did indicate that slaves had built or helped build the original 
Capitol, along with, of course, many working-class and skilled whites 
who participated in the effort. But that was going to be the sum total 
of it.
  One of the difficulties may be, how do you do something so late in 
the history of our country that is large enough to encompass what we 
had not remembered for two centuries?
  In my judgment, there is no place, there is no marker, there is no 
piece of ground that can adequately, finally remember their 
contribution. And so we don't name a hall, we don't name a room, we 
don't have a statue. We say

[[Page H13530]]

enter this space. When you enter this space, it will be called 
Emancipation Hall.

                              {time}  1230

  And in that way we will perhaps emancipate our Capitol from more than 
two centuries of ignoring the contribution of these slaves who helped 
build this majestic building.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  H.R. 3315 provides that the great hall of the Capitol Visitor Center 
be known as Emancipation Hall. The bill was introduced by 
Representative Zach Wamp of Tennessee on August 2, 2007.
  At nearly 580,000 square feet, the Capitol Visitor Center is the 
largest project undertaken by the Office of the Architect of the 
Capitol in the Capitol's 212-year-old history. It is one of the most 
important projects since the extensions to the Capitol and the Dome 
were built more than 140 years ago. As an extension of the Capitol, the 
Capitol Visitor Center will welcome visitors to the seat of the 
American Government.
  Within the Capitol Visitor Center, the great hall is a large 20,000-
square-foot room where visitors will gather as they enter the Capitol. 
This promising gathering space will serve as the gateway for the 
public's experience of the Capitol and American democracy.
  The Capitol Visitor Center will provide visitors to the Capitol the 
opportunity to learn about and more fully understand the Constitution, 
the Congress, and the history of the Capitol, including the 
contribution of slaves who helped build the Capitol and the country. It 
will help deepen the understanding of all who visit about our Nation's 
long struggle with slavery and its ultimate abolition.
  It is fitting and appropriate to recognize the seminal moment of the 
Emancipation Proclamation in American history. We should recognize the 
sacrifice and contribution of the many slaves who helped build the 
Capitol.
  Mr. Speaker, with that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson).
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Let me 
express my great appreciation to the chairman and to the ranking member 
of this committee.
  Today we have come to this temple of democracy on this momentous 
occasion to write a new chapter in the unfolding story of human 
freedom. The event of emancipation marks one of the most if not the 
most significant event in American history.
  Emancipation was more than an act; it was a process. Emancipation was 
not a date but a period. Emancipation was not an event but the 
fulfillment of providence that the arc of history may be long but it 
bends towards justice and human freedom.
  When the American city war erupted, both North and South defended 
their causes as morally just, legally right, and constitutionally 
sound. Northerners and southerners saw themselves as the true Americans 
following in the tradition and the footsteps of the Founding Fathers. 
North and South used the Constitution as their source of moral and 
legal authority for conducting a war against each other. Both sides saw 
themselves as standing in the tradition of the American Revolution.
  Each side contended that it was fighting for freedom and liberty, 
though certain facts contradicted the beliefs of both. The South said 
it was fighting to preserve the freedom, while owning slaves. The North 
said it was fighting for liberty, while not initially fighting to grant 
liberty to the slaves. President Abraham Lincoln's address to the 
Sanitary Fair in Baltimore on April 18, 1864, summed up the quandary.
  He said, ``We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word, we 
do not mean the same thing. With some the word `liberty' may mean for 
each man to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor; 
while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they 
please with other men and the product of other men's labor. Here are 
two not only different but incompatible things called by the same name: 
liberty. And it follows that each of these things is, by their 
respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names: 
liberty and tyranny.''
  Today women, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered Americans, 
African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and students see in the 
word ``liberty'' one thing. Today for the Titans of Industry, it still 
means quite another. For the disposed, it means for each person to do 
with himself as they please. For the Titans, it means for them to do as 
they please with other men and the product of other men's labor 
anywhere in the world. As Lincoln said, ``And it follows that each of 
the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and 
incompatible names: liberty and tyranny.''
  That is why the efforts to name the great hall Liberty Hall will 
settle for some but still not settle for others the fundamental 
question of human freedom. For millions of Americans to pass through 
Emancipation Hall and not Liberty Hall is an important acknowledgment 
about the process for attaining human freedom in the American 
historical context.
  Mr. Speaker, it is most appropriate that the distinguished gentleman 
from Tennessee, Mr. Zach Wamp, offered this amendment, in conjunction 
with the gentleman from Illinois, to help establish a marker in the 
Capitol of the United States about the significant role that these 
Americans, these Africans, played in the process not only in 
constructing the temple of our democracy but in strengthening America.
  Madam Chair, it is probably most appropriate that the Emancipation 
Hall designation be established during this Thanksgiving period, as the 
first Thanksgiving established by proclamation by President Abraham 
Lincoln was during the American Civil War when President Lincoln, on 
October 3, 1863, looked out over a Nation torn by war, ravaged by 
internecine, intrafamily and interfamily struggles, and concluded that 
because of the extraordinary efforts of the North and the South, men 
and women who thought their causes were just, that we needed a national 
day of thanks. And so on October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln 
affixed to a national proclamation a national day of thanks to say 
thank you for now until eternity for all of the blessings that have 
been bestowed upon our Nation.
  Thanksgiving has a lot less to do, Mr. Speaker, with Pilgrims in 1620 
and much more to do with the emancipation of human freedom.
  I thank the gentlewoman for the time.
  Lincoln understood for his time and ours that we must not be confused 
about the language and process of human freedom.
  Much has been said about Lincoln and his ambivalence about 
emancipation. I believe when placed in context greater clarity emerges 
in Lincoln's calculation of emancipation.
  In 1862, Lincoln's announced support of colonization, along with his 
lack of public support for emancipation, was generating sometimes 
vicious attacks from militant abolitionists, including a ``Prayer for 
Twenty Millions'' editorial urging emancipation that appeared in Horace 
Greeley's New York Tribune. On August 22, a month after the private 
announcement to his cabinet on July 22 that he intended to issue an 
Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln replied to Greeley's editorial with 
a masterfully written open letter:

       If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they 
     could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with 
     them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless 
     they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree 
     with them. My paramount objective in this struggle is to save 
     the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. 
     If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would 
     do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I 
     would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and 
     leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about 
     slavery, and colored race, I do because I believe it helps to 
     save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do 
     not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less 
     whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and 
     I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help 
     the cause.

  Lincoln was reiterating his central thesis, that the purpose of the 
war was preservation of the Union, but in light of the intransigence of 
the border States, he was publicly hinting that he might have to do 
something more, including emancipation, to save the Union. In this open 
letter, Lincoln was saying ``if,'' but he had already concluded in his 
own mind ``that'' the only way to save the Union was to free the 
slaves.
  After the emancipation proposal became public, Lincoln was sometimes 
ridiculed in political oratory and newspaper editorials about

[[Page H13531]]

his Emancipation Proclamation, which would free the slaves only where 
the president had no power to do so--in the rebel southern States--but 
preserve the institution everywhere else. But Lincoln's enemies either 
misunderstood the president, lacked his understanding of the 
Constitution, or ignored his politics. On saving the Union, Lincoln had 
additional flexibility under the Constitution. Politically, he could 
sometimes get away with violating it by engaging in arbitrary arrests 
and suspending the writ of habeas corpus. On the question of ending 
slavery, however, Lincoln saw no such flexibility. His understanding of 
the Constitution committed him to acting within both it and the law, 
for neither had yet been changed. Under the Constitution, slavery was 
still legal in the United States.
  On the first question, Lincoln and all Republicans agreed that a 
Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery must be added to the 
Constitution. The Senate quickly passed such an amendment, but the 
House--which had gained thirty-four Democrats in the 1862 midterm 
elections--was opposed.
  Lincoln understood, if others didn't, that issuing the Emancipation 
Proclamation would convert a struggling Union army, trying to hold a 
Nation together, into a liberation army to free the slaves. The newly 
freed slaves could help win the struggle by fighting alongside the 
Union soldiers. Of course, the liberation of slaves would happen only 
if the North won the war. Militant abolitionists still thought the 
proclamation weak, southerners thought it an outrage, but most 
antislavery advocates, both black and white, understood its 
revolutionary implications. It was the one act that changed the entire 
character of the war. It gave the war a moral purpose--human freedom--
to bolster the political goal of saving the Union. And a purpose with 
such deep emotional power condemned the Confederacy to sure defeat.
  The question now was, having transformed the conflict into a war of 
liberation, would the northern Union soldiers still fight? Some said 
no. ``An Ohio Democrat amended the party's slogan to proclaim, `the 
Constitution as it is, the Union as it was, the Niggers where they 
are.' '' But most said yes! ``A Democratic private in the Army of the 
Potomac whose previous letters had railed against abolitionists and 
blacks now expressed support for `putting away any institution if by so 
doing it will put down the rebellion, for I hold that nothing should 
stand in the way of the Union--niggers, nor anything else.' ''
  With the July 4, 1863 victory at Gettysburg and Vicksburg northern 
hopes rose and southern spirits sank.
  The burial of the Gettysburg dead was originally planned for October 
23 but rescheduled to November 19 because the principal orator, Edward 
Everett of Massachusetts, could not be ready before then. Lincoln, by 
comparison, was casually invited to attend and make a few remarks. ``No 
insult was intended. Federal responsibility or participation was not 
assumed, then, in state activities. And Lincoln took no offense. Though 
specifically invited to deliver only `a few appropriate remarks' to 
open the cemetery, he meant to use this opportunity. The partly 
mythical victory of Gettysburg was important to his administration's 
war propaganda.''
  There are mythical accounts that Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg Address 
on the back of an envelope. Even though the 272-word speech probably 
took less than three minutes to deliver--interrupted with applause five 
times by the twenty thousand in attendance--such cavalier preparation 
would have been totally uncharacteristic of Lincoln, who took such 
opportunities very seriously.
  Lincoln intended to use this occasion and speech to lift the Nation's 
eyes above the death and carnage of Gettysburg ``to a level of 
abstraction that purges it of grosser matter . . . Lincoln did for the 
whole Civil War what he accomplished for the single battlefield.'' He 
transformed its meaning and in so doing transformed what it meant to be 
an American.
  Lincoln mentioned neither slavery nor Gettysburg. He drained his 
speech of all particulars in order to lift up an ideal. Lincoln 
intended to create something good and new out of this tragic and bloody 
episode. Both North and South strove to interpret Gettysburg to further 
their own war interests. Lincoln was after an even bigger victory--
winning the ideological as well as the military war. And he succeeded. 
``The Civil War is, to most Americans, what Lincoln wanted it to mean. 
Words had to complete the word of the guns.''
  When we wave the flag and celebrate on July 4, Independence Day, we 
are not so much celebrating our American-ness in terms of our 
independence from England. We are celebrating the meaning of the flag 
and America as Lincoln interpreted them in his Gettysburg Address. At 
Gettysburg, Lincoln reinterpreted the Constitution. Looking past 
slavery in the Constitution, he appealed to the Declaration of 
Independence and its claim that ``all men are created equal.'' 
Conservative political ``heirs to his outrage still attack Lincoln for 
subverting the Constitution at Gettysburg.''

       Lincoln is here not only to sweeten the air at Gettysburg, 
     but to clear the infected atmosphere of American history 
     itself, tainted with official sins and inherited guilt. He 
     would cleanse the Constitution--not, as William Lloyd 
     Garrison had, by burning an instrument that countenanced 
     slavery. He altered the document from within, by appeal from 
     its letter to the spirit, subtly changing the recalcitrant 
     stuff that legal compromise, bringing it to its own 
     indictment. By implicitly doing this, he performed one of the 
     most daring acts of open-air sleight-of-hand ever witnessed 
     by the unsuspecting. Everyone in that vast throng of 
     thousands was having his or her intellectual pocket picked. 
     The crowd departed with a new thing in its ideological 
     luggage, that new Constitution Lincoln has substituted for 
     the one they brought there with them. They walked off, from 
     those curving graves on the hillside, under a changed sky, 
     into a different America. Lincoln has revolutionized the 
     Revolution, giving people a new past to live with that would 
     change their future indefinitely.

  Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was transforming the United States from 
a plural to a singular noun--from the United States are into the United 
States is a free government.
  According to Garry Wills, Lincoln, by his words and action, converted 
the Union from a mystical hope into a constitutional reality.
  July 4, 1776--only white men could vote; July 4, 1863--Gettysburg; 
July 4, 2007: Barack Obama, an African American, Hillary Clinton, a 
woman, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, All are candidates for President; America 
and what it means to be an American today will not be the same 
definition of what it means to be an American tomorrow. We are all part 
of the Emancipation process.
  A bit of trivia, when was the first Thanksgiving? 1620. Why? Landing 
of Plymouth Rock. Interesting, because the first slaves arrived in 
Jamestown in 1619.
  In November 1863, Abraham Lincoln looked out over a Nation ravaged by 
war, internecine warfare, intra and inter family feuding, and saw light 
at the end of the tunnel for Northern victory and proclaimed the 3rd 
Thursday in November as a national day of thanks. Proclamation of 
Thanksgiving:

                                               Washington, DC,

                                                  October 3, 1863.
       This is the proclamation which set the precedent for 
     America's national day of Thanksgiving. During his 
     administration, President Lincoln issued many orders like 
     this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered 
     government departments closed for a local day of 
     thanksgiving.
       Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent magazine editor, wrote a 
     letter to Lincoln on November 28, 1863, urging him to have 
     the ``day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and 
     fixed Union Festival. `` She wrote, ``You may have observed 
     that, for some years past, there has been an increasing 
     interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on 
     the same day, in all the States; it now needs National 
     recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become 
     permanently, an American custom and institution. `` The 
     document below sets apart the last Thursday of November ``as 
     a day of Thanksgiving and Praise. ``
       According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, 
     one of President Lincoln's secretaries, this document was 
     written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the 
     original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow 
     Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary that he 
     complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript 
     was sold to benefit Union troops.

           By the President of the United States of America.

                             A Proclamation

       The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled 
     with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To 
     these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are 
     prone to forget the source from which they come, others have 
     been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they 
     cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is 
     habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of 
     Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled 
     magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign 
     States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has 
     been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, 
     the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has 
     prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military 
     conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by 
     the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful 
     diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of 
     peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested 
     the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the 
     borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron 
     and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more 
     abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily 
     increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in 
     the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, 
     rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and 
     vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large 
     increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath 
     any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the 
     gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with

[[Page H13532]]

     us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. 
     It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be 
     solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one 
     heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do 
     therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the 
     United States, and also those who are at sea and those who 
     are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the 
     last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and 
     Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. 
     And I recommend to them that while offering up the 
     ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances 
     and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our 
     national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender 
     care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or 
     sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are 
     unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition 
     of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to 
     restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine 
     purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, 
     tranquillity and Union.
       In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and 
     caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
       Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, 
     in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-
     three, and of the Independence of the United States the 
     Eighty-eighth.
       By the President: Abraham Lincoln.
                                                William H. Seward,
                                               Secretary of State.

  The question for contemporary American memory is why would we 
appropriate the memory for Thanksgiving as ``Plymouth Rock'' an event 
that has its formation in quite a different story.
  The same can be said for the story of our capitol. From the moment a 
visitor enters this building the unfolding process of emancipation, the 
players in this drama, the actors, the people, the heroes and the 
sheroes have been hidden, denied a fair and accurate account of these 
unfolding events.
  Rotunda: Story of America from pilgrims to the Wright Brothers. Not a 
story of America; Statuary Hall: Emancipation is ignored in Statuary 
Hall as we count among our honored dead Confederate President Jefferson 
Davis, Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens, 
Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and Confederate Commander Joseph 
Wheeler--still in uniform; Rather than discuss this history we reduce 
the story of this Nation to acoustics; Old Senate Chamber: Charles 
Sumner, Preston Brooks, Plessy v. Ferguson; Old Supreme Court Chamber: 
Dred Scott, Amistad Africa.
  It is the emancipation process that led to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth 
and Fifteenth Amendments. And as descendants of Slaves we believe that 
as Americans are better educated on this history that process will lead 
to our twenty-eighth amendment, our twenty-ninth and thirtieth: Health 
care for all; Education of equal and high quality for all; Cleaner 
environment; Fix our Nation's voting system; Provide equality for 
women.
  It is our Nation's historical process and only that process can 
provide emancipation for all.
  Interpreting Lincoln's life and work is extremely important. Recently 
there have been questions raised as to whether Lincoln should be 
credited with freeing the slaves. The argument goes: Given some of 
Lincoln's history, his racial attitudes and stalemates, his moderate 
views on the subject, his noninterference with slavery where it already 
existed, his one proposed solution of colonization, his gradualist 
approach to ending the institution, his hesitancy with respect to 
issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and using colored troops in the 
war, his late conversion to limited voting rights for blacks, and more, 
why should he be given credit with freeing the slaves? Some have even 
argued that it was various actions taken by the slaves--including the 
power given to the Union cause as a result of the moral case for 
overturning slavery, plus the actual military role of working and 
fighting in Union campaigns--that actually freed them. By forcing the 
emancipation issue onto the agenda, first of military officers, then of 
Congress, and finally of Lincoln, it was their actions that led to 
freedom.
  Clearly, just as the Congress and Lyndon Johnson would not have been 
able to pass and sign the civil rights and social legislation of the 
1960s apart from a modern civil and human rights movement, so too the 
military commanders, the Congress, and Lincoln would not have been able 
to achieve what they did without the agitation and movement of the 
slaves and their allies. On the other hand, the slaves would not have 
become freedmen apart from what these leaders did. Because historical 
interpretation has played up the role of white male leaders while 
playing down the role of mass movements and leaders of color and women, 
our understanding of history has been skewed. Some of the current 
``putdown'' of traditional historical interpretation is legitimate 
rejection and reaction to his past limited and distorted understanding 
and interpretation of our history. The search now, it seems to me, 
should be for a more balanced interpretation, which includes striving 
to put many forces and multiple players in proper balance and 
perspective. That, I think, is what is at issue with regard to the 
question: Did Lincoln free the slaves?
  To answer this question James M. McPherson says in Drawn With the 
Sword that we must first ask: What was ``the essential condition, the 
one thing without which it would not have happened? The clear answer is 
the war.'' Slavery had existed for nearly two and a half centuries, it 
was more deeply entrenched in the South than ever, and every effort at 
self-emancipation--and there were plenty--had failed. ``Without the 
Civil War there would have been no confiscation act, no Emancipation 
Proclamation, no Thirteenth Amendment (not to mention the Fourteenth 
and Fifteenth) . . . and almost certainly no end of slavery for several 
more decades at least.''
  As to the first question, what brought on the war, there are two 
interrelated answers. What brought on the war was slavery. What 
triggered the war was disunion over the issue of slavery. Disunion 
resulted because initially seven and ultimately eleven southern States 
saw Lincoln as an antislavery advocate and candidate, running in an 
antislavery party on an antislavery platform, who would be an 
antislavery president. Rather than abide such a ``Black President'' and 
``Black Republican Party,'' southern States led by the Democratic Party 
severed their ties to the Union. Through secession, which Lincoln and 
the Union refused to accept, they went to war over preserving the 
Union. While Lincoln was willing to allow slavery to stand where it 
stood from 1854 when he reentered politics onward, Lincoln never 
wavered or compromised on one central issue--extension of slavery into 
the territories. And while gradualist in approach, Lincoln (and the 
slave states of the South) knew this would eventually mean the end of 
slavery. It was Lincoln who brought out and sustained all of these 
factors.
  Thus, while Lincoln's primary emphasis throughout was on saving the 
Union, the result of saving the Union was emancipation for the slaves. 
If the Union has not been preserved, slavery would not have been ended 
and may even have been strengthened. Strategically, Lincoln understood 
that the Union was a common-ground issue around which he could rally 
the American people, while slavery and antislavery were divisive. And 
looked at in perspective, by holding his coalition together around the 
issue of the Union, enough Unionists eventually saw the connection 
between the two issues that he could ease into emancipation in the 
middle of the war--when it gave the North a huge boost.
  Even when Lincoln believed he was going to lose the presidency in 
August 1864, he said, ``There have been men who proposed to me to 
return to slavery the black warriors'' who had fought for the Union. `I 
should be damned in time and eternity for so doing. The world shall 
know that I will keep my faith to friends and enemies, come what will . 
. . In effect, he was saying that he would rather be right than 
president . . . As matters turned out . . . he was both right and 
president.
  Clearly, many slaves did self-emancipate through the Underground 
Railroad before the war, and through flight during the war. Even so, 
that is not the same as bringing an end to the peculiar institution of 
slavery, which only the Civil War and Lincoln's leadership did. By 
pronouncing slavery a moral evil that must come to an end and then 
winning the presidency in 1860, provoking the South to secede, by 
refusing to compromise on the issue of slavery's expansion or no Fort 
Sumter, by careful leadership and timing that kept a fragile Union.

       Toby--Kunta Kinte.
       Toby--Kunta Kinte.
       Toby--Kunta Kinte.
       Boy your name is Toby!

  Today we begin the process of educating America on who Mr. Kinte was! 
Today we acknowledge in a small way Mr. Kinte's contribution to the 
Union making it more perfect.
  Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
sponsor of the bill, Mr. Wamp of Tennessee.
  Mr. WAMP. I thank the distinguished ranking member and the chairwoman 
and Mr. Jackson.
  I love this Capitol. I love every square inch of it. I have spent 
many, many hours walking people through this Capitol and talking about 
the extraordinary history of this place. About 1,700 times I have taken 
groups through the Capitol over the last 13 years.
  Some of the stories that I have learned about as I share them just 
send chills up and down my spine. To think that there were 4,000 Union 
troops during the Civil War stationed on Capitol Hill, that 4,000 
troops were here at the Capitol during the Civil War.

[[Page H13533]]

  And when you go up inside of the Dome, the magnificent Dome, which 
around the world is the beacon of freedom, the symbol of hope, 
recognizable everywhere in this world, you go up inside of it, and you 
ask what the little hooks are hanging there, and they will tell you 
that is where they hung the lanterns when Union soldiers would work 
side by side with slaves to build that Rotunda in the depths of the 
Civil War.
  That is a fact that few people know because, as Ms. Norton said, the 
story was never told. It was never archived, the incredible commitment 
and the irony of the people fighting for the slaves' freedom were 
working side by side during the Civil War to build this temple of 
freedom. All the history books point out that that is one great and 
grave omission in the Capitol history.
  A guy named Oz Guiness once told me that the power to convene is 
greater than the power to legislate. And we convene here in the 
Capitol, people from all over the world, for good causes. The floor 
space of the Rotunda, which is the most prominent room in Capitol, is 
about 7,500 square feet. As Ms. Norton said, the floor space of this 
new hall, which has been called the great hall, is almost three times 
that size. It's a magnificent space designed to bring all of the 
visitors there to convene them before they enter this temple of 
freedom.
  I want to answer the question why not the Great Hall, because it has 
been referred to as the great hall. But the Great Hall for over 100 
years is the foyer, the Great Hall, at the Library of Congress in the 
Jefferson building. It is one of the most ornate spaces in the United 
States of America. I think it is the most beautiful room in Washington, 
D.C. And it is called the Great Hall. The Librarian of Congress told 
us, as soon a I became the ranking member of the Legislative Branch 
Appropriations Subcommittee in January, that this was a conflict 
because the CVC construction adds a tunnel between the Great Hall and 
the great hall. On two sides of the tunnel is going to be two great 
halls. Are you kidding me? How did we do that? That's confusing. That's 
problematic. That diminishes the name and the history for over a 
century of the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, which everyone in 
this city, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Speakers of the House, know as 
the Great Hall. So you can't call this the great hall. So what shall it 
be called?
  Emancipation brings us all together at a time in this country where 
we need things to bring us together. This is a way to honor this 
incredible process that led to an event that liberated all people in 
this country under our Constitution, not just some. And it was Abraham 
Lincoln who was the great emancipator.
  So our parties come together today, and I ask the House to join us in 
this most important naming. It is important what you name things. It's 
important what we name each other. It's important what we call things. 
It's important what we call each other. Words matter.
  Emancipation liberates us today, the thought of Emancipation Hall, 
the largest and most prominent room in this 580,000-square-foot 
addition to the Capitol.
  Come together, House of Representatives. Come together, United States 
Senate. Let us send the message to all who come to this temple of 
freedom that emancipation lives on. And with such an important moment 
in the learning process of this experiment in freedom and democracy 
known as the American Republic, let's come together today.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert).
  Mr. GOHMERT. It is so true that slavery was an abomination and is 
even today an abomination. It was a blight on this country's collective 
soul, and we can thank God that it has been eliminated.
  Emancipation Hall, it does have a great ring to it. It sounds 
beautiful and it sounds like it's high time that such a hall were so 
named, and it does sound like an appropriate hall.
  As I go back, though, and think through the comments and the speeches 
of those who were able to get rid of this abomination in this country, 
I think about the reasoning they had. Some have said that if there is 
no universal standard of right and wrong, if there is no force in the 
universe beyond ourselves that is unwavering as to right and wrong, 
then people can treat others the way they wish. If we are each god in 
our own way, then we can treat each other as we wish.
  But I believe, as those who fought so hard to eliminate slavery, that 
there is a universal standard of right and wrong, and that is the God 
that's referenced ``In God We Trust.''
  But as we look throughout the Congressional Visitor Center, we find 
the Emancipation Hall will be a great addition, but there ought to be a 
basis, some reference, so people know why the emancipation was so 
important.

                              {time}  1245

  Yet, as I understand it, the term ``Creator,'' ``we are endowed by a 
Creator with certain inalienable rights,'' that's nowhere in the hall; 
that's been eliminated. There is no reference to the Lord. The 
Constitution is dated in the year of our Lord in 1787. We find out a 
couple of weeks ago that ``Laus Deo'' that's on the capstone of the 
Washington Monument, meaning ``praise be to God'' has been obliterated 
and changed from the display so that people don't know what's up there. 
And the capstone itself, the monument replica, is turned where people 
can't see it.
  We are categorically removing God and references to Creator, to God, 
to Lord, from all of these things. And Lincoln, in his addresses, 
repeatedly said we pray to the same God, it's in his second inaugural 
address, and yet the efforts these days are to eliminate that.
  John Quincy Adams' eloquent speeches on the floor of Statuary Hall 
over and over and over demanding an end to this abomination, that God 
will judge America harshly if we don't eliminate it, Lincoln said, 
after he became President, wasn't much happening during those 2 years 
he was in the House except for those ``great sermons from that dear man 
Adams.''
  So I hope that not only can we move forward with naming the hall more 
appropriately Emancipation Hall, I think that's wonderful, but I think 
that we ought to restore to the plans God, who made it all possible.
  Mr. BOOZMAN. I just want to close by thanking Mr. Wamp, the gentleman 
from Tennessee, and Mr. Jackson for his help in moving this forward. 
This certainly is a very fitting honor. And I ask all of my colleagues 
for a resounding ``yes'' vote to this so that we might move forward.
  I also want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee for her hard 
work in pushing this forward and getting it on the floor.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. NORTON. I would like, also, to thank Mr. Wamp and Mr. Jackson, 
who worked very diligently on this bill to reach this point.
  I would like to read from the recently released report of the Task 
Force on Slavery, on the use of slaves in the Capitol:
  ``The issue of slavery, in particular, was an embarrassing subject 
that did not sit well with squeamish writers. Early histories of the 
Capitol were focused on architecture, architects and superintendents, 
and not on the workmen who actually implemented the plans and orders. 
This situation has changed dramatically in more recent accounts, which 
reflect a new respect for all who played a role in the Capitol's 
history, including lower-class laborers and slaves. This is the result 
of a more inclusive view of history by modern scholars and a relatively 
new interest in multi-cultural subjects.''
  The report also says, and here, again, I'm quoting: ``It is not 
possible to examine the documents of the National Archives related to 
the Capitol's early construction without being impressed by the sheer 
number of references to `negro hire.' ''
  Mr. Speaker, according to the records, the financial records of the 
District of Columbia, hundreds of local residents of the District of 
Columbia received payments for the work of the slaves they owned here. 
Remember, the Capitol of the United States retained slavery until just 
before the end of the Civil War. But we should not forget

[[Page H13534]]

that, while it is well enough to acknowledge that slaves were 
instrumental in building this building, there is no building from the 
19th century that was constructed in this town, no public building, no 
building of any note, that was not built in part through the labor of 
slaves. This was true throughout the United States. Faneuil Hall in 
Boston, the so-called ``Cradle of Liberty,'' was built by slave labor. 
The homes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 
constructed with the help of slaves.
  They will never be commemorated. What Emancipation Hall will do is to 
make Americans want to know more about how much of our country was 
built on the backs of slave labor that have never been recognized. And 
Emancipation Hall is the place to do it because the visitor center 
itself is going to be a giant temple for education about our country, 
about our Capitol, and about what has happened in this building. So 
when people visit the Capitol and come through Emancipation Hall, there 
should be a marker indicating why the great entrance to the visitor 
center is named Emancipation Hall. And throughout their visit, as they 
travel down the history of our country, which is going to be recorded 
there in so many ways, they will be educated about much that has 
happened in our country; and for most Americans, this will be the first 
time they will have been educated about slaves and their contribution 
to the United States of America.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker I rise in strong support of H.R. 3315, a 
bill to designate the great hall of the Capitol Visitor Center 
(``CVC'') as ``Emancipation Hall''. I commend the work of the gentleman 
from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) 
for their work in support of this bill.
  The United States Capitol and its iconic dome are symbols of 
democracy around the world; symbols of the deliberative legislative 
process, a place where people debate in the realm of ideas not with 
arms, swords, or bombs but with minds and ideas. As America has grown 
and changed over its history, so has the Capitol. Beginning next year, 
the Capitol will have an extraordinary new addition, the Capitol 
Visitor Center. The CVC represents the largest addition to the U.S. 
Capitol in its 212-year history.
  This facility will host the more than three million people who visit 
the Capitol on an annual basis. The great hall will include information 
and ticketing desks, and provide an area where Americans from all over 
the country can gather to take in scenic views of the Capitol or 
prepare to explore the 580,000-square-foot Visitor Center. The CVC will 
also include an exhibition gallery, a 550-seat cafeteria, gift shops, 
and orientation theaters.
  The CVC will provide an opportunity for visitors to learn about the 
construction of the Capitol from its very beginning. This education 
would not be complete without an acknowledgement of the contribution 
slave labor.
  In 2004, Congress directed the Architect of the Capitol to produce a 
report on the history of slave labor in the construction of the United 
States Capitol. Although the record is incomplete because of limited 
documentation of slave labor, the evidence available and historical 
context provide several indications that slaves and free African 
Americans played a significant role in building these historical 
monuments.
  The U.S. Capitol was constructed during a time when the Potomac 
region's population was sparse, but the concentration of slave laborers 
was the highest in the nation. Slave labor was an integral component of 
the region's workforce. Slave labor was utilized in all aspects of 
construction of the Capitol and slaves often worked alongside free 
blacks and whites in the areas of carpentry, masonry, carting, and 
painting. Many of the products of slave labor are still visible in the 
Capitol buildings today and they serve as a reminder of the significant 
and undeniable contribution that these individuals made to our nation.
  In 2005, the Slave Laborers Task Force was established to study and 
recognize the contributions of enslaved African Americans in building 
the U.S. Capitol. On November 7, 2007, the Slave Laborers Task Force, 
chaired by Representative John Lewis, specifically recommended that the 
great hall of the Capitol Visitor Center be designated as 
``Emancipation Hall''.
  H.R. 3315 acknowledges the historic contributions of slaves and 
freedman to the building of the United States Capitol. This bill is a 
fitting tribute to those who worked tirelessly, but especially to those 
who were slaves and who gave their labor in this citadel of freedom and 
democracy.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 3315.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I support recognizing emancipation and 
honoring the contributions of slaves in the construction of the 
Capitol. However, as I discussed in the subcommittee hearing and full 
committee markup, I have concerns about renaming the Great Hall of the 
Capitol Visitor Center.
  Throughout the history of the Capitol, none of the monumental spaces, 
such as the House and Senate chambers or the Rotunda, have been named 
after specific individuals or events in history. Instead, these great 
spaces of the Capitol have long been called by their functional names. 
By doing so, all people regardless of their race, ethnic heritage, 
contributions, or human travails are equally recognized.
  These spaces are dramatic because of their physical settings and the 
unique historical events that took place within their walls. Similarly, 
the Great Hall of the Capitol Visitor Center will become a monumental 
space with its own unique history; and just as those spaces have not 
been named, I believe the Great Hall should be reserved and left to 
honor all Americans.
  While I do not believe it is appropriate to rename the Great Hall, I 
do believe that it is important for Congress to acknowledge and honor 
the contributions slaves made to the Capitol. In the hearing held by 
the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and 
Emergency Management and again in the full committee markup of this 
legislation, I recommended that other spaces could better acknowledge 
emancipation and honor the slaves that helped build the Capitol.
  It would be most appropriate to name the exhibition hall that will 
provide an important historical context to the name Emancipation Hall. 
It would also provide visitors an opportunity to learn about and pay 
tribute to emancipation. One of the first recommendations I made as a 
member of the Capitol Preservation Commission was to create a first 
class museum space within the CVC. I proposed the highest level 
museum space so America could exhibit some of the Nation's treasurers--
like the Emancipation Proclamation--which are rarely viewed by the 
public.

  The exhibition hall will be 16,500 square feet. Outside of the 
National Archives Building, this will be our Nation's finest exhibition 
space. This hall will not only honor those who built the Capitol, but 
provide information about their contributions to American history. This 
exhibition hall will display and prominently house the catafalque that 
was built to support the casket of Abraham Lincoln--the Great 
Emancipator. This is the original funeral bier used as the Great 
Emancipator lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. This hall will contain 
permanent exhibits on the Constitution and the post-Civil War 
amendments proposed by Congress and ratified by the States to abolish 
slavery, to guarantee equal protection under the law, and to ensure the 
right to vote.
  This beautiful hall will have strong historical and contextual links 
to emancipation. It will be the primary venue for acknowledging and 
commemorating the slaves who helped build the Capitol and the country. 
It will help deepen the understanding of our Nation's long struggle 
with slavery and its ultimate abolition for all who visit here. For all 
of these reasons, nothing could be more appropriate or significant than 
naming this area of the Capitol Visitor Center Emancipation Hall.
  Another possible Emancipation naming CVC venue would be the 
congressional auditorium. While it does not have the strong links to 
emancipation as the exhibition hall, it is the most significant 
functional space in the facility, a place where leaders will gather to 
discuss important ideas of their time. The auditorium is a grand space 
that is being designed to serve as an alternative House Chamber. Except 
for the current House and Senate Chambers, no other venue in the 
Capitol has such an important purpose. The name Emancipation Hall would 
serve as a valuable reminder of courage, leadership, and our unique 
commitment to advance the cause of human freedom and fulfill the 
promise of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. As such, I 
believe it would be appropriate and fitting to name the facility 
Emancipation Hall.
  In sum, I believe there are more appropriate areas in the Capitol 
Visitor Center to name Emancipation Hall. Additionally, we have a 
tradition of leaving the monumental spaces of the Capitol un-named. As 
a monumental space in, and an introduction to, the Capitol, the Great 
Hall should retain its current functional name like the other great 
spaces within the Capitol.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support 
of H.R. 3315, to provide that the great hall of the Capitol Visitor 
Center shall be known as Emancipation Hall, and to commend the Slave 
Laborers Task Force, led by Congressman John Lewis, and its important 
work. As the Task Force concluded, H.R. 3315 helps to fill an important 
gap in the history of the Capitol. It is a fitting, albeit overdue, 
tribute to the slaves--gifted carpenters, skilled stone masons, 
woodworkers, clay makers and other craftsmen--

[[Page H13535]]

who built the Capitol that the Capitol Visitor Center be renamed 
Emancipation Hall and celebrate the freeing of all Americans from 
bondage, oppression, and restraint.
  The Capitol symbolizes our nation's core values of freedom and 
liberty and the basic rights of all humans. It symbolizes who we are as 
a nation. However, though countless visitors walk its halls each day, 
few know the important role slaves played in the construction of the 
Capitol.
  Many slaves worked in quarries, extracting the stone used to 
construct this building. Others were used as carpenters. Women and 
children often molded clay in kilns. District of Columbia financial 
records show that hundreds of local residents received payment for the 
work of slaves, recorded in the ledger as ``Negro hire.'' In all, 
hundreds of slaves helped build the Capitol from the late 1700s until 
the mid-1800s.
  Indeed, it was Philip Reid, a slave laborer who figured out how to 
take apart the plaster mold for the ``Freedom'' statue, which still 
crowns the dome, beneath which we toil, to allow it to be cast in 
bronze. What irony, what symbolism: Slaves built our monument to 
freedom; and the ``Freedom'' statue was cast in bronze by a man who was 
not free.
  Today we have an opportunity to celebrate freedom; to make sure that 
every person who visits the Capitol knows that it is for preserving and 
protecting freedom that we, as Members of Congress, gather in this 
building and work every day; and that it is for liberty, democracy and 
freedom--emancipation--that our nation stands.
  Emancipation Hall is an important reminder that the floors on which 
we walk, the walls that surround us and, yes, the ``Freedom'' statue 
atop the Capitol dome, were constructed in significant part by men and 
women who knew no liberty and were not free. We should never forget 
that.
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3315--
legislation which would designate the great hall of the new Capitol 
Visitor Center as Emancipation Hall. As Vice Chair of the Legislative 
Branch Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, I must note that 
similar language was added to H.R. 2771--the House-passed 2008 
Legislative Branch appropriations bill.
  Mr. Speaker, this recognition is long over due. For nearly two 
centuries, the slaves who helped to build our Capitol have been 
overlooked, brushed aside, and denied their just recognition. How 
ironic that this great building that is viewed world-wide as a symbol 
of freedom, a symbol of justice, and a symbol of democracy, was 
constructed in part, piece by piece, by those who did not know freedom 
nor justice.
  That is why I would like to thank the Slave Laborers Task Force, 
chaired by Rep. John Lewis, for their diligence and commitment in 
ensuring that the slaves who labored to build our Nation's Capitol are 
both recognized and honored.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this historic 
legislation.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) that the House 
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 3315.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

                          ____________________