The President’s Message

WASHINGTON, April 16. – The following is the President’s Message on the Emancipation of the Slavery in the District of Columbia:

Fellow citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

The Act entitled “An Act” for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia, has this day been approved and signed. I have never doubted the Constitutional authority of Congress to abolish slavery in the District, and I have ever desired to see the National Capital freed from the institution in some satisfactory way; hence there never has been in my mind any question on the subject, except one of expediency arising in view of all the circumstances. If there be matters about this act which might have taken the course or shape more satisfactorily to my judgment, I do not attempt to specify them. I am gratified that the true principles of compensation and colonization are both recognized and practically applied in this act. In the matter of compensation it is provided that claims may be presented within ninety days of the passage of this act, but not thereafter, and there is saving for minors, femme coverts, insane or absent persons. I presume these are omissions by mere oversight and I recommend that it be supplied by an amendatory or supplementary act.

(Signed.)

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 19, 1862