Emancipation in the District

A letter from Washington says:

The House committee of the District of Columbia have already agreed to report this bill in all its features, unless the colonization amendment, which was put on in the Senate yesterday, be accepted. The bill will pass the House and Mr. Lincoln will sign it. Although many of our slave owners are taking their slaves out of the city into Maryland, there are some who will welcome the passage of the bill. I saw one yesterday who owns eleven slaves. “I am waiting for the bill to pass,” he said, “that the lot my be taken off my hands. I would a great deal rather get my $300 per slave and have them go free than to take my chances of a higher sum and the negroes still remain slaves.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, April 14, 1862, p. 2

OFFICIAL

LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES

Passed at the Second Session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress

{Public Resolution – No. 25}

Joint Resolution declaring that the United States ought to co-operate with, affording pecuniary aid to any State which may adopt the gradual abolishment of slavery.

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the United States ought to co-operate with any state which may adopt the gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in is discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.

Approved, April 10, 1862


{Public Resolution – No. 26}

Joint Resolution authorizing the Secretary of the Navy to test plans and materials for rendering ships and floating batteries invulnerable.

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Navy be and hereby is authorize to expend, out of any money in the Treasure not otherwise appropriated, a sum not to exceed twenty five thousand dollars, for the purpose of testing plans and materials for rendering ships or floating batteries invulnerable.

Approved, April 10, 1862

– Published in the Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Thursday, April 17, 1862

The meaning of the word “Abolitionist” . . .

. . . has undergone many changes within a few years, its meaning always having been changed by the men who grow and work slaves as a business. – Two years ago at Charleston and Baltimore it was changed to include all persons not endorsing the Divine Right of Slavery and laboring for its extension. Within a year it has been still further changed and now includes all persons loyal to the Union. Throughout Dixie every loyal man of whatever section who sustains and upholds the government of his country is an “ABOLITIONIST,” and never spoken of except as an “Abolitionist.” And in the free States all the tories use the word in the same sense and whenever they prate of the “Abolitionists,” they mean all loyal persons who are in favor of crushing the slave-holder’s rebellion.

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