On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia. Passage of this act came 9 months before President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The act brought to conclusion decades of agitation aimed at ending what antislavery advocates called "the national shame" of slavery in the nation's capital.

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, announcing, “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious areas “are, and henceforward shall be free.”