DC Emancipation Act - 150th Anniversity

One hundred fifty years ago this April President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the DC Emancipation Act which freed slaves in the District of Columbia.  While several individual states had previously abolished slavery, this was the first step by the Federal Government in the process to legally end slavery in all of the United States.

The following year, 1863 the President issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the states that had seceded from the Union.  With the end of the Civil War and when the several border states within the Union that still permitted slavery independently abolished it, this disgraceful chapter in American history was ended.

This very interesting video was uploaded to YouTube by the US National Archives to commemorate the occasion.