•HRES 1053 IH 
Whereas, on April 16, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, 
President Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Colum-
bia Compensated Emancipation Act, which freed the ap-
proximately 3,100 enslaved individuals in the District of 
Columbia and authorized compensation to former enslav-
ers; 
Whereas, on January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln 
issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which established 
a ‘‘new birth of freedom’’ by legally emancipating mil-
lions of enslaved individuals in the 10 States of the Con-
federacy not under Union control, freeing the majority of 
the Nation’s enslaved individuals; 
Whereas the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of 
the United States, which reads ‘‘Neither slavery nor in-
voluntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime 
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall 
exist within the United States, or any place subject to 
their jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce 
this article by appropriate legislation’’, was adopted on 
December 6, 1865, and effectively outlawed slavery in the 
United States; 
Whereas the enslavement of persons of African descent en-
dured for more than two centuries in what is now the 
United States, including the District of Columbia; 
Whereas, in 2005, District of Columbia Emancipation Day, 
commemorating April 16, the date of the signing of the 
District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, 
was made a legal public holiday in the District of Colum-
bia to be celebrated annually on April 16; 
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•HRES 1053 IH 
Whereas the residents of the District of Columbia pay more 
per capita in Federal taxes than the residents of any 
State; 
Whereas the residents of the District of Columbia, who pay 
the full freight of Federal taxes, serve in the United 
States Armed Forces, are subject to all of the require-
ments of citizenship, and otherwise have long made con-
tributions to the life, culture, and leadership of the 
United States, still are denied the voting representation 
in the Congress and independence from congressional in-
terference in local matters afforded to other United 
States jurisdictions in violation of the basic principles of 
taxation requiring representation and local governance; 
Whereas, on April 22, 2021, the House of Representatives 
passed H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, 
only the second time in history the D.C. statehood bill 
has been passed by either chamber of Congress; and 
Whereas S. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, has a 
record 45 cosponsors: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) recognizes District of Columbia Emanci-
pation Day, marking the anniversary of the end of 
slavery in the District of Columbia and symbolizing 
the aspirations of the residents of the District of Co-
lumbia for the same rights and freedoms afforded to 
residents of States; and 
(2) calls on the Senate to pass the Washington, 
D.C. Admission Act in 2022. 
Æ 
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