•HRES 323 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 authorized 
the United States Treasury to expend nearly $1,000,000, 
up to $300 per slave, to effect the freeing of about 3,100 
persons of African descent, and offered $100 to former 
slaves who agreed to emigrate to countries outside of the 
United States; 
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 slaves in the 10 States of the Confederacy not 
under Union control, freeing the majority of the Nation’s 
slaves; 
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 slaves were freed, was 
made a legal public holiday in the District of Columbia 
to be celebrated annually on April 16; 
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•HRES 323 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 United States Congress and independence from 
congressional interference in local matters afforded to 
other United States jurisdictions in violation of the basic 
principles of no taxation without representation and con-
sent of the governed; 
Whereas H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, was 
successfully passed by the House of Representatives in 
the 116th Congress for the first time in American his-
tory; 
Whereas H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, has 
215 cosponsors; and 
Whereas S. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, has 42 
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 citizens of the District of Co-
lumbia for the same rights and freedoms afforded to 
all United States citizens; and 
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•HRES 323 IH 
(2) calls upon the House of Representatives and 
Senate to pass the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. 
Æ 
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