Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/301

 ritory subject to its jurisdiction, provided that such power be exercised with due regard to constitutional rights. He, therefore, decided to test the question whether it was possible to remove from the seat of the Federal Government the offensive traffic in human beings. In formulating his plans to carry out this policy, he consulted the leading citizens of the District of Columbia and certain prominent men in Congress.

Having secured the approval of Mayor Seaton of Washington, a representative of the intelligent slave-holding citizens of the District of Columbia, and also the support of Joshua Giddings, the leading abolition member of Congress, Lincoln proposed a bill to this effect. Thereupon Giddings made these remarks: "This evening (January 11th) our whole mess remained in the dining room after tea, and conversed upon the subject of Mr. Lincoln's bill to abolish slavery. It was approved by all; I believe it as good bill as we could get at this time, and am willing to pay for slaves to save them from the southern market, as I suppose every man in the District would sell his slaves if he saw that slavery was to be abolished."

In the meantime a less radical bill providing also for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia had been introduced by Representative Gott of New York. Lincoln, therefore, moved as an amendment on January 16, 1849, that a committee report a bill for the emancipation of all slaves in the District of Columbia. This measure prohibited the bringing of slaves into and selling them out of the District except in the case of those temporarily serving persons representing slave-holding States. It made provision for a tentative system of apprenticeship and the eventual emancipation of children born of slave mothers after January 1, 1850. It further provided for the manumission of slaves by the Government of the United States with compensation to the owners who might make application therefor, for the return of fugitive slaves from Wash-