The history of emancipation and of these constitutional amendments belongs, logically, to periods during and at the end of the war.
There are, however, two important acts relating to slavery which passed Congress during the War of the Rebellion, not strictly the result of that war, though incident to it, which must be mentioned.
(116) Kansas joined later, and Michigan, California, and Oregon were not represented; nor were the then seceded Southern States, or Arkansas, represented.
(117) Blaine (Twenty Years of Congress, vol. i., p. 269), says: "Puleston, a delegate from Pennsylvania, a subject of Queen Victoria, later (1884) of the British Parliament, was chosen Secretary of the Conference."—This is an error. He was not a delegate: only one of several assistant secretaries.
On the next page of Blaine's book he falls into another error in saying the Wilmot Proviso was embodied (1848) in the Oregon territorial act. It was never embodied in any act. The sixth section of the Ordinance of 1787 is embodied in that act word for word.
(118) Hist. of Rebellion (McPherson), pp. 68-9.
(119) Ibid., p. 76.
XXVII DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA—SLAVERY ABOLISHED—1862
The District of Columbia, acquired by the United States in 1791 for the purpose of founding the city of Washington as the permanent Federal Capital, was, by the laws of Virginia and Maryland, slave territory. The District was originally ten miles square, and included the city of Alexandria. Later (1846) the part acquired from Virginia (about forty square miles) was retroceded to that State. Congress had complete jurisdiction over it, though the laws of Maryland and Virginia, for some purposes, were continued in force. It was, however, from the beginning claimed that Congress had the right to abolish slavery within its boundaries.
Congress is given the right "to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District."(120) But slavery was claimed to be excepted because of its peculiar character.