Washington, D.C. Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Retrocession and the Civil War === {{Main|District of Columbia retrocession|Washington, D.C., in the American Civil War}} [[File:LincolnInauguration1861a.jpg|thumb|The [[United States Capitol dome|U.S. Capitol dome]] was under construction during [[Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address|Lincoln's first inauguration]] on March 4, 1861, five weeks before the start of the [[American Civil War]].]] In the 1830s, the district's southern territory of [[Alexandria, Virginia|Alexandria]] declined economically, due in part to its neglect by Congress.<ref name=richards>{{cite journal |last=Richards |first=Mark David |date=Spring–Summer 2004 |title=The Debates over the Retrocession of the District of Columbia, 1801–2004 |journal=[[Washington History]] |pages=54–82 |url=http://www.dcvote.org/pdfs/mdrretro062004.pdf |access-date=January 16, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090118053203/http://www.dcvote.org/pdfs/mdrretro062004.pdf |archive-date=January 18, 2009}}</ref> Alexandria was a major market in the [[Slave trade in the United States|domestic slave trade]] and pro-slavery residents feared that [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionists]] in Congress would end [[Slavery in the District of Columbia|slavery in the district]], further depressing the local economy. Alexandria's citizens petitioned Virginia to retake the land it had donated to form the district, a process known as [[District of Columbia retrocession|retrocession]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Greeley |first=Horace |title=The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States |publisher=G. & C.W. Sherwood |year=1864 |location=Chicago |url=https://archive.org/details/americanconflic06greegoog |pages=[https://archive.org/details/americanconflic06greegoog/page/n154 142]–144}}</ref> The [[Virginia General Assembly]] voted in February 1846, to accept the return of Alexandria. On July 9, 1846, Congress went further, agreeing to return all territory that Virginia had ceded to the district during its formation. This left the district's area consisting only of the portion originally donated by Maryland.<ref name=richards /> Confirming the fears of pro-slavery Alexandrians, the [[Compromise of 1850]] outlawed the slave trade in the district, although not slavery itself.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Compromise1850.html |title=Compromise of 1850 |access-date=July 24, 2008 |date=September 21, 2007 |publisher=[[Library of Congress]] |archive-date=September 3, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110903103833/http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Compromise1850.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The outbreak of the [[American Civil War]] in 1861 led to the expansion of the federal government and notable growth in the city's population, including a large influx of freed slaves.<ref name="Dodd">{{cite book |last=Dodd |first=Walter Fairleigh |title=The government of the District of Columbia |publisher=John Byrne & Co. |year=1909 |location=Washington, D.C. |url=https://archive.org/details/governmentdistr01doddgoog |pages=[https://archive.org/details/governmentdistr01doddgoog/page/n46 40]–45}}</ref> President [[Abraham Lincoln]] signed the [[Compensated Emancipation Act]] in 1862, which ended slavery in the district, freeing about 3,100 slaves in the district nine months before the [[Emancipation Proclamation]].<ref name=emancipation>{{cite web |url=http://emancipation.dc.gov/page/ending-slavery-district-columbia |title=Ending Slavery in the District of Columbia |access-date=May 12, 2012 |publisher=D.C. Office of the Secretary |archive-date=October 23, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023225745/http://emancipation.dc.gov/page/ending-slavery-district-columbia |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1868, Congress granted the district's [[African American]] male residents the right to vote in municipal elections.<ref name="Dodd" /> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page