menu


Petition of A. L. Harrington and Others to U.S. Congress, [28 February 1849]1
Petition.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States;
The subscribers, inhabitants of Morgan County Illinois respectfully ask Congress to pass a law to prohibit and suppress the trade in human beings, now carried on in the District of Columbia,
A. L. Harrington Levi P. Crawford
Edward T Doane, Herman Engelbach.
Edward, F, Newberry, P. W. Crawford
W. H. Collins H Mars
Gustave H Thayer Robert D. Wilson.
Cornelius Dunham W. H. Holland.
Spooner Ruggles Esqr E. Prine
Josephus Lindly R R Chambers
Olin Palmer M. M. Hamilton
G W Warner Geo M McCormick
R. E. Anderson
T. W. Smith H. Vanstavoren
Henry Stryker Edwd Ruggles
Robert H Bishop S. A. Merrill
Walter. G. [Bergen?] John Davis
Lewis Moore Giles Mears
Albert Atherton Alexander. Halbert
Frederic. B. Holmes Jonathan. E. Pond
E T Hollister N. M. Broadwell
George F Crocker J. J. A. Tillson Dixon.
Louis E Bonney Samuel, O, Abell
P. Selby Ninian, E. Primm
H. S. Jenkins James C Rucker
T. W. Catlin John W King
J. H. Blodget Joseph Lockwood
R M Tunnell Edward B. Smyth
John H Crocker Geo C. King
James Roberts. J. M Sturtevant Jr
E. Kirby.
William Coffin Samuel Adams.
J. M. Sturtevant
<Page 2>
[ docketing ]
Ill
[ docketing ]
Petition of J. M. Sturtevant & others, citizens of Morgan county, Illinois, praying for the abolition of the Slave trade in the District of Columbia–2
[ docketing ]
Refer to committee on the District of Columbia
A. Lincoln3
[ docketing ]
02/28/1849
February 28, 1849 Referred to the Committee for the District of Columbia
1A. L. Harrington wrote and signed the petition. Abraham Lincoln penned two instances of docketing on the back page, and signed one. Lincoln presented the petition in the House of Representatives on February 28, 1849, and the House referred it to the Committee for the District of Columbia. Slavery was a frequent contentious topic of debate in the Thirtieth Congress, although the debate did not result in any major legislation. In January 1849, Lincoln himself entered the debate, introducing an amendment to a resolution on slavery in the District which would have abolished slavery with compensation to the owners. Slavery remained legal until 1862, when Congress passed an act emancipating slaves in the District. President Lincoln signed the bill into law on April 16, 1862.
U.S. House Journal. 1849. 30th Cong., 2nd sess., 567; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:284; “An Act for the Release of certain Persons held to Service or Labor in the District of Columbia,” 16 April 1862, Statutes at Large of the United States 12 (1863):376-78.
2Lincoln wrote this docketing.
3Lincoln wrote the stricken docketing and signed his name.

Handwritten Document Signed, 2 page(s), tray 13, 30A-G5.1, RG 233, Entry 367: Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, Thirtieth Congress, 1847-1849, Records of Legislative Proceedings, Petitions and Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures, and Related Documents Which Were Referred to Committees, 1847-1849, NAB.