[7][8] Lincoln had wanted the bill to include a provision to make emancipation effective only after a favorable vote from the citizens of the District of Columbia.

[9][10] Lincoln signed the bill on April 16, 1862,[11] amid ongoing Congressional debate over an emancipation plan for the border states.

[13] According to one account, enslavers sold nearly 2000 people from the District in the spring of 1862 in hopes of evading emancipation and getting higher prices from Confederates than the government was offering.

The act immediately emancipated enslaved people in Washington, D.C., and set aside $1 million[2] to compensate slaveholders loyal to the U.S.

[15] The law allocated an additional $100,000[16] to pay each formerly enslaved person $100 if they chose to leave the United States for places such as Haiti or Liberia, which accepted Black American immigration.

To receive compensation, former slave owners were required to provide written evidence of their ownership and state their loyalty to the Union.

[2] The District of Columbia has celebrated April 16 as Emancipation Day since 1866, holding an annual parade to commemorate the signing of the act until 1901, when a lack of financial and organizational support forced the tradition to stop;[21] it restarted in 2002.

"[25] Following Lincoln's concerns over the version of the bill that he signed, Congress approved a supplement to the original Compensated Emancipation Act.