Paying for Emancipation

This is a fascinating WashPost article that discusses how the slaves in D.C. were emancipated in the spring of 1862, nearly a year before the Emancipation Proclamation.  But the key in D.C. is that slaves were released (as  opposed to the Jan 1963 document which initially only released those in the southern held territories), but the slave owners were compensated for each slave.  Slaves only received compensation for themselves if they agreed to leave the country.