Laying the Foundation: Abraham Lincoln and the Passage of the 13th amendment.
Laying the Foundation:
Abraham Lincoln and the Passage of the 13th Amendment
. . .
Abraham
Lincoln was assassinated on April 15th, 1865 while attending a play
at Ford’s Theater. In the months preceding his death, he pushed for the passage
of the 13th Amendment in the House, hoping to seize the opportunity
to abolish slavery before the expiration of his presidential war powers.[1] With
the surrender of the Confederacy hinging on Union concessions, namely the veto
of the 13th Amendment, Lincoln acted to ensure that the hundreds of
thousands of soldiers that had died in the course of Civil War had not done so
in vain.[2] Rather
than hope for the continued support of the Emancipation Proclamation by a morally
fractious public, Lincoln sought to abolish slavery legally, via constitutional
amendment. By achieving the approval of the 13th Amendment, Lincoln altered
the course of American history, laying the foundation for the independence of
African Americans and the modern American vision of civil equality.
The
difficulties the faced President Lincoln in the passing of the Amendment were
numerous, and not least of which was the political strife to achieve a majority
vote in the House. Having been framed by the Democratic party as a tyrant, and
by the Radical Republicans as a drag-foot, Lincoln struggled to achieve the
bipartisan support needed for a vote to pass in the House.[3] Rather
than being divided on the issue of slavery alone, many of Lincoln’s
presidential actions contributed to increasing partisanship between the two
parties. Paired with the economic downturn of Southern elites that followed the
failure of King Cotton politics, Lincoln’s restrictive public policies toward “copperheads”
fueled Democratic cries of tyranny. [4] Having
employed naval blockades around Southern ports in his strategic Anaconda
operation, Lincoln placed further economic pressures upon the Confederacy.[5] In
response, Democratic politicians used media outlets to frame Lincoln as a
despot, and his constituent Republicans as moral radicals who sought to steal
jobs, lands, and rights from white Americans.[6]
As the
war raged on, and the casualties continued to accumulate, support for Lincoln’s
war effort was being met by an increasing beleaguerment among the public.[7] The
Union population was not emphatic about the passage of the 13th
Amendment, and few supported the amendment simply because it abolished slavery.[8]
Rather, much of the support stemmed from a public resignation that the amendment
would end the war. This concept was founded upon Lincoln’s insistence that the amendment
was the only measure that would stop the national bloodshed.[9] Loyalty
in border states like Ohio, Indiana and Missouri was contentious, with many
Northerners disaffecting to the Confederacy when faced with the prospect of enfranchising
African Americans.[10] Democrats
preyed on the fears of antiquated Americans, prophesying the expansion of
intermarriage, and extension of suffrage to women, should the 13th
Amendment be passed.[11] However,
due to the placement of harsh taxes and sharecropping policies throughout the Confederacy,
the South was largely unable to capitalize on these defectors.[12] As economic
inflation drove industrial expansion in Union states, the Confederacy continued
to stagnate, leading to the desertion of over 100,000 Southerners by the war’s
end.[13] Due to
the compounding effects of poverty, famine, grief, and futility, Confederate
and Democratic support deteriorated.[14]
With the end of the Civil War in sight,
Lincoln acted quickly to set the passage of the 13th Amendment into
motion. Despite having displayed Periclean eloquence in his oratorical skills, Lincoln
chose not to rely on capitulation in gaining House approval for the 13th
Amendment, opting instead to offer positions within his own cabinet to those
who defected from a pro-slavery vote.[15] This
tactic reflects the urgency that Lincoln felt, as he at long last, saw his
opportunity to strike a winning blow for the amendment. Perceiving its
annihilation on the floor of the House in the height of the war, Lincoln had delayed
a House vote on the 13th Amendment; as it had passed in the Senate
prior to Lincoln’s re-election in 1864.[16] Lincoln’s
fear that he would not achieve re-election in 1864 had forced him to stall the
push for abolition, and even to veto such items as the Wade-Davis bill, which
sought to free and enfranchise slaves outright following the issue of the
Emancipation Proclamation.[17] However,
being a gifted statesman, Lincoln knew that a middle-of-the-road strategy would
be the best approach to ensuring his return to office, and thus the continuance
of his work against slavery. Thanks in no small part to his political
brilliance, Lincoln captured every state except Kentucky, Delaware and New
Jersey in the 1864 election. [18]
Prior
to 1864, Lincoln made no mention of suffrage for African American men.[19] He also
never professed to understand how the United States would manage the social
policies of racial integration.[20] His thoughts
of freedom for slaves extended to the right to land, happiness and business. Likewise,
citizens of the Union held that the antebellum ideal of “free labor” was the
type of freedom being extended to former slaves, with only the most radical
abolitionist seeking outright enfranchisement. [21] Meanwhile,
freed slaves had begun to establish their own ideas of what freedom was,
raising the same cries of “independence” that their slave masters had in the First
American Revolution.[22]
Demands for suffrage, equal rights before the law, rights to family, to free
worship without white supervision, to the right of assembly and the right to
equal economic access, resounded among the African American community,
displaying, yet again, that their vision of freedom was compatible with the
American way of life.[23] Observing
this difference between peoples’ ideas of freedom, Lincoln focused the 13th
Amendment on establishing that the practice of “slavery” was unlawful due to
its infringement upon those personal rights guaranteed to individuals by the
Constitution.[24]
Despite
the powers that the Emancipation Proclamation had provided President Lincoln
with, in effect, they were military orders. Through them, he could enforce
rules upon an enemy nation, but this power did not extend to slave
states that remained loyal to the Union, nor would it hold sway once the Civil
War ended. Observing an alarming lack of consistency in political and public
perspective on the issue of personal freedom, Lincoln mobilized his cabinet to
ensure the abolition of slavery via constitutional amendment. Charged with the
seemingly impossible tasks of winning the war, maintaining economic growth,
securing re-election, and generating bipartisan support for the 13th
Amendment, Lincoln performed with grace, skill and political deftness. His long
struggle with the establishment of slavery was finally rewarded on January 31st,
1865, with the passage of the 13th Amendment.[25] Sadly,
he would not live long enough to witness the passage of the 14th and
15th Amendments, which would provide the legal establishment of
equal rights for African Americans, as well as the long awaited end to their
agonizing suffrage movement. Lincoln never claimed that he knew the path to
racial integration, only that slavery was an immoral and shameful practice that
must be ended, no matter the cost. With his historic political victory, Lincoln
not only abolished the practice of slavery, he altered the fundamental
structure of American life, establishing a new precedent for civil rights, and
the moral basis for modern American equality.
Bibliography
Spielberg, Steven, dir. Lincoln. United States: 20th
Century Fox, 2012. Film.
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty. 5th ed. Vol. 1. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.
[2] Lincoln, 2:05:29 –
2:09:15
[3] Lincoln, 0:31:51 – 0:34:13
[4] Eric Foner, Give Me
Liberty: An American History, vol. 1, Fifth Brief (W.W. Norton and Company,
2017), 426-428
[5] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
406;412
[6] Lincoln, 1:19:10-1:23:30
[7] Lincoln, 0:15:00 –
0:18:40
[8] Lincoln, 0:16:30 –
0:16:47
[9] Lincoln, 0:16:30 –
0:16:47
[10] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
411
[11] Lincoln, 1:05:30 –
1:06:10
[12] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
428-429
[13] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
430
[14] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
430
[15] Lincoln, 0:34:30 -
0:35:14
[16] Lincoln, 0:32:00 -
0:32:38
[17] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
436
[18] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
434
[19] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
416
[20] Lincoln, 1:33:50 –
1:35:31
[21] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
447
[22] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
416
[23] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
443-447
[24] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
437
[25] Foner, Give Me Liberty,
437
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