Section #1 - The Life of Abraham Lincoln
Chapter 70: The President Takes Another Risk to Ensure a Lasting End to Slavery
After winning in November 1864 Lincoln focuses on his highest legislative priority, that being a Constitutional Amendment freeing the slaves forever.
His fear is that unless it can be passed before the Confederates surrender, the public and politicians will simply ignore the fate of the slaves and many will be forced back into bondage. This is a real concern since the South still favors its continuation and the bulk of Northerners retain their fears and prejudices regarding all Blacks.
On December 6, 1864 in the State of the Union address, Lincoln refers to a 13th Amendment to end slavery, and urges Congress to pass it “the sooner the better.”
But time is running short as Grant closes in on Richmond. That’s because Lincoln regards a final surrender as the end to the legal latitude he has exercised as a President in time of war — the basis for his Executive Actions on habeus corpus and the Emancipation Proclamation. Without that power, decisions on the future of slavery will be back in the hands of state politicians.
Despite opposition in his own ranks, Lincoln pushes for a vote on the 13th Amendment in the House. (It has passed earlier in the Senate.) He also sanctions intense and sometimes shady lobbying to secure the 2/3rds majority required for approval.
But just before the roll call begins on January 31, 1865, a rumor spreads that Southern representatives, known to be at Hampton Roads, are on their way toward DC to negotiate a peace. In one more act of doing what he thinks is right for the country, Lincoln sends a disingenuous note to the floor saying: “So far as I know, there are no peace commissioners in the city, or likely to be in it.”
That suffices, and the Amendment passes by 119-56, with support from all 86 Republicans, 19 Unionists and 14 Democrats, and 8 abstentions.
Abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens has the last word on Lincoln’s feat: “the greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption aided and abetted by the purest man in America.”