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Emancipation Proclamation" which should abolish slavery, and submitted an Amnesty Proclamation he had issued for insurgents who wished to resume allegiance to the National Government.

Thus the historic Thirty-eighth Congress began its first session in an atmosphere surcharged with hostility to slavery, and on the 14th of December-as early as possible after Congress convened-two Constitutional amendments abolishing and prohibiting slavery were introduced in the House, the first by Hon. James M. Ashley of Ohio, and the other by Hon. James F. Wilson of Iowa.

No action of a similar character was taken in the Senate until after the Holiday recess, when on the 11th of January Senator J. B. Henderson of Missouri introduced a joint resolution as a Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery, and nearly a month later, on the 8th of February, Senator Sumner of Massachusetts introduced a similar joint resolution which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, as the measure introduced by Senator Henderson had been.

Senator Sumner asked to have his proposition referred to a special committee of which he was chairman, but finally acquiesced-though reluctantly-in its assignment to the Judiciary Committee. The very courteously worded rivalry between those two committees seems to have hastened the consideration of the two propositions, for after only two days, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, reported a joint resolution differing in its phraseology from both of the resolutions which had been referred to his committee. Mr. Sumner clung to the phrase "equality before the law," which he had copied into his resolution from the constitution of revolutionary France, but the consensus of opinion in the Senate was against him and the resolution as reported by Senator Trumbull was accepted for consideration, being in language almost identical with the Ordinance of 1787. The following is the Constitutional Amendment thus reported and considered by Congress from

the 10th of February, 1864, to the 31st of January, 1865, when it was passed and became part of the national Constitution, by being approved by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States:

ARTICLE XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

A Presidential election was soon to be held and it was the purpose of the republican leaders to make this amendment an issue in that election, and to ask that it be approved by the people either as having been favorably acted upon by Congress or as still pending there.

With this in view the Senators and Representatives who favored and those who opposed the measure improved the succeeding weeks in preparation for the battle of giants that all knew would occur when it should be brought up for consideration and action. There was never any doubt that the amendment would receive the requisite two-thirds vote in the senate, but our statesmen were making history and were also preparing for the great struggle during the Presidential campaign. Therefore, when on the 28th of March, 1864, Senator Trumbull opened the debate on the measure he was followed by other senators whose speeches were of great erudition and strength.

On the 8th of April, 1864, the amendment passed the senate by a vote of 38 to 6, and was soon after taken up in the house where, as Mr. Blaine says, "Mr. Ashley of Ohio, by common consent assumed parliamentary charge of the measure." 1

As there was at that time no probability of the amendment receiving the requisite two-thirds vote in the House, its con1 Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. I., p. 507.

sideration in that body was conducted with a view to its influence upon the Presidential campaign then in progress. Only three days-May 31st, June 14th and 15th-were given to its discussion, which was of dynamic force and effectiveness. On the 7th of June-between the beginning of the discussion on the 31st of May and its resumption on the 14th of June-President Lincoln was unanimously renominated by a national convention which with wild enthusiasm endorsed the amendment and applauded every favorable reference to the subject.

On the 15th of June the vote was taken and resulted in yeas 94, noes 64-a large but not a two-thirds majority. So the amendment seemed for the time disposed of and hopelessly lost, until General Ashley, having the measure in charge, changed his vote to the negative and so gained the right, of which he at once availed himself, to move a reconsideration, and thus to place the measure on the docket and keep it before the house for further consideration and action.

This skillful parliamentary maneuver was a stunning surprise to the opponents of the proposed amendment, and none of its friends were expecting such action. The great interest awakened by the proposition soon subsided and the measure seemed to be forgotten when, on the 28th of June-thirteen days after this unsuccessful vote-Mr. Holman, a democratic member from Indiana, inquired whether the motion to reconsider would be called up during that session of Congress. This question at once elicited the attention of every member and all listened intently as General Ashley replied: "I do not propose to call the motion up during the present session of Congress, but as the record has been made up we will go to the country on the issue thus presented . . . and when the verdict of the people shall have been rendered next November, I trust this Congress will return determined to engraft that verdict into the National Constitution." The scene that followed this episode can never be forgotten by those who witnessed it and realized its significance. There was profound

silence and scarce a movement as the members by this answer were brought to realize that the Constitutional Amendment was still before them and would be passed upon by the people before it would again be brought before them for decision. Those who favored it believed the issue would be helpful to the campaign for President Lincoln's re-election, and those who were opposed to it were apprehensive that making it an issue at the Presidential election would be harmful to their chance for continuance in Congress. All realized that the trend of events and evolution of public sentiment were against slavery, but to secure the adoption of the amendment by that Congress was a task of such huge proportions that it required great courage and determination to undertake it. What rendered the task appalling was that it would require 122 votes to pass the amendment if all members of the House should be present and vote, and that only 94 votes-28 less than that required number-had been cast in its favor on the 15th of June. And the additional votes required to pass the measure had to be secured among the 64 members who voted against it or the 24 who did not vote. It was not a struggle to win the votes of ordinary men, but a contest for the conquest of men of mettle, as it usually requires superior strength of personality and gifts of leadership to become a member of Congress.

Of far greater force and more stubborn than any other obstacle was the prejudice against the Negro race which was entertained by many people. That prejudice was largely the product of slavery and had been built up into great strength and was intensified into bitterness by antislavery teachings and movements, and especially by this effort to accomplish the utter destruction of slavery in the nation. Added to this was the hostility to abolitionists and their teachings and the unwise efforts by which some members of Congress were moved to oppose the proposed amendment.

But of all the mountains of difficulty which the proponents of the measure encountered and were required to surmount,

the greatest was the intense partisan hostility to the proposed abolition of slavery. The solid republican membership of the House was for the amendment, and the only opposition it encountered came from the democrats, who seemed to regard the fate of their party as involved in the struggle. Under the leadership of Calhoun and his associates and followers, the democratic party-the party of Jefferson-had become so fully committed and so thoroughly identified with slavery that the continuance of that institution seemed necessary to the maintenance of the future existence and integrity of that party. And the future political hopes of democrats were dependent upon the continuance and success of the democratic party. This applied to war democrats who had united with the Union party to support the Goverment against the Rebellion, with the expectation of resuming their allegiance to the democratic party when normal conditions were again restored. To all such, as well as to those democrats who adhered to their party during the war, the destruction of slavery seemed to imperil their party and their own future political life. It was impossible to prevent the amendment from appearing as a party measure. It was known to all that it was strongly favored by the President and that, as already stated in this chapter, it had been unanimously endorsed by the great Baltimore Convention with scarcely less enthusiasm than that which greeted the President's renomination and the approval of his administration. Not only was it treated with enthusiastic hospitality by the convention, but throughout the Presidential campaign it was made an issue before the people, as was forecast by General Ashley in the House on the 28th of June. All this was helpful to secure in November the verdict of the people for a Constitutional Amendment abolishing and forever prohibiting slavery, but it intensified partisan hostility to that movement and made it more difficult when Congress reassembled to induce democratic members to change their attitudes to the question and vote for the amendment then pending in the House.

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