CHAPTER XX.

THE AMENDMENT PROPOSED.

DEBATE IN THe Senate.-SPEECHES OF TRUmbull, Wilson, JohnSON, HOWARD, AND OTHERS.-A NEW YEAR'S CALL ON THE PRESIDENT.-DEBATE IN THE HOUSE.-TEST VOTE.-Speeches of WILSON, ARNOLD, RANDALL, PENDLETON, AND OTHERS.-THE AMENDMENT FAILS.

In the early part of this book we have seen that Lincoln in his younger days dreamed of being an emancipator. In what way this day dream or presentiment entered his mind, whether it was due to the prophecy of the Voudou on his visit to New Orleans, or whether it was one of those mysterious impressions which come from no

where, it is impossible to tell. A careful reading of his speeches and writings will indicate that in some way there had been impressed upon his mind a premonition that he was to be an agent in freeing the slaves.

So early as January, 1837, when he was a very obscure man, in his lecture to the young men's association at Springfield, on "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions," he spoke of the glory and distinction to be gained by the "emancipation of slaves." "Many great and good men may be found," he said, "whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or presidential chair, but such belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle." In the same year, as a member of the Illinois Legislature, he joined one other member (they being the only members who would sign it) in a protest against pro-slavery resolutions. A Kentuckian by birth, and

representing a district very hostile to abolition, he introduced into Congress, in 1849, a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. In June, 1858, he made the speech in which he said: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." In that most thoughtful, sagacious, and philosophic address he anticipated Governor Seward's "irrepressible conflict" speech, which was delivered at Rochester, in New York, October 25th, 1858. In this June speech of the then little known philosophic statesman, he said: "Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new-North as well as South." "To meet and overcome the power of the dynasty (slavery) is what we have to do," and he concludes with these solemn words: "The result is not doubtful. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come." There are few if any words more expressive of the character of Lincoln than those with which he concluded his great speech at Cooper Institute: "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end do our duty, as we understand it."

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It was this faith, and the courage to do his duty as he understood it, that sustained and carried him through the darkest days of his administration. As to slavery, and his action in relation to it, he said in his letter to Hodges, of Kentucky, April 14, 1864:

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. * ** When, early in the war, General Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When still later, General Cameron, the Secretary of War, sug

1. Observe the number of words of one syllable in this and all his writings and speeches.

gested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not think it an indispensable necessity. When still later, General Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not think the indispensable necessity had come. When in March, and May, and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the border states to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation and arming the blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution, or of laying strong hands upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss, but of this I was not entirely confident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our white military force, no loss by it anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite an hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no caviling. We have the men; and we could not have them without the measure.

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"I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle, the nation's condition is not what either party or any man devised or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills that we of the North, as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new causes to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God." 1

The history of the emancipation proclamation has already been told. It had been issued by him with the sincere belief that it was "an act of justice warranted by the Constitution, and upon military necessity," and upon it he had invoked "the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God." Congress had abolished slavery at the capital, prohibited it in the territories, and had declared all negro soldiers in the Union army, and their families, free; repealed the fugitive slave laws, and indeed all laws which recognized or sanctioned slavery, and it had approved the proclamation. The states not embraced in this proclamation had emancipated their slaves, so that slavery

1. McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 386.

existed only within the rebel lines, and only on territory over which the rebels had military control. The abolition of slavery in the republic so far as it could be done by Congress and the Commander in Chief was an accomplished fact. It existed within the rebel lines alone, and there the slaves were held by force. Lincoln was by nature a conservative, and he had always wished to emancipate the negroes, but he desired to accomplish it by gradual and compensated emancipation. He wished the change to come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything.'

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These efforts failed, and he was compelled to resort to the proclamation, under the laws of war. From the day of its issue, he labored by pen and voice, and personal and official influence, to make that proclamation effective. After all that had been done by Congress, by war, and by the Executive, one thing alone remained, to complete and make permanently effective these great anti-slavery measures. This was to introduce into the Constitution itself a provision to abolish slavery in the United States, and prohibit its existence in every part thereof forever. To accomplish this required the adoption, by a two-thirds vote of each House of Congress, of a joint resolution to be submitted to, and ratified by three-fourths of the states. To use the homely but expressive phrase of Mr. Lincoln, "this would finish the job," and to this he now devoted his constant efforts. "We cannot," says he, "escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. * The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation."

In the midst of the war, we pause to give a history of this thirteenth, and far most important of all amendments to the Constitution. The debates thereon, in both branches of Congress, were the most important in American history. Indeed it would be difficult to find any others so important

1. McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 256.

2. McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 224.

in the history of the world. They ran through two sessions of Congress, and in eloquence and ability equal the discussions of any deliberative assembly ever held. The speeches were fully reported, which was not the case in other great debates of earlier date. We are indebted to the imagination of Webster for the speeches in the Continental Congress on the Declaration of Independence. The greatest debate in the Senate, prior to this, was the memorable one between Webster and Hayne, and their associates, on nullification.

On the 14th of December, 1863, as soon as the Speaker had announced the standing committees of the House, he proceeded in regular order of business to call the states for resolutions. As Ohio, the first state organized under the. great Ordinance of 1787, was called, one of her representatives, James M. Ashley, introduced a joint resolution, submitting to the states a proposition to amend the Constitution, by abolishing and prohibiting slavery. When Iowa was called, James M. Wilson, Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, introduced a joint resolution providing for the submission to the states of an amendment to the Constitution for the same purpose. On the 11th of January, 1864, Senators Henderson, of Missouri, and Sumner, of Massachusetts, presented joint resolutions with the same object, and they were referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, of which Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, was chairman. Trumbull had been elected to the Senate in 1856, by the personal influence of Mr. Lincoln. He was a ready speaker, an able debater, and in the discussions in the Senate had been a worthy rival of his great associate, Douglas. He was probably, without exception, the best practical legislator in the Senate, and, as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, did more than any one else to frame the various acts of Congress which became laws during the war.

On the 10th of February, 1864, he reported from the Judiciary Committee a substitute for the resolutions which had been offered by Henderson and Sumner. Adopting