Prologue : the bread pill -- The antebellum context. The abolition movement and the problem of the Constitution ; Antislavery politics and the problem of the constitution ; The Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, and the problem of the Constitution -- Origins of the other Thirteenth Amendment. Mutual misconceptions ; The Seward amendment ; The Corwin amendment -- Debating the other Thirteenth Amendment. Reaching across the abyss ; The unfazed and the alarmed ; The amendment assessed -- The abortive launch. Congress acts ; The president speaks ; The ratification fizzle -- Epilogue 1. James M. Ashley and the Thirteenth Amendment -- Epilogue 2. John A. Bingham and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Summary:
In this landmark book, Daniel Crofts examines a little-known episode in the most celebrated aspect of Abraham Lincoln's life: his role as the "Great Emancipator." Lincoln always hated slavery, but he also believed it to be legal where it already existed, and he never imagined fighting a war to end it. In 1861, as part of a last-ditch effort to preserve the Union and prevent war, the new president even offered to accept a constitutional amendment that barred Congress from interfering with slavery in the slave states. Lincoln made this key overture in his first inaugural address.
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