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Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment

2002; Oxford University Press; Volume: 89; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3092397

1945-2314

Louis S. Gerteis, Michael Vorenberg,

American Constitutional Law and Politics

Shortly before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration (March 1861), enough Republicans supported a constitutional amendment to win its passage in the House. Stephen Douglas secured the amendment's passage in the Senate, and President James Buchanan ceremoniously (and unnecessarily) signed the measure. This Thirteenth Amendment (ratified by two states) forbade any further alteration of the Constitution regarding slavery in the states. A few days before Lincoln's assassination (April 1865), Congress passed a new Thirteenth Amendment forever ending slavery in the United States. In his examination of that political and ideological transformation, Michael Vorenberg recaptures the revolutionary temper of the times. In politics, Republicans entered the Civil War eager to demonstrate their willingness to protect slavery in existing states. The war gradually changed that perspective. As Union forces approached victory, many Democrats saw the wisdom of disassociating themselves from slaveholders and supporting an amendment abolishing slavery. The ideological transformation that made an emancipation amendment possible involved a fundamental shift in constitutional thought. Change came slowly because Americans resisted making any alterations in the language of the Founders. Except for the Bill of Rights, the Constitution had been amended only twice since its adoption. The Eleventh Amendment (1795), writes Vorenberg, “made explicit something implicit ” The Twelfth Amendment (1804) “remedied something unforeseen.” In contrast, the Thirteenth Amendment challenged what most Americans believed to be the “original doctrine” of the Founders. It was “precisely this difference,” observes Vorenberg, that triggered “a furious debate over the Thirteenth Amendment.” Thereafter, Americans altered the Constitution with greater ease. Between 1868 and 1933 Americans adopted amendments Fourteen through Twenty-one.