This early version of the 13th Amendment, known as the Corwin Amendment, was proposed in December 1860 by William Seward, a senator from New York who would later join Lincoln’s cabinet as his first secretary of state.
The Corwin Amendment guaranteed slavery
where it already existed, LIMITING the power of the Federal government to abolish it, and Lincoln supported that.
Odd coming from a Lincoln who is held up around these parts as being the original Federalist Beelzebub hisself....
....and then Lincoln does an about-face on the slavery issue with the Thirteenth Amendment unequivocally abolishing slavery and his clearly-stated '64 reelection tenet to that effect.
Inconsistent?
Naah....
Lincoln's own words, published for all to see in an open letter to the Abolitionist Horace Greeley the August 20th, 1862 edition of the New York Tribune....
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it.…For context it should be noted that Lincoln openly declared that at a time when the outcome of that war was still very much in doubt. I wish all presidents would be so forthright and plain-spoken.
The Corwin Amendment was a last-ditch effort to stave off secession, so of course Lincoln supported it. When that didn't work the Thirteenth Amendment was intended to finally eradicate an institution which both sides agreed had been the cause of the war, so of course Lincoln supported that too.
Note once again however that the Corwin Amendment did NOT alter the ban on slavery in Federal territories, ensuring that the residents of those areas when statehood arrived would include but few with any compelling economic stake in propagating slavery and hence vote themselves in as Free States,at one stroke further marginalizing the Slave States and effectively cutting them off from participation in the future of the nation.
Birdwatcher
