As you may, or may not know, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ended slavery in America.

On January 31, 1865, with the end of the Civil War still three months in the future, the House of Representatives passed the 13th Amendment with a vote of 119-56, just over the required two-thirds majority.  Lincoln approved, and the following day sent it to the states for ratification.  

The 13th Amendment states: “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.”

Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, just 5 days after the Civil War ended and never lived to see it become law because the necessary number of states did not ratify the 13th Amendment until some eight months later, on December 6, 1865. 

Here’s the part of the story you may not know about the 13th Amendment and Abraham Lincoln . . .  

The drumbeats of war were sounding for years before the Civil War actually begun.   In December, 1860, five months before hostilities started, and in an effort to stave off secession and mollify the Southern States, New York Senator William Seward proposed the 13th Amendment, known as the “Corwin Amendment”; arguably the most heinous slave law ever contemplated. Senator Seward was shortly thereafter appointed to Lincoln’s cabinet as his Secretary of State.

The Corwin Amendment read as follows:

“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State” and “No amendment of this Constitution, having for its object any interference within the States with the relations between their citizens and those described in second section of the first article of the Constitution as "all other persons", shall originate with any State that does not recognize that relation within its own limits, or shall be valid without the assent of every one of the States composing the Union.” Hint: “Domestic institutions” and “persons held to labor” actually means slavery.  

The original version of the 13th amendment did not free the slaves; it did just the opposite.   It sought to make slavery constitutional and irrevocable.  It would have allowed each state the sole power to regulate slavery, would have taken away Congress’ power to regulate slavery, and would have made itself irrevocable.

Outgoing President James Buchanan endorsed the Corwin Amendment by signing it.  His signature legally meant nothing, as the President has no formal role in the constitutional amendment process. But newly elected President Lincoln defended the states’ right to adopt the Corwin Amendment and in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, Lincoln declared that he had no objection to the Corwin Amendment, nor that it be made forever unamendable, stating:

“I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service ... holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

The Corwin Amendment won two-thirds support in both the House and the Senate on February 28 1861. It was then ratified by Ohio, Maryland and Illinois, but the Civil War began before any other states could ratify.  The Corwin Amendment almost became the 13th Amendment, making slavery the irrevocable law of the United States, instead of abolishing it.  

I’m not saying Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a great man, but he wholeheartedly endorsed a law written by his very own Secretary of State that, had it been ratified, would have institutionalized slavery and made it immune to Congress and the constitutional amendment procedures.  The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments would not have been possible, as they abolish or interfere with the domestic institution of the states.

Thank God for the Civil War.