Mar 4,1861
sent to the states for ratification. Just five states – Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio and Rhode Island – approved this amendment before efforts to get it ratified were stalled by the outbreak of The Civil War.
But this didn’ t happen before Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, made it clear where he stood on Corwin’ s proposal to make the enslavement of Blacks a constitutional right for their enslavers. Here’ s what he said in an effort to keep the United States from tearing apart over the issue of slavery:
“ No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the 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.”
“ 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. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”
In other words, the man who history remembers as“ The Great Emancipator” told the nation in 1861 that he supported etching slavery into the Constitution.
Two years later, after the Union army suffered a devastating defeat in a battle just 50 miles south of Washington, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a war measure that only freed slaves in areas controlled by the Confederate army. Its intent was to cripple the South’ s economy; not uplift the moral standing of the nation he led. n
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