African Americans and the Inadequacy of Constitutional Emancipation
If neither the Republicans nor the Democrats united behind the amendment early on, who, then, were the real champions of the measure The slaves who had sought their own freedom certainly deserved much of the 57 Blair to Barlow, December 25, 1863, Samuel L. M. Barlow MSS, HEH. 58 Barlow to Blair, December 23, 1863, Samuel L. M. Barlow letter books, HEH. credit for the Union's emancipation policy so far.59 Perhaps then, as one legal scholar has suggested, the slaves were the real authors of the...
The Constitution Slavery and the Coming of the Civil War
Americans of the nineteenth century, though often frustrated by the ambiguities of the Constitution, usually accepted the document's vagaries as the price of Union. Nothing has made me admire the good sense and practical intelligence of the Americans, wrote the French social theorist Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835, more than the way they avoid the innumerable difficulties deriving from their federal Constitution.3 In a sense, the Civil War erupted because the American people refused any longer...
The Democracy Divided
As Republicans fumbled the amendment, some Democrats thought about seizing the measure for themselves. In the early months of 1864, before it had become clear what course congressional Democrats would take on the amendment, some party members began to consider the advantages of 31 Washington Daily National Intelligencer, February 24, 1864, p. 3. 32 New York Times, February 11, 1864, p. 4. 33 Ibid., February 13, 1864, p. 6. 34 Chicago Tribune, February 17, 1864, p. 2. 35 Cincinnati Gazette,...
The Antislavery Amendment and Republican Unity
Prior to the first round of debates on the amendment, Republicans had not united behind a single, clear policy on emancipation. They had not yet rallied behind the antislavery amendment as the best method of achieving abolition. In fact, the constitutional amendment that would have preserved slavery forever, which Congress had passed in 1861, was still rattling around northern state legislatures. In February 1864 a proposal by Senator Henry B. Anthony of Rhode Island to rescind that amendment...
Legal Theory and Practical Politics
Senator Trumbull's announcement that he would bring the antislavery amendment up for debate set constitutional theorists to thinking anew about the founding charter and its mutability. One scholar in particular, Francis Lieber, who in December 1863 had advised his friend Charles Sumner not to propose an amendment granting all Americans equality before the law, now recognized the likelihood that Congress would soon propose revisions to the Constitution. Quickly he cobbled together a series of...