Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment

282 Pages·2007·5.68 MB·English

by  Harold Holzer

Edited by Harold Holzer and Sara Vaughn Gabbard
Lincoln
and
Freedom
Sl avery, Emancipation,
and the Thirteenth
‰
Âmendment
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Edited by
Harold Holzer and
Sara Vaughn Gabbard
Southern Illinois University Press
Carbondale
Published in conjuction with
The Lincoln Museum
Fort Wayne, Indiana
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Copyright © 2007 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
10 09 08 07 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lincoln and freedom : slavery, emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment / edited
by Harold Holzer and Sara Vaughn Gabbard ; foreword by Joan L. Flinspach.
p. cm.
“Published in conjunction with the Lincoln Museum.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13:978-0-8093-2764-5 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10:0-8093-2764-3 (alk. paper)
1.Lincoln, Abraham, 1809–1865—Political and social views. 2.Lincoln, Abraham,
1809–1865—Relations with African Americans. 3.Slaves—Emancipation—United
States. 4.United States. President (1861–1865 : Lincoln). Emancipation Proclamation.
5.United States. Constitution. 13th Amendment—History. 6.United States—Politics
and government—1861–1865. I. Holzer, Harold. II. Gabbard, Sara Vaughn. III. Lincoln
Museum (Fort Wayne, Ind.)
E457.2.L8152007
973.7'14—dc22 2006100373
Frontispiece: Senate copy of the Thirteenth Amendment resolution, signed by President
Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, Speaker of the House Schuyler
Colfax, and thirty-six of the thirty-eight senators who voted for the resolution. Courtesy
of The Lincoln Museum, Fort Wayne, Indiana (Ref. 4600).
Printed on recycled paper.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1992.(cid:39)
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Contents
Foreword vii
Joan L. Flinspach
Introduction 1
Harold Holzer
1. Slavery during Lincoln’s Lifetime 7
James Oliver Horton
2. Lincoln’s Critique of Dred Scott as a Vindication of the Founding 20
Joseph R. Fornieri
3. Lincoln and the Limits of Constitutional Authority 37
Phillip Shaw Paludan
4. Lincoln, God, and Freedom: A Promise Fulfilled 48
Lucas E. Morel
5. “Sublime in Its Magnitude”: The Emancipation Proclamation 65
Allen C. Guelzo
6. Lincoln’s Summer of Emancipation 79
Matthew Pinsker
7. The Role of the Press 100
Hans L. Trefousse
8. Marching to Freedom: The U.S. Colored Troops 113
John F. Marszalek
9. Lincoln and the Rhetoric of Freedom 130
Ronald C. White Jr.
10. Ballots over Bullets: Freedom and the 1864 Election 143
David E. Long
v
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vi contents
11. The Constitution, the Amendment Process, and the Abolition
of Slavery 160
Herman Belz
12. The Thirteenth Amendment Enacted 180
Michael Vorenberg
13. “That Which Congress So Nobly Began”: The Men Who Passed the
Thirteenth Amendment Resolution 195
Ron J. Keller
14. The End of the Beginning: Abraham Lincoln and the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments 213
Frank J. Williams
15. Picturing Freedom: The Thirteenth Amendment in the
Graphic Arts 233
Harold Holzer
Contributors 259
Index 263
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Foreword
(cid:42)
n1995, The Lincoln Museum opened in its current location to much
fanfare and the involvement of Lincolnians everywhere. The Gilder
Lehrman Institute of American History loaned its copies of the Eman-
cipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
both signed by Lincoln, for the opening temporary exhibit. Little did I know
then that within the next ten years, The Lincoln Museum would acquire
privately held copies of both documents for its own collection.
In 1998, as a departing gift to the retiring CEO of Lincoln Financial
Group, Ian Rolland, the company enabled its foundation (Lincoln Financial
Foundation) to purchase one of the Leland-Boker editions of the Emancipa-
tion Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln, which was then added to the
museum’s collection. Since its installation on the day after Rolland’s retirement,
thousands of visitors have come to see it.
In 2004, a rare opportunity surfaced to acquire one of the Senate copies of
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, also signed by Lincoln, which
formally abolished slavery. Jon Boscia, then CEO of Lincoln Financial Group
and president of the foundation, felt that it was only appropriate in celebra-
tion of the company’s one hundredth anniversary to purchase this important
historical document that reflected the company’s own values. In a ceremony in
which Ernest Green, a member of the Little Rock Nine, told of his experiences
in the struggle for equality, we were reminded of the promise of this document
to fulfill that “new birth of freedom” and complete that “unfinished work” to
achieve true democracy that Lincoln pledged at Gettysburg.
This book is a contribution by The Lincoln Museum to the celebration in
2009 of the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. It would not have
been possible without support from the Lincoln Financial Foundation, the
M. E. Raker Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History,
the Edward M. and Mary McCrea Wilson Foundation, and Jon Boscia. Their
assistance in the production of this book was inestimable. I also want to thank
vii
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viii joan l. flinspach
the contributing authors. The wisdom of their words will last for years. Finally,
I want to thank the editors, Harold Holzer and Sara Gabbard. Although he
never met them, they are two of Lincoln’s closest friends.
Joan L. Flinspach
President and CEO,
The Lincoln Museum
Fort Wayne, Indiana
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Introduction
Harold Holzer
(cid:34)
“ King’s cure for all the evils.” With that exuberant as-
sessment, Abraham Lincoln publicly celebrated congres-
sional passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution abolishing slavery.1 The House and Senate had at last approved
and sent the long-awaited amendment to the states. The president’s own home
state—Illinois—had already acted with breathtaking speed to become the first
to approve it. After spending more than twenty years opposing the institution
of slavery, and after issuing an Emancipation Proclamation that had hastened,
but did not complete, its destruction, Abraham Lincoln was now ready to savor
the culmination of a life’s work.
With the vast bulk of slaveholding territory still in rebellion against the
Union and considered ineligible to participate in the coming ratification pro-
cess, few observers in Washington doubted that the amendment would quickly
win the required three-fourths of the loyal states. Even Maryland—a border
state where slavery was still legal—was already, Lincoln proudly calculated,
“half way through” the inevitable approval process.
Addressing a crowd of well-wishers who had flocked spontaneously to the
White House on the evening of February 1,1865, to serenade the president—
only recently reelected, just four weeks away from his second inauguration,
and, though no one would have guessed it, beginning the final ten weeks of
his life—Lincoln was in the mood to both rejoice and reflect. “It winds the
whole thing up,” he declared of the historic moment. Not once, but twice, he
told the audience that passage of the amendment resolution represented “the
fitting if not indispensable . . . consummation” of the long and bloody Civil
War. He “had never shrunk from doing all that he could to eradicate Slavery
by issuing an emancipation proclamation,” he pointedly reminded the crowd.
But even “that proclamation,” he admitted, had fallen “far short of what the
amendment will be when fully consummated.”2 But this was no time for
1
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