We Must Dissolve and War Must Follow

As March began, members of the U.S. Congress were scrambling to adopt a program that preserve the Union. Three plans were still under consideration:

• Constitutional amendments proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky
• Constitutional amendments proposed by the delegates of the National Peace Conference
• The constitutional amendment proposed by Congressman Thomas Corwin of Ohio

Nobody seemed to have much confidence that any of these three amendments might pass, and even if they did, whether they would keep the Union intact, especially since the states of the Deep South had already formed a new Confederacy. The House Committee of Thirty-three had defeated all these measures except Corwin’s amendment, but even Corwin did not have much confidence. He told President-elect Abraham Lincoln: “Southern men are theoretically crazy… Extreme northern men are practical fools.” Corwin predicted that unless Congress and the people got serious about compromise immediately, “we must dissolve & a long & bloody civil war must follow.”

Republicans tried to hold off voting on these measures until the congressional session ended on March 3, but they could no longer stop them from reaching the floor. When the bill to adopt Crittenden’s amendments failed, Crittenden urged the Senate to vote on the Peace Conference amendments. Strong opposition by both southerners and northern Republicans killed these by an overwhelming vote of 28 to 7. A bill calling for a national convention to seek compromise also failed, 25 to 14.

This left the Corwin amendment, which had passed in the House of Representatives on February 28. It stated: “No Amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give 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 the State.”

The measure had been introduced in the Senate by William H. Seward, current New York senator and soon to be Lincoln’s secretary of state. Lincoln had used his influence to persuade enough Republicans to approve it by the necessary two-thirds majority, 24 to 12. Senators who had resigned their seats when their states seceded did not vote.

This amendment was intended to both assure the South that slavery would be permanently legalized and dissuade the border slave states from joining the Confederacy. President James Buchanan not only approved this measure but he set a precedent by signing it, even though constitutional amendments do not require a president’s signature.

The measure was sent to the state legislatures for ratification; if approved, it would become the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Although it had endorsements from both Democrats and Republicans, the Corwin amendment went ignored in the new Confederacy and northern states ultimately rejected it. This marked the last major attempt at compromise.

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Bibliography

• Catton, Bruce and Long, E.B. (ed.), The Coming Fury. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (Kindle Edition), 1961.
• Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Kindle Edition 2008, 1889.
• Holzer, Harold, Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter of 1860-1861. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, Reprint Edition, 2008.
• Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
• Napolitano, Andrew P., Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History. Thomas Nelson, Kindle Edition, 2010.