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154

LINCOLN SIGNS THE RESOLUTION.

amendment was a king's cure-all for all evils. It wound the whole thing up. He would repeat that it was the fitting, if not the indispensable adjunct to the consummation of the great game the Nation and the Confederacy were playing. He could not but congratulate all present -himself, the country, and the whole world-upon this great moral victory.1

The President signed the joint resolution on the first of February. Somewhat curiously the signing has only one precedent, and that was in spirit and purpose the complete antithesis of the present act. President Buchanan had signed the proposed amendment of 1861.2 which would make slavery national and perpetual. But many held that the President's signature was not essential to an act of this kind, and, on the fourth of February, Senator Trumbull offered a resolution, which was agreed to three days later, that the approval was not required by the Constitution; that it was contrary to the early decision of the Senate and of the Supreme Court; and that the negative of the President applying only to the ordinary cases of legislation, he had nothing to do with propositions to amend the Constitution. Though thus decided, that the signature of the President to an act of this kind is not required, there was a peculiar fitness in sending the joint resolution to Mr. Lincoln. It may well be believed that he never set his name to a public document with deeper satisfaction. Seldom in the history of a nation have two men, whose character and capacities are in so marked

3

1 Lincoln's Works, II, 233-234. Mr. Lincoln's words are closely followed in my text.

2 See supra.

• Globe, February 4, 1865, pp. 588, 629 and 631. The question was settled in 1798. For the decision of the Court see Follingsworth et al. vs. Virginia, 3 Dallas, 381.

contrast, been elevated to such vast power as James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln. They typify two irreconcilable ideas in human government; ideas fully comprehended in the amendments, to the Constitution, which they signed.

A copy of the amendment is in existence, engrossed on parchment and signed in autograph by the President, the Vice-President and all members of both Houses of Congress who voted for it. The names suggest much of our history. Here are the signatures of two Presidents,Lincoln and Garfield, and of three Vice-Presidents,— Hamlin, Colfax and Wilson. Here are two who served as Speakers of the House,2 and twelve who became Cabinet ministers.3 But of all the one hundred and fiftyeight names on the parchment, none, unless it be Abraham Lincoln's, stand for more, in the long struggle against slavery, than do the names of John P. Hale and George W. Julian. As Free-Soil candidates for President and Vice-President in 1852, these men had gone to the country

1It is said to have been engrossed and signed for Mr. Lincoln at his request.

2 Schuyler Colfax, December 7, 1863-March 3, 1869; James G. Blaine, March 4, 1869-March 3, 1875.

3 Jacob Collamer, Post-master General under Taylor (18491850); Reverdy Johnson, Attorney-General under Taylor (18491850); William Pitt Fessenden, Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln (1864-1865); James Harlan, Secretary of Interior under Johnson (1865-1866); E. B. Washburne, Secretary of State under Grant (1869); George S. Boutwell, Secretary of Treasury under Grant (1869-1873); Zachariah Chandler, Secretary of Interior under Grant (1875-1877); Lot M. Morrill, Secretary of Treasury under Grant (1876-1877); John Sherman, Secretary of Treasury under Hayes (1877-1881), and Secretary of State under McKinley (1896-1897); William Windom, Secretary of Treasury under Garfield (1881); and under Harrison (1889-1891); James G. Blaine, Secretary of State under Garfield (1881), and under Harrison (1889-1892).

156

SOME WHO OPPOSED.

on a platform declaring that the government of the United States had no more power to make a slave than to make a king, and that it should at once proceed to relieve itself from responsibility for the existence of slavery; for it possessed constitutional power to legislate for its extinguishment.1

If some parchment preserved the signatures of the sixty-two members who voted against the amendment there would be seen the names of men eminent in the counsels of the Democratic party: Thomas A. Hendricks, Vice-President with Mr. Cleveland; George H. Pendleton, candidate for Vice-President with General McClellan in 1864;2 S. S. Cox, sometime Speaker of the House; Samuel J. Randall, Speaker during seven sessions, and W. S. Holman, a member of the House for thirty years.

3

1 Free-Soil Platform, clause 4, Pittsburg, August 11, 1852. McKee's National Platforms of all Political Parties, 1894, 46.

2 The Platform declared "as the sense of the American people that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which under pretense of military necessity or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every particular, and public liberty and private rights alike trodden down and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired; justice, humanity and liberty and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities with the view to ultimate convention of the States on other possible means to the end that at the earliest possible moment peace may be restored on the basis of federal union of the States." Official Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, held in 1864, at Chicago; Chicago: Times Steam Book, Job Printing House, 1864, p. 27. Pendleton's nomination (p. 55) was made unanimous. Documentary History II, Washington, 1895, p. 523. In the House of Representatives of Illinois the vote was 48 ayes, 28 nays; in the Senate, 18 ayes, 6 nays.

8 December 4, 1876-March 3, 1881.

CHAPTER IV.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT BEFORE THE STATES.

The proposed amendment was now sent to the States, and Illinois ratified it1 on the day President Lincoln signed. Before February closed seventeen States had ratified,2 two followed in March,3 and two in April.

Con

1 February 1, 1865. The amendment, approved by the President, is given in Statutes at Large, XIII, 567.

2 The Rhode Island Legislature adopted it by nearly a unanimous vote, the Senate, 28 to 4; the House, 62 to 4; Documentary History, II, 522. The resolution, which was a sign of the times, may be contrasted with the expository resolutions with which some of the Southern States adopted the resolution, "that in the reconstruction of the government of the States lately in rebellion against the Government and authority of the United States, the usual power and legal authority vested in the Federal Government should be executed to secure equal rights without respect to color, to all citizens residing in those States, including the right of the elective franchise. Annual Encyclopedia, 1865, p. 746. Rhode Island ratified February 2. The Michigan Legislature in the session of 1865 passed an act submitting an amendment to the State Constitution to be voted upon at the fall election of 1866, allowing colored men to vote. Michigan ratified February 2. Senate, 21 to 2; House, 56 to 13; Documentary History, II, 525. Maryland, New York and West Virginia ratified February 3; Maryland, 72 to 40. See Laws of Maryland, 1865, pp. 406-407, Documentary History, II, 528; Senate, February 3, 11 ayes, 10 nays; House, February 1, 53 ayes, 24 nays; New York, Senate, 18 to 8; House, 72 to 40; Documentary History II, 533. New York: See the resolution of the Democratic State Convention at Albany, September 6 and 7, 1865, and that of the Republican Convention at Syracuse, September 20, 1865, both favorable to the adoption of the amendment. The platforms of the State Conventions are given in the Tribune Almanac for that year. The ratification of the amendment by West Virginia was unanimous in both Houses. Documentary History, II, 693. Maine and Kansas ratified February 7. Maine, Senate, 31 to 0; House, 98 to 0; Documentary History, II, 701. Maine: See the resolution of the Republi

158

RATIFICATION BY THE STATES.

can State Convention at Portland, August 10, 1865, demanding equality and uniformity of the right of suffrage by Constitutional amendment, and urging Congress to hold the Southern States under provisional governments until all their inhabitants furnished the State evidence of loyalty and a sincere disposition to secure to all loyal persons in their States equal political rights. See resolutions of the Democratic State Convention at Portland, August 15, to the contrary as to the restoration of the Southern States, and declaring it to be the right of the people of each State to prescribe the qualifications of the electors.

The Kansas House adopted the amendment unanimously. Documentary History, II, 697. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania ratified February 8. Massachusetts, Senate, 40 to 0; House, 204 to 0; Documentary History, II, 735. Pennsylvania Senate, 19 to 12; House, 61 to 33; Documentary History, II, 727.

Governor Andrews of Massachusetts, in his annual message, January 6, 1865, urged the Legislature to request the President to call Congress in extra session, in case the Thirty-Eighth Congress failed to adopt the Thirteenth Amendment. Pennsylvania: Contrast the resolutions of the Union State Convention at Harrisburg, August 18, 1866, with those of the Democratic Convention at Harrisburg on the 24th of August, in their attitude toward the abolition of slavery; and compare the resolutions of the convention of colored men at Philadelphia, July 17, on the question of negro suffrage.

Virginia ratified February 9; Ohio and Missouri, February 10. Virginia, Senate, 5 to 0; House, 9 to 2; Bulletin No. 7, 561; a strong party in Virginia still denies the validity of the acts of the Legislature of 1865.

Ohio, Senate, 20 to 3; House, 58 to 12; Bulletin No. 7, 556. Missouri, Senate, 25 to 2, 5 not voting; House, 93 to 4, 30 not voting; Documentary History, II, 593.

Ohio: See the resolutions of the Union States' Convention at Columbus, June 23, approving the Amendment, and those of the Democratic Convention at Columbus on the 24th of August, declaring inter alia, "that to each State belongs the right to determine for itself the qualifications of its electors, and the general government cannot nor can any department thereof interfere directly or indirectly with the exercise of this right without palpable violation of the Constitution of the reserved rights of the States; that the effort now being made to confer the right of suffrage upon the negro is an insidious attempt to overthrow popular institutions by bringing the right to vote into disgrace; the negroes are not competent to exercise that right, nor is it nec

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