Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union

by Daniel W. Crofts

Overview

In this landmark book, Daniel Crofts examines a little-known episode in the most celebrated aspect of Abraham Lincoln's life: his role as the "Great Emancipator." Lincoln always hated slavery, but he also believed it to be legal where it already existed, and he never imagined fighting a war to end it. In 1861, as part of a last-ditch effort to preserve the Union and prevent war, the new president even offered to accept a constitutional amendment that barred Congress from interfering with slavery in the slave states. Lincoln made this key overture in his first inaugural address.

Crofts unearths the hidden history and political maneuvering behind the stillborn attempt to enact this amendment, the polar opposite of the actual Thirteenth Amendment of 1865 that ended slavery. This compelling book sheds light on an overlooked element of Lincoln's statecraft and presents a relentlessly honest portrayal of America's most admired president. Crofts rejects the view advanced by some Lincoln scholars that the wartime momentum toward emancipation originated well before the first shots were fired. Lincoln did indeed become the "Great Emancipator," but he had no such intention when he first took office. Only amid the crucible of combat did the war to save the Union become a war for freedom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469663944
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	02/01/2021
Series:	Civil War America
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	638,803
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Daniel Crofts is the author of Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Daniel Crofts's meticulously argued and well-researched book shows us how Abraham Lincoln and a host of other key players attempted to keep the Upper South in the Union. The result is a contrarian and rich book that makes a significant addition to the scholarship of this vital period.—Jonathan H. Earle, Louisiana State University

Editorial Reviews

[An] intelligent and absorbing book. . . . Challenges the dominant emancipationist narrative and forces a new look at the dynamics and directions of politics and public interest during the secession crisis.—Library Journal



Meticulously detailed. . . . A thorough look at the dissension that tore the country apart.—Kirkus Reviews



A well-written and exhaustively researched study—Civil War Monitor



A highly readable account of a seldom-remembered feature of early Civil War history. Highly recommended.—Choice



A well researched and thought-provoking book about Abraham Lincoln and his position on slavery.—North Carolina Historical Review



An essential study of Republican ideology and the political efforts to prevent secession in the months following Lincoln's election." —The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society



With astute inferential skill and admittedly sparse archival attestations to build from, he pieces together the processes and hints of backroom deals that carried the amendment through both chambers by the narrowest of margins and through deft parliamentary maneuvering and overnight vote reversals.—Reviews in History



A worthwhile addition to our literature on the Civil War and the slavery issue in general.—American Historical Review



With impressive research in politicians' speeches and correspondence, Crofts reconstructs the tangled legislative history of the amendment during the secession winter of 1860-1861, as moderates North and South struggled to find a compromise that would forestall disunion and war.—Journal of American History

From the Publisher

04/01/2016
With this intelligent and absorbing book, Crofts (Reluctant Confederates) resurrects the story of the "first" and long-forgotten 13th Amendment, proposed by moderate Republicans and Democrats during the secession winter and narrowly passed by Congress and "endorsed" by Abraham Lincoln in his 1861 inaugural address in an effort to stem the secession madness they feared would drive the Upper South to secede and thereby send the Union into ruin and war. The amendment simply stated that under the Constitution the federal government could not, and so would not, interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed as law. Croft deftly shows the maneuvering both in and out of Congress that led the law to be passed, and the reasons for its failure. The Civil War ended the ratification process for this first 13th Amendment and provided the rationale for the 13th Amendment that in fact ended slavery in law; with that Lincoln's and other Republicans' 1861 effort to forestall war was lost to history. That loss of memory, Crofts insists, distorts the true history of Lincoln's and most Republicans' interest in 1861—to save the Union, not to move directly against slavery. VERDICT This account challenges the dominant emancipationist narrative and forces a new look at the dynamics and directions of politics and public interest during the secession crisis.—Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia

Library Journal

2016-01-13
A historian examines Abraham Lincoln's trajectory toward the ending of slavery. Crofts (History/Coll. of New Jersey; A Secession Crisis Enigma: William Henry Hulbert and "The Diary of a Public Man," 2010, etc.) complicates the image of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator in this meticulously detailed history of American politics in the years leading up to the Civil War. He argues in particular against hagiographic portrayals in Steven Spielberg's movie Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, and Civil War histories by a host of other scholars. The responsible historian, Crofts writes, "should try to stand apart from both sides in the secession crisis tangle and explain how each misunderstood the other." He does note several scholars who take this dispassionate view, making his own contribution a reprisal and augmentation rather than a groundbreaking discovery. Crofts underscores two questions that were central to the contention between North and South, Republican and Democrat: did the Constitution protect states' right to hold slaves, without interference from the federal government? Could the federal government prohibit slavery in newly acquired territories? As the author recounts the positions of a large cast of participants, he notes repeatedly that many Republicans insisted on barring slaves from territories and opposed admitting new slave states but held "that slavery could never be touched by the federal government." Lincoln reassured the South on that point. In the months after his election, Crofts writes, "the last thing on his mind was the long-run future of slavery in the United States or the many indignities and hardships suffered by American slaves." Central to the author's argument is Lincoln's prewar 13th Amendment, "a constitutional guarantee that slavery should not be molested in any way directly or indirectly in the States." Four years later, after his hopes of preventing secession failed, Lincoln saw the real 13th Amendment passed, ending slavery and elevating his reputation. A thorough look at the dissension that tore the country apart.

Kirkus Reviews