Thaddeus Stevens and the drive for the 13th Amendment
January 2023
By Ross Hetrick
One hundred and fifty-eight years ago this month, the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, was barely passed in the House of Representatives, which was surprising considering that all of the ardent supporters of slavery from the south had long left the House to fight for a new country dedicated to slavery.
One of the strongest supporters for that amendment was Thaddeus Stevens, who had worked for more than 40 years to see slavery destroyed.
"What an opportunity is presented to this Republic to vindicate her consistency and become immortal," Stevens said in January 1862, years before the amendment was passed. "The occasion is forced upon us, and the invitation presented to strike the chains from four million of human beings, and create them MEN; to extinguish slavery on this whole continent; to wipe out, so far as we are concerned, the most hateful and infernal blot that has ever disgraced the escutcheon of man, to write a page in the history of the world whose brightness shall eclipse all the records of heroes and sages."
But the amendment was not preordained. In fact, the first attempt at a 13th Amendment was actually a sinister effort to appease the South by further enshrining the horrid institute in the Constitution.
As southern states were leaving the Union in early 1861, the House and the Senate approved a Constitutional amendment that would have barred any amendment that would interfere with slavery. Called the Corwin Amendment after its sponsor, Rep. Thomas Corwin of Ohio, it was signed by outgoing President James Buchanan, even though a presidential signature was not needed.
The measure went on to be approved by the states of Kentucky, Ohio, Rhode Island, Maryland and Illinois. Even Abraham Lincoln said he had no objection to the Corwin Amendment. But to be fair to Lincoln, he and most abolitionists conceded slavery was completely protected by the Constitution and the new amendment would make no difference.
But the proposed amendment did not dissuade the South from leaving. Their main objection was that Lincoln and the Republican party were against the expansion of slavery into new states, a position they would not compromise on.
Stevens and other congressmen submitted amendments to abolish slavery in the spring of 1864, and while the measure passed in the Senate, it failed in the House where it was 13 votes short of the necessary two-thirds vote. Then in December 1864, Lincoln got behind the effort publicly and the amendment squeaked through the House by the end of January with only three votes to spare.
Even with Lincoln support, the effort to approve the amendment was a monumental legislative struggle, as shown in the 2012 movie Lincoln. Democrat George Pendleton of Ohio was the chief defender of slavery and accused Stevens and his allies of causing the Civil War. Stevens responded by saying Pendleton's epitaph should be, "Here rests the ablest and most pertinacious defender of slavery and opponent." In contrast, Stevens said he would be satisfied if his tombstone read: "Here lies one who never rose to any eminence, and who only courted the low ambition to have it said that he had striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, the lowly, the downtrodden of every race and language and color."
Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/
