![LINCOLN. Abraham. Autograph endorsement signed ("A. L."), as President, [Washington, D.C.], 8 February 1864. Five lines plus date and signature on the integral blank of a letter dated 7 February 1864 from John D. Defrees to Lincoln. 2 pages, 4to.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2005/NYR/2005_NYR_01685_0100_000(110641).jpg?w=1)
細節
LINCOLN. Abraham. Autograph endorsement signed ("A. L."), as President, [Washington, D.C.], 8 February 1864. Five lines plus date and signature on the integral blank of a letter dated 7 February 1864 from John D. Defrees to Lincoln. 2 pages, 4to.
LINCOLN--DECLINING TO INTERVENE--LETS CONGRESSIONAL MOMENTUM FOR A 13TH AMENDMENT, ABOLISHING SLAVERY, TAKE ITS NATURAL COURSE
Lincoln writes on the back of an earnest letter from one of Indiana's freshman Congressional Republicans, telling him that "Our friends have this under consideration now, and will do as much without a Message as with it." Defrees had urged the President to "send a message to Congress recommending the passage of a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution forever prohibiting slavery in the States and territories...It would be your measure and would be passed by a two-thirds vote, and, eventually, three fourths of the States, through their Legislatures, would consent to it...If not done very soon the proposition will be presented by the Democracy and claimed by them as their proposition. This may look strange to those who do not remember with what facility that party can change posit[ion]. Is it not right in itself and the best way to end slavery? It would have a beneficial influence on our elections next fall." Cynical Democrats, Defrees argues, were trying to use the issue of a proposed abolition amendment merely to steal anti-slavery votes from the Republicans in the 1864 contest.
Ironically, many Democrats even saw the amendment as a way of thwarting the Radical Republican drive for creating racial equality. An amendment would grant blacks their freedom from enslavement, but nothing more. It might not even guarantee freedom itself. "They say," Defrees points out, "suppose a State does so change its Constitution as to prohibit slavery, why may it not in a few years, hereafter, change back again?" Meanwhile, Defree's Republican colleagues in the House and Senate were insisting that abolition without enforcement was meaningless. There also had to be root-and-branch restructuring of the Southern economy and culture, and a Republican-sponsored amendment would more likely lead down that road than one broached by "the Democracy."
Defree's letter also alludes to a widespread inhibition at the time against amending the Constitution at all. To some, altering the founding charter was a wild, radical notion, tantamount to sacrilege. After all, there had been no amendments since the Federalist era, and those only clarified the Framer's original intentions. The notion of amending the Constitution to create either new rights or new governmental powers was indeed a momentous step, one which both the friends as well as the foes of abolition hesitated to make. Here, Defrees assures Lincoln that an abolition amendment "would not open the whole Constitution to amendment, and no harm can come of it, even should it fail to receive the sanction of the Constitutional number of States....I think it a great move on the political chess board." But Lincoln already knew this, as he politely tells the Indiana freshman in his endorsement. He was willing to let the "chess game" play itself out in the Congress without getting himself openly involved. The Senate approved the 13th Amendment in the summer of 1864, with the House following suit at the end of January 1865.
LINCOLN--DECLINING TO INTERVENE--LETS CONGRESSIONAL MOMENTUM FOR A 13TH AMENDMENT, ABOLISHING SLAVERY, TAKE ITS NATURAL COURSE
Lincoln writes on the back of an earnest letter from one of Indiana's freshman Congressional Republicans, telling him that "Our friends have this under consideration now, and will do as much without a Message as with it." Defrees had urged the President to "send a message to Congress recommending the passage of a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution forever prohibiting slavery in the States and territories...It would be your measure and would be passed by a two-thirds vote, and, eventually, three fourths of the States, through their Legislatures, would consent to it...If not done very soon the proposition will be presented by the Democracy and claimed by them as their proposition. This may look strange to those who do not remember with what facility that party can change posit[ion]. Is it not right in itself and the best way to end slavery? It would have a beneficial influence on our elections next fall." Cynical Democrats, Defrees argues, were trying to use the issue of a proposed abolition amendment merely to steal anti-slavery votes from the Republicans in the 1864 contest.
Ironically, many Democrats even saw the amendment as a way of thwarting the Radical Republican drive for creating racial equality. An amendment would grant blacks their freedom from enslavement, but nothing more. It might not even guarantee freedom itself. "They say," Defrees points out, "suppose a State does so change its Constitution as to prohibit slavery, why may it not in a few years, hereafter, change back again?" Meanwhile, Defree's Republican colleagues in the House and Senate were insisting that abolition without enforcement was meaningless. There also had to be root-and-branch restructuring of the Southern economy and culture, and a Republican-sponsored amendment would more likely lead down that road than one broached by "the Democracy."
Defree's letter also alludes to a widespread inhibition at the time against amending the Constitution at all. To some, altering the founding charter was a wild, radical notion, tantamount to sacrilege. After all, there had been no amendments since the Federalist era, and those only clarified the Framer's original intentions. The notion of amending the Constitution to create either new rights or new governmental powers was indeed a momentous step, one which both the friends as well as the foes of abolition hesitated to make. Here, Defrees assures Lincoln that an abolition amendment "would not open the whole Constitution to amendment, and no harm can come of it, even should it fail to receive the sanction of the Constitutional number of States....I think it a great move on the political chess board." But Lincoln already knew this, as he politely tells the Indiana freshman in his endorsement. He was willing to let the "chess game" play itself out in the Congress without getting himself openly involved. The Senate approved the 13th Amendment in the summer of 1864, with the House following suit at the end of January 1865.