December 12, 1864---The battle for the soul of the 13th Amendment

DECEMBER 12, 1864:       

Clear skies and cold clear air have replaced storming cloud cover over Nashville. General George Thomas U.S.A. sends word to Ulysses S. Grant that he is prepared to move against General John Bell Hood C.S.A. as soon as the mired, mucky roads dry out.

In Washington, D.C.. Abraham Lincoln has been working on obtaining passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution since the morning after his State of The Union Address. Lincoln knows this is an uphill battle, at least in the 38^th Congress. Although it became a lame-duck Congress as of Election Day, and although Lincoln is well aware that he can get easy ratification of the Amendment during the incoming 39^th Congress in which the Republicans hold a 75% majority, he prefers to see the Amendment passed by the fractious and dysfunctional House of Representatives still sitting in December. 

There are a number of very good reasons:

First, Lincoln knows that the Confederate Congress is debating emancipation and he does not wish the South to free the slaves before the North. Such an eventuality could change the military and political landscape beyond reckoning.

Second, Lincoln knows that if the Republican-dominated 39^th Congress passes the Amendment, he will be in a politically weakened position. There have already been difficulties with the Radical Republicans in Congress. They have disputed Lincoln’s very liberal and forgiving Reconstruction plan and have thwarted the counting of Electoral votes in the reconstructed States of the South. Lincoln does not wish to be beholden to the Radicals of his party for passing the Amendment, since as a quid pro quo they may force the implementation of their extremist form of Reconstruction which is both far more harsh to the South and far more cognizant of immediate bestowal of black civil rights than Lincoln’s more tempered plan. Lincoln fears that a political battle over these issues in a freshly-reconstructed America could reignite the military battles.

Third, Lincoln is concerned that if the Amendment is passed without clear bipartisan support it may be subject to juridical disputes or repealed entirely by a future Congress. He wants no such possibilities to raise their ugly heads. He has said it: He will not see re-enslaved those already emancipated or their descendants. He wants to guarantee that slavery is, in fact, dead and buried in the reunified United States. 

To this end, he has asked various Cabinet members, Members of Congress, and other influential figures to press recalcitrant Congressmen of both parties to pass the Amendment. Moral suasion is preferred; spoils jobs are the next best offer; bribery, arm-twisting, threats, and outright sliminess are to be (officially) forbidden, though Lincoln keeps all the buckles of his political bag of tricks unfastened.  

   

Nevada’s Congressional delegation is seated in Washington.