New York Times: Slavery and Jim Crow were part of the free market

[MMMark]

Sun. 10/05/23 15:25 EDT
.post #108

[url=New York Times: Slavery and Jim Crow were part of the free market - #48 by Nielsio]

@Nielsio

[/url]IIRC there was more to it than that than simply ‘no objection’.

Found this:

Thomas DiLorenzo calls attention to a vital fact that demolishes the popular view that one of Lincoln’s primary motives for opposing secession in 1861 was his distaste for slavery. Precisely the opposite was the case. It is well known that, in an effort to promote compromise, a constitutional amendment was proposed in Congress that forever forbade interference with slavery in states where it already existed. Lincoln referred to the proposal, the Corwin Amendment, in his First Inaugural, stating that he was not opposed to the amendment, since it merely made explicit the existing constitutional arrangement regarding slavery. Of course, Lincoln was here characteristically mendacious; nothing in the constitution prior to the amendment prohibited amendments to end slavery. [1]

So much is well established, but DiLorenzo adds a surprising touch. Far from viewing the Corwin Amendment with grudging consent, Lincoln was in fact its behind-the-scenes promoter. “As soon as he was elected, but before his inauguration, Lincoln ‘instructed Seward to introduce [the amendment] in the Senate Committee of Thirteen without indicating they issued from Springfield.’ … In addition, Lincoln instructed Seward to get through Congress a law that would make the various ‘personal liberty laws’ that existed in some Northern states illegal. (Such state laws nullified the Federal Fugitive Slave Act, which required Northerners to apprehend runaway slaves)” (p. 54, quoting Dorothy Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals).

So, while Lincoln didn’t (seem to) actually “propose amending the constitution” in his first inaugural address, it seems he was its “behind the scenes promoter.”

I wasn’t really trying to make a counter-claim…I don’t know too much about it, so I was trying to find out. I’m interested to read what you post about this.

edit:
see also A ‘Lincoln Scholar’ Comes Clean
and Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe
and Who was this “Great Liberator”?