Congress

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

West front of the capital

West front of the capital

A slave market such as Lincoln saw from the windows of the Capitol while a member of Congress

A slave market such as Lincoln saw from the windows of the Capitol while a member of Congress

Joshua Giddings

Joshua Giddings

John Wentworth

John Wentworth

David Wilmot

David Wilmot

The first settlers of Illinois came predominantly from slave-holding states like Kentucky. Later settlers came from northern states with strong anti-slavery traditions. Lincoln chronicler Blaine Brooks Gernon wrote: “Sentiment in central and northern Illinois against slavery in any form had been growing slowly but surely, due to the large influx of settlers pouring in from the East. In 1843-44 [John] Hardin had been the only congressman from the state to vote against…resolutions designed to shut off debate on slavery, but in the following session, urged on by the growing strength of abolitionists and Liberty men, Wentworth had joined him. In 1846 Wentworth had been the only member from Illinois to vote for the Wilmot Proviso, since [Stephen] Douglas, [John A.] McClernand, [Joseph] Hoge, and [Orlando] Ficklin had voted to table, while [Edward] Baker and [Robert] Smith had refrained from voting.”1

During Mr. Lincoln’s campaign for Congress in 1846, Franklin T. King said that he and Thomas Alsop “were appointed a committee by a meeting of the ‘Free Soil’ and anti-slavery people held in Springfield to wait on Mr. Lincoln & get his views on the subject of Slavery. We called on him and were so well pleased with what he said on the subject that we advised that our anti-slavery friends throughout the district should cast their vote for Mr. Lincoln: which was genirally [sic] done.”2 But slavery was generally not an issue in Mr. Lincoln’s first and only congressional campaign. It was only with advent of the Mexican-American War and questions about the status of slavery in new territories and states, that slavery emerged as an important national issue.

Biographer Albert J. Beveridge wrote that Mr. Lincoln “witnessed the same things in Washington when he was in Congress, and, unless he went about the capital blindfolded, he saw gangs of slaves plodding in chains along the street. At the very time when Southern resentment of abolition words and deeds was reaching the danger point, Lincoln’s closest associates were [Alexander] Stephens, [Robert] Toombs, and other Southern members of the House; and heated debates on the subject sprang up in the midst of controversy over the Mexican War.”3

The conflict between Mexico and American residents of Texas brought slavery to the national stage. Lincoln biographers Ida Tarbell observed: “It was not until 1844-45, however, that the matter became an important element in his political life. Heretofore it had been a moral question only, now, however, the annexation of Texas made it a political one. It became necessary that every politician and vote decide whether the new territory should be bond or free. The abolitionists or Liberty party grew rapidly in Illinois. Lincoln found himself obliged not only to meet Democratic arguments, but the abolition theories and convictions.”4

Contemporary biographer Josiah G. Holland wrote that Congressman Lincoln “stood firmly by John Quincy Adams and Joshua R. Giddings on the right of petition, and was recognized as a man who would do as much in opposition to slavery as his constitutional obligations would permit him to do.”5 Lincoln chronicler Paul Findley wrote: “Lincoln’s first votes in Congress relating to slavery came on questions of tabling petitions. On December 30, 1847, Amos Tuck of New Hampshire presented a petition of citizens of Philadelphia seeking the use of public lands for the extinction of slavery. They thought the proceeds from the sale of public lands could be used to compensate slave owners for their slaves. Lincoln voted for consideration. Similarly, on December 21 and again on December 28, 1847, Lincoln voted against tabling petitions presented respectively by Joshua R. Giddings and Caleb B. Smith seeking the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Again the motion to table carried.”6

Historian Ida Tarbell wrote: “When in 1847 he went to Congress it was already evident that the Mexican war would be settled by the acquisition of large new territory. What was to be done with it? The North had tried to forestall the South by bringing in a provision that whatever territory was acquired should be free forever. This Wilmot proviso as it was called from the name of the originator, went through as many forms as Proteus, though its intent was always the same. From first to last Lincoln voted for it. ‘I may venture to say that I voted for it at least forty times during the short time I was there,’ he said in after years. Although he voted so persistently he did little or no debating on the question in the House and in the hot debates from which he could not escape, he acted as a peace-maker.”7

“In Illinois slavery troubled him but it was out of sight most of the time and therefore more of an abstract moral issue than a concrete problem that had to be faced,” wrote Paul Findley in A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness. Findley, who represented Mr. Lincoln’s Springfield district in the 1960s and 1970s, wrote: “In the District of Columbia Lincoln confronted slavery every day. The move to Washington put Lincoln and his family right in the midst of slavery and a thriving slave trade. He could not put it out of sight except by closing his eyes. It flourished. It was an everyday, ugly reality. Slaves worked in Mrs. Sprigg’s boardinghouse where the Lincolns lived. If Lincoln walked east from the boardinghouse, in five minutes he could watch slaves being bought and sold at an auction block. If he walked westerly, past the Capitol, in ten minutes he could see the slave pens on the mall. In a speech given six years later, in 1854, Lincoln recalled for his audience one aspect of slavery in Washington:

In view from the windows of the Capitol, a sort of Negro-livery stable, where droves of Negroes were collected, temporarily kept, and finally taken to Southern markets [was] openly maintained.8


In Mr. Lincoln’s famous Peoria speech in 1854, he recalled that “the famous Georgia Pen, in Washington, where negroes were bought and sold within sight of the National Capitol, began to grow offensive in the nostrils of all good men, Southerners as well as Northerners.”9

Lincoln Biographer John T. Morse, Jr., wrote: “Lincoln’s position upon the slavery question in this Congress was that of moderate hostility. In the preceding Congress, the Twenty-ninth, the famous Wilmot Proviso, designed to exclude slavery from any territory which the United States should acquire from Mexico, had passed the House and had been killed in the Senate. In the Thirtieth Congress efforts to the same end were renewed in various forms, always with Lincoln’s favor.10 The Wilmot Proviso was named after Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot. Indeed, according to Paul Findley, “Slavery loomed large as an issue in the 30th Congress. The Wilmot Proviso was sure to resurface; slavery in the District of Columbia was certain to be debated; and the strident abolitionism of Joshua Giddings, John Palfrey, and other antislavery Members ensured that if the slavery issue could be injected into a debate, it would be.”11

“Lincoln’s opposition to the extension of slavery had been clearly enunciated in his letter to Williamson Durley in 1845,” wrote Lincoln biographer Findley. Mr. Lincoln had laid out his position on the impact of the annexation of Texas on the growth of slavery in the United States:

I was glad to hear you say that you intend to attempt to bring about, at the next election in Putnam, a union of the whigs proper, and such of the liberty men, as are whigs in principle on all questions ave only that of slavery. So far as I can perceive, by such union, neither party need yield any thing, on the point in difference between them. If the whig abolitionists of New York had voted with us last fall, Mr. Clay would now be president, whig principles in the ascendent, and Texas not annexed; whereas by the division, all that either had at stake in the contest, was lost. And, indeed, it was extremely probably, beforehand, that such would be the result. As I always understood, the Liberty-men deprecated the annexation of Texas extremely; and this being so, why they should refuse to so cast their votes as to prevent it, even to me, seemed wonderful. What was their process of reasoning, I can only judge from what a single one of them told me. It was this: “We are not to do evil that good may come.” This general, proposition is doubtless correct; but did it apply? If by your votes you could have prevented the extention, &c. of slavery, would it not have been good and not evil so to have used your votes, even though it involved the casting of them for a slaveholder? By the fruit the tree it is to be known. An evil tree can not bring forth good fruit. If the fruit of electing Mr. Clay would have been to prevent the extension of slavery, could the act of electing have been evil?

But I will not argue farther. I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation; inasmuch, as they were already a free republican people on our model; on the other hand, I never could very clearly see how the annexation would augment the evil of slavery. It always seemed to me that slaves would be taken there in about equal numbers, with or without annexation. And if more were taken because of annexation, still there would be just so many the fewer left, where they were taken from. It is possibly true, to some extent, that with annexation, some slaves may be sent to Texas and continued in slavery, that otherwise might have been liberated. To whatever extent this may be true, I think annexation an evil. I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death – to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old. Of course I am not now considering what would be our duty, in cases of insurrection among the slaves.

To recur to the Texas question, I understand the Liberty men to have viewed annexation as a much greater evil than I ever did; and I, would like to convince you if I could, that they could have prevented it, without violation of principle, if they had chosen.12


The Mexican-American War raised the potential for addition of further territory to the United States – which raised the possibility of the further extension of slavery into these new territories. Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot introduced the ‘so-called Wilmot Proviso to prohibit slavery in the new territory of Oregon. Mr. Lincoln supported efforts to apply the anti-slavery provisions of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 to new territorial governments. Biographer Findley wrote: “The principle of the Wilmot Proviso came up in the 30th Congress on February 28, 1848, in a resolution introduced by Congressman Harvey Putnam of New York. Putnam’s resolution was tabled. Lincoln opposed the motion to table, thus supporting the Wilmot Proviso. On August 2, 1848, Lincoln again supported the proviso, albeit indirectly. During debate on a bill to establish a territorial government in Oregon, a motion was made to strike from the bill a provision extending the Ordinance of 1787. Since the Ordinance of 1787 provided that slavery should not exist north of the Ohio River, Lincoln voted no, supporting the principle of the Wilmot Proviso.13

Findley wrote: “The establishment of territorial government in Oregon would doubtless be linked to slavery as the prospect of acquiring land from Mexico increased. Captured by the narcotic of ‘Manifest Destiny,’ the nation eagerly expanded its territory. The future of slavery hung in the balance. Should it be allowed in newly acquired territory. In the past, carefully wrought compromises had provided for the addition of one new slave state for each new free state admitted to the Union. A delicate balance between slave and free state power was maintained in Congress, although that balance did favor the South. Surely there would be a clamor for a slave state to balance Oregon. In facing these issues, Lincoln adhered to the principles he had expressed in his 1837 protest to the Illinois state legislature. He believed that while slavery was morally wrong, radical abolition doctrines only increased the evils of slavery.”14

Lincoln biographers John G. Nicolay and John Hay wrote: “Mr. Lincoln took little part in the discussions incident to these proceedings; he was constantly in his seat, however, and voted generally with his party, and always with those opposed to the extension of slavery. He used to say that he had voted for the Wilmot proviso, in its various phases, forty-two times. He left to others, however the active work on the floor.”15 With his support of the Wilmot Proviso, Mr. Lincoln began the opposition to the expansion of slavery that was to carry him to the Presidency. In 1854 in his famous campaign speech in Peoria, Illinois, Lincoln asserted that: “In December, 1847, the new Congress assembled. I was in the lower House that term. The ‘Wilmot Proviso’ or the principle of it, was constantly coming up in some shape or other, and I think I voted for it at least forty times.”16 Historians William and Bruce Catton wrote: “…from 1846 to 1849 – Lincoln voted for it five times by actual count and later recalled, humorously, having done so thirty or forty times, so frequently was the issue before the House.”17 Historian Olivier Frayssé interpreted the remarks differently: “There is no reason not to believe him, for that is probably the number of occasions on which he had to make a decision, if we include procedural votes, on which a roll call was not ordered each time.”18

Horace Greeley, the New York Tribune editor who served briefly with President Lincoln in the House, later recalled of Congressman Lincoln : “He was generally liked on our side of the House; he made two or three moderate and sensible speeches that attracted little attention; he voted generally to forbid the introduction of slavery into the still untainted territories; but he did not vote for Mr. Galt’s [Daniel Gott’s] resolve looking to the immediate abolition by a vote of the people [Douglas’ proposition in after years] – that is, by the whites of the District – which seemed to me much like submitting to the inmates of the penitentiary a proposition to double the lengths of their respective terms of imprisonment. In short, he was one of the very mildest type of Wilmot Proviso Whigs from the free states – not nearly so pronounced as many who long since found a congenial rest in the ranks of the pro-slavery Democracy.”19 According to Greeley: “Though a strong partisan he voted against the bulk of his party once or twice, when that course was dictated by his convictions. He was one of the most moderate, though firm, opponents of slavery extension, and notably of a buoyant, cheerful spirit.”20

Historian Olivier Frayssé wrote that Congressman Lincoln “favored compromise in the case of fugitive slaves imprisoned in Washington, whose cause was pleaded by Giddings in incidents that demonstrated how strong the feelings on opposing sides of the slavery question were. As early as April 18, 1848, Giddings had presented amid jeers, a resolution demanding an inquiry into the reasons for the jailing in the District of Columbia prison of eighty men, women, and children whose sole crime was ‘an attempt to enjoy that liberty for which our fathers encountered toil, suffering, and death itself, and for which the people of many European governments are now struggling.’ He was opposed by an amendment put forward, amid laughter, by Isaac E. Holmes (D.-S.C.) proposing to replace all of the text following the demand for an inquiry with the phrase ‘whether the scoundrels who caused the slaves to be there ought not to be hung.’ The situation only got tenser as time went on.”21

Although Mr. Lincoln’s support of the Wilmot Proviso was important, Mr. Lincoln’s real contribution to the anti-slavery cause came with his introduction of legislation to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. The proposal took the form of an amendment to legislation already on the floor during the second session of his single term in Congress. Slavery and the slavery trade in the nation’s capital were a clear embarrassment to much of the nation. Psychohistorian Charles Strozier wrote of slave trade in Washington: “There is no indication that Lincoln reacted in horror to the sight; indeed there is no indication at all of his feelings on the matter. The bill he tried to introduce on January 10, 1849, therefore, came as something of a surprise.”22 According to historian Charles Strozier, “Lincoln’s bill in 1848 drew essentially on his formulation of slavery reform in 1837. He moved slowly but seldom forgot the past.”23

It is for his proposal to eliminate slavery in the District of Columbia that Mr. Lincoln’s congressional career is best known. Contemporary biographer Josiah G. Holland wrote: “As the months passed, Lincoln sought ways to express more adequately his own view of slavery in the District of Columbia. He must have been uncomfortable with some of his votes. On December 13, 1858, [Massachusetts Whig Congressman] John Palfrey wanted to introduce, without previous mention, a bill repealing all acts relating to slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Lincoln voted against the introduction of the bill, and this privilege was denied, 68 to 89. On December 18 Joshua Giddings introduced a bill calling for a referendum by the people of the District of Columbia (including free Negroes) on the issue of Slavery. Lincoln voted to table the bill, and the resolution to table passed, 106 to 79.”24

Congressman Josiah Lincoln also voted against a resolution by Daniel Gott (Whig-N.Y.) to abolish the slave trade in the District. None of these measures satisfied him, because they were too radical. He himself prepared an amendment – in reality a substitution – to Gott’s resolution, which expressed the state of his thinking on the subject,” according to historian Olivier H. Frayssé.25

Lincoln biographer Josiah G. Holland wrote: “Early in the session, Mr. Gott of New York introduced a resolution instructing the Committee on the District of Columbia to report a bill prohibiting the slave trade in the District. The language of the preamble upon which the resolution was based was very strong, and doubtless seemed to Mr. Lincoln unnecessarily offensive; and we find him voting with the pro-slavery men of the House to lay it on the table, and subsequently voting against its adoption.”26

“Proslavery interests immediately made efforts to reconsider the vote. One such effort occurred on January 10. If successful, it would have enabled the House Members to reverse the favorable vote of December and rescind the instruction to the committee,” wrote Lincoln biographer Paul Findley. “Lincoln’s Illinois colleague, Democrat John Wentworth, got the floor to offer a motion that would table the motion to reconsider. He wanted the Gott resolution to stand. Nevertheless, before forcing a vote on the motion to table, as a courtesy, he yielded time to Lincoln.”27

Congressman Giddings wrote in his diary on January 8: “Mr. Dicky of Pa. and Mr. Lincoln of Illinois were busy preparing resolutions to abolish slavery in the D.C. this morning. I had a conversation with them and advised them that they [ought to] draw up a bill for that purpose and push it through. They hesitated and finally accepted my proposition….Mr. Lincoln called on me this evening, read his bill and asked my opinion which I freely gave.”28

Historian Josiah G. Holland wrote that Mr. Lincoln’s substitution “provided that no person not within the District, and no person thereafter born within the District, should be held to slavery within the District, or held to slavery without its limits, while it provided that those holding slaves in the slave states might bring them in and take them out again, when visiting the District on public business. It also provided for the emancipation of all the slaves legally held within the District, at the will of their masters, who could claim their full value at the hands of the government, and that the act itself should be subject to the approval of the voters of the District. The bill had also a provision, ‘that the municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown, within their respective jurisdictional limits,’ should be ’empowered and required to provide active and efficient means to arrest and deliver up to their owners all fugitive slaves escaping into said District.'”29

Lincoln biographer John T. Morse, Jr.: “This was by no means a measure of abolitionist coloring, although Lincoln obtained for it the support of Joshua R. Giddings, who believed it ‘as good a bill as we could get at this time,’ and was ‘willing to pay for slaves in order to save them from the Southern market.’ It recognized the right of property in slaves, which the Abolitionists denied; also it might conceivably be practicable, a characteristic which rarely marked the measures of the Abolitionists, who professed to be pure moralists rather than practical politicians. From this first move to the latest which he made in this great business, Lincoln never once broke connection with practicability.”30

“In Congress, Lincoln was not part of the small group of Abolitionists. But when the chips were down on one of the most controversial matters before the House – abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia – it was Congressman A. Lincoln who introduced the resolution,” Lincoln chronicler Herbert Mitgang wrote.31 “In Washington, congressman Lincoln was appalled by what he saw of the domestic slave trade and the buying and selling of human flesh. He described the slaves in the District of Columbia, who were held in a ‘sort of Negro livery stable, where droves of Negroes were collected, temporarily kept, and finally taken to Southern markets, precisely like droves of horses.’ He considered slave traders ‘a small, odious and detested class…sneaking individuals…native tyrants…offensive in the nostrils of all good men, Southerners as well as Northerners.'”32

“The most important and significant act of Lincoln at this Congress, was the introduction by him into House, of a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,” wrote fellow Illinois politician Isaac N. Arnold. “The bill provided that no person from without the District should be held to slavery within it, and that no person born thereafter within the District should be held to slavery. It provided for the gradual emancipation of all the slaves in the District, with compensation to their masters, and that the act should be submitted to a vote of the people of the District. He prepared the bill with reference to the condition of public sentiment at that time, and what was possible to be accomplished. The bill represents what he hoped he could carry through Congress, and into a law, rather than his own abstract ideas of justice and right. He believed, as he had declared many times, and emphatically in his protest to the resolutions in the Illinois Legislature, that slavery was ‘unjust to the slave, impolitic to the nation,’ and he meant to do all in his power to restrict and get rid of it.”33

Lincoln Chronicler Herbert Mitgang wrote: “On January 10, 1849, in the second session of the Thirtieth Congress, Lincoln proposed ‘A bill for an Act to Abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia, by the Consent of the Free of the Free White People of Said District, and With Compensation to Owners.’ Its main sections said that no person should ever be held in slavery within Washington; that no person within the District or born there at any time later person within the District or born there at any time later should ever be held in slavery; that all children already born of slave mothers within Washington and Georgetown should be freed after 1850 and, furthermore, ‘reasonably supported and educated’ by the owners of their mothers, and that the U.S. Treasury should be empowered to pay owners for the full value of slaves, ‘upon which such slave shall be forthwith and forever free.'”34 The Congressional Globereported:

Mr. Lincoln appealed to his colleague [John Wentworth] to withdraw his motion, to enable him to read a proposition which he intended to submit, if the vote should be reconsidered.

Mr. Wentworth again withdrew his motion for that purpose.

Mr. Lincoln said, that by the courtesy of his colleague, he would say, that if the vote on the resolution was reconsidered, he should make an effort to introduce an amendment, which he should now read.

And Mr. L. read as follows:

Strike out all before and after the word ‘Resolved’ and insert the following, towit: That the Committee on the District of Columbia be instructed to report a bill in substance as follows, towit:

Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled: That no person not now within the District of Columbia, nor now owned by any person or persons now resident within it, nor hereafter born within it, shall ever be held in slavery within said District.

Section 2. That no person now within the District, or now owned by any person, or persons now resident within the same, or hereafter born within it, shall ever be held in slavery without the limits of said District: Provided that officers of the government of the United States, being citizens of the slaveholding states, coming into said District on public business, and remaining only so long as may be reasonably necessary for that object, may be attended into, and out of, said District, and while there, by the necessary servants of themselves and their families, without their right to hold such servants in service, being thereby impaired.

Section 3. That all children born of slave mothers within the District on, or after the first day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand, eight hundred and fifty shall be free; but shall be reasonably supported and educated, by the respective owners of their mothers or by their heirs or representatives, and shall owe reasonable service, as apprentices, to such owners, heirs and representatives until they respectively arrive at the age of _ ___ years when they shall be entirely free; and the municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown, within their respective jurisdictional limits, are hereby empowered and required to make all suitable and necessary. Provisions for enforcing obedience to this section, on the part of both masters and apprentices.

Section 4. That all persons now within said District lawfully held as slaves, or now owned by any person or persons now resident within said District, shall remain such, at the will of their respective owners, their heirs and legal representatives: Provided that any such owner, or his legal representative, may at any time receive from the treasury of the United States the full value of his or her slave, of the class in this section mentioned, upon which such slave shall be forthwith and forever free; and provided further that the President, Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury shall be a board for determining the value of such slaves as their owners may desire to emancipate under this section; and whose duty it shall be to hold a session for the purpose, on the first Monday of each calendar month; to receive all applications; and, on satisfactory evidence in each case, that the person presented for valuation, is a slave, and of the class in this section mentioned, and is owned by the applicant, shall value such slave at his or her full cash value, and give to the applicant an order on the treasury for the amount; and also to such slave a certificate of freedom.

Section 5. That the municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown within their respective jurisdictional limits, are hereby empowered and required to provide active and efficient means to arrest, and deliver up to their owners, all fugitive slaves escaping into said District.

Section 6. That the election officers within said District of Columbia, are hereby empowered and required to open polls at all the usual places of holding elections, on the first Monday of April next, and receive the vote of every free white male citizen above the age of twentyone years, having resided within said District for the period of one year or more next preceding the time of such voting, for, or against this act,; to proceed, in take said votes, in all respects not herein specified, as at elections under the municipal laws; and, with as little delay as possible, to transmit correct statements of the votes so cast to the President of the United States. And it shall be the duty of the President to canvass said votes immediately, and if a majority of them be found to be for this act, to forthwith issue his proclamation giving notice of the fact, and this act shall only be in full force and effect on, and after the day of such proclamation.

Section 7. That involuntary servitude for the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall not in no wise be prohibited by this Act.
Sec. 8. That for all the purposes of this act, the jurisdictional limits of Washington are extended to all parts of the District of Columbia not now included within the present limits of Georgetown.

Mr. Lincoln then said that he was authorized to say, that of about fifteen of the leading citizens of the District of Columbia to whom this proposition had been submitted, there was not one but who approved of the adoption of such a proposition. He did not wish to be misunderstood. He did not know whether or not they would vote for this bill on the first of April; but he repeated, that out of fifteen persons to whom it had been submitted, he had authority to say that every one of them desired that some proposition like this pass.35


Congressional opponents of the proposals demanded to know the names of these 15 anonymous supporters. According to biographer Josiah Holland: “Mr. Lincoln did not bring his bill forward without consultation. Mr. [William] Seaton, of the National Intelligencer, is understood to have been most in his confidence; and Mr. Lincoln said, on presenting his bill to the House, that he was authorized to say that, of about fifteen of the leading citizens of the District to whom the proposition had been submitted, there was not one who did not give it his approval. A substitute for the bill was moved, and finally the whole subject was given up, and left to take its place among the unfinished business of the Congress. The reason for this is reported to have been Mr. Seaton’s withdrawal from the support of the plan; and Mr. Seaton’s withdrawal from the support of the plan is said to have been owing to the visits and expostulations of members of Congress from the slave states. Mr. Lincoln could hope to do nothing without the approval of the voters of the District, and to secure this approval he must secure the support of the National Intelligencer. That taken from his scheme, he took no further interest in pursuing it.”36

Findley wrote: “Debate time returned to Wentworth, whose motion to table was accepted, and Lincoln’s brief and ineffective venture into antislavery debate on the House floor ended. He had observed the rising controversy over the Gott resolution, the effective support against it by southerners, and the reluctance of northern Whigs to support it. On one motion two prominent northern Whigs, Caleb Smith and Truman Smith, were seated in the House chamber when the vote was taken but did not answer. When their silence was called to the attention of the chair, Speaker Winthrop said the rules required every Member present to vote but provided no means of enforcement.”37

Although Mr. Lincoln’s proposal had no legislative effect because it was never even formally placed in the “hopper,” it did have a political effect by focusing discussion on his proposal. Lincoln biographers John G. Nicolay and John Hay wrote that “the success of Mr. Lincoln in gaining the adhesion of the abolitionists in the House is more remarkable than that he should have induced the Washington Conservatives to approve it. But the usual result followed as soon as it was formally introduced to the notice of Congress. It was met by that violent and excited opposition which greeted any measure, however intrinsically moderate and reasonable, which was founded on the assumption that slavery was not in itself a good and desirable thing. The social influences of Washington were brought to bear against a proposition which Southerners contended would vulgarize society, and the genial and liberal mayor was forced to withdraw his approval as gracefully or as awkwardly as he might. The prospects of the bill were seen to be hopeless, as the session was to end on the 4th of March, and no further effort was made to carry it through.”38

On January 12 Lincoln told the House of Representatives that he intended to introduce the District emancipation bill – but he never followed through on that intent. In 1860, Mr. Lincoln told biographical researcher James Quay Howard: “Before giving notice to introduce a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, I visited [the] Mayor, senators, and others whom I thought best acquainted with the sentiment of the people, to ascertain if a bill such as I proposed would be endorsed by them according to its provisions. Being informed that it would meet with their hearty approbation I gave notice in Congress that I should introduce a bill. Subsequently I learned that many leading southern members of Congress, had been to see the Mayor and the others who favored my bill and had drawn them over to their way of thinking. Finding that I was abandoned by my former backers and having little personal influence, I dropped the matter, knowing that it was useless to prosecute the business at that time. My mind has been in process of education since that time. [I] do not know that I would now approve of the bill, but in the main, think that I would.”39

According to Giddings biographer James Brewer Stewart, “This final setback bothered Giddings little, for he had approved Lincoln’s plan only grudgingly because of its strong tinge of gradualism.”40 Congressman Giddings. who stayed at the same Washington boarding house at Congressman Lincoln, wrote in his January 11 diary: “This evening our whole mess [at Mrs. Sprigg’s] remained in the dining room after tea and conversed upon the subject of Mr. Lincoln’s bill to abolish slavery. It was approved by all. I believed it as a good a bill as we could get at this time and was willing to pay for slaves in order to save them from the southern market as I suppose nearly every man…would sell his slaves if he saw that slavery was to be abolished.’ 41

Lincoln biographer James G. Randall wrote: “Thus the man who was later to become the emancipator was making an early tentative effort toward liberation. In doing so his approach was vastly different from that of radical abolitionists. It is true that he was seeking to deal with the question only on a very limited scale and at a time when slavery was strongly entrenched in the United States. He could hardly have gone father in the existing Congress, but the significant point is that he recognized the realities. The phrasing of the bill – which if passed would have made Lincoln somewhat famous for a legislative measure even if fame had given no greater rewards – revealed the character and point of view of Lincoln the statesman: his conservatism, his patience in letting a process work itself out over the years, his lack of antagonism toward the South, his regard for the rights of slaveholders, his attention to legal details, and his valuing of popular and democratic processes.”42

Findley wrote: “Shortly thereafter the conference of southern Senators and representatives, led by Senator John C. Calhoun and inspired in part by the consideration of the Gott resolution, issued the ‘Address of Southern Delegates in Congress, to their Constituents.’ In reality Calhoun’s personal declaration took note, ominously, of bills presented in Congress, including the Gott resolution and others such as that of ‘a Member from Illinois.'”43 Lincoln’s resolution had the effect of helping to mobilize the South to counter such anti-slavery proposals in Congress.

Olivier Frayssé wrote: “The firmness against the extension of slavery, which Lincoln demonstrated throughout his term, reflected the sincerity of his convictions and the depth of the movement taking shape in favor of Free Soil. Admittedly, the movement of history dragged him forward without his being aware of it very clearly, and he never made the decision to abandon his legalistic excess baggage before being forced to do so by events, but his evolution was clear.”44

Lincoln chronicler Paul Findley, wrote: “Looking back on Lincoln’s congressional career, it is evident that while he remained remarkably silent on slavery the events surrounding him had deep effect. Stirred by the turbulence provoked by slavery in the District of Columbia, and a thoughtful listener to the slavery debates that swirled around his seat in the House chamber, he began slowly to shift his position. The transformation in Lincoln’s view of slavery was gradual and moderate, never radical. He was never identified with the ardent abolitionists in the 30th Congress. He would be shocked if one of his colleagues had predicted that most slaves would be freed by executive order in less than twenty years and appalled at the thought that he might give the order.”45


Footnotes

  1. Blaine Brooks Gernon, Lincoln in the Political Circus, p. 100.
  2. Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, editor, Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews and Statements about Abraham Lincoln, p. 700 (Letter from Franklin T. King to William H. Herndon, September 12, 1890).
  3. Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858, Volume II, p. 31.
  4. Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume I, p. 222-223.
  5. Josiah G. Holland, Holland’s Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 120.
  6. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 130.
  7. Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume I, p. 222-223.
  8. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 124.
  9. Roy P. Basler, editor, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, p. 247-283 (Speech a t Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854).
  10. John T. Morse, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Volume I, p. 79.
  11. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 128.
  12. Roy P. Basler, editor, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume I, p. 347-349 (Letter to Williamson Durley, October 3, 1845).
  13. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 141.
  14. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 130.
  15. John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, Volume I, p. 285.
  16. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 128-130.
  17. William and Bruce Catton, Two Roads to Sumter, p. 60.
  18. Olivier Frayssé, Lincoln Land, and Labor: 1809-60, p. 121.
  19. Don C. Seitz, Horace: Greeley: Founder of the New York Tribune, p. 219.
  20. Don C. Seitz, Horace: Greeley: Founder of the New York Tribune, p. 220.
  21. Olivier Frayssé, Lincoln Land, and Labor: 1809-60, p. 124.
  22. Gabor S. Boritt, editor, The Historian’s Lincoln: Pseudohistory, Psychohistory, and History, p. 232.
  23. Gabor S. Boritt, editor, The Historian’s Lincoln: Pseudohistory, Psychohistory, and History, p. 232.
  24. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 137.
  25. Olivier Frayssé, Lincoln Land, and Labor: 1809-60, p. 125.
  26. Josiah G. Holland, Holland’s Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 120.
  27. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 137.
  28. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 138.
  29. Josiah G. Holland, Holland’s Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 120.
  30. John T. Morse, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, p. 79-80.
  31. Herbert Mitgang, The Fiery Trial: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 116-117.
  32. Herbert Mitgang, The Fiery Trial: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 115.
  33. Isaac N. Arnold, Abraham Lincoln, p. 80.
  34. Herbert Mitgang, The Fiery Trial: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 117.
  35. Roy P. Basler, editor, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, p. 20-22 (Remarks and Resolution Introduced in Untied States House of Representatives Concerning Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, January 10, 1849).
  36. Josiah G. Holland, Holland’s Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 122.
  37. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 139.
  38. John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, p. 287-288.
  39. Don E. and Virginia E. Fehrenbacher, editor, Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln, p. 269.
  40. James Brewer Stewart, Joshua R. Giddings and the Tactics of Radical Politics, p. 170.
  41. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 139.
  42. James G. Randall, Lincoln the President: Springfield to Gettysburg, Volume I, p. 17.
  43. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 139.
  44. Olivier Frayssé, Lincoln Land, and Labor: 1809-60, p. 122.
  45. Paul Findley, A. Lincoln, The Crucible of Congress: The Years Which Forged His Greatness, p. 143.

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