Editing Corwin Amendment (section)

{{Short description|Proposed US constitutional amendment to protect slavery from federal power}}
{{Use American English|date = March 2019}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{US Constitution article series}}
The '''Corwin Amendment''' is a proposed [[Article Five of the United States Constitution#Proposing amendments|amendment]] to the [[Constitution of the United States|United States Constitution]] that has never been adopted, but owing to the absence of a ratification deadline, could theoretically still be adopted by the [[State legislature (United States)|state legislatures]]. It would have shielded slavery within the states from the federal constitutional amendment process and from abolition or interference by Congress.

Although the Corwin Amendment does not explicitly use the word [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]], it was designed specifically to protect slavery from federal power. The outgoing [[36th United States Congress]] proposed the Corwin Amendment on March 2, 1861, shortly before the outbreak of the [[American Civil War]], with the intent of preventing that war and preserving the Union. It passed Congress but was not ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures.

Several [[Southern United States|Southern]] states [[secession in the United States|seceded]] after the [[1860 United States presidential election|1860 presidential election]], eventually forming the [[Confederate States of America]]. Several federal legislative measures, including the Corwin Amendment, were proposed during this period in the hope of either reconciling the sections of the United States or avoiding the secession of the [[Border states (American Civil War)|border states]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Samuel Eliot Morison|author-link=Samuel Eliot Morison|title=The Oxford History of the American People|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryof00mori|url-access=registration|year=1965|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryof00mori/page/609 609]}}</ref> Senator [[William H. Seward]] and Representative [[Thomas Corwin]], Republicans and allies of President-elect [[Abraham Lincoln]], introduced the Corwin Amendment, which was endorsed by the outgoing president, [[James Buchanan]], as well as by Lincoln himself in his first inaugural address in 1861.<ref>Lupton, John A. (2006). "Abraham Lincoln and the Corwin Amendment". Illinois Heritage. 9 (5): 34.</ref> Because it was only ratified in a handful of Northern states and Kentucky, the Corwin Amendment failed to achieve its goal of preventing civil war and preserving the Union. Ultimately, it fell out of favor during the Civil War.