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Corwin Amendment
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==Legislative history== [[File:TCorwin.jpg|thumb|left|upright=.85|[[United States House of Representatives|Representative]] [[Thomas Corwin]], author of the amendment]] {{Events leading to US Civil War}} {{Slavery}} In December 1860, when the second session of the 36th Congress was convened, the deepening rift between [[slave states and free states]] was erupting into a [[Secession in the United States|secession]] crisis. The [[United States Senate|Senate]] quickly formed a "Committee of Thirteen" to investigate possible legislative measures that might solve the slavery predicament. The [[United States House of Representatives|House]] formed a "Committee of Thirty-three" with the same objective. More than 200 resolutions with respect to slavery,<ref>Jos. R. Long, "Tinkering with the Constitution", ''Yale Law Journal'', vol. 24, no. 7, May 1915, 579</ref> including 57 resolutions proposing constitutional amendments,<ref name=macveagh>Ewen Cameron Mac Veagh, "The Other Rejected Amendments", ''The North American Review'', vol. 222, no. 829, December 1925, 281-2</ref> were introduced in Congress. Most represented compromises designed to avert military conflict. Senator [[Jefferson Davis]] proposed one that explicitly protected property rights in slaves.<ref name=macveagh/> A group of House members proposed a national convention to accomplish secession as a "dignified, peaceful, and fair separation" that could settle questions like the equitable distribution of the federal government's assets and rights to navigate the Mississippi River.<ref>Russell L. Caplan, ''Constitutional Brinksmanship: Amending the Constitution by National Convention'' (Oxford University Press, 1988), 56</ref> Senator [[John J. Crittenden]] proposed a [[Crittenden Compromise|compromise]] consisting of six constitutional amendments and four Congressional resolutions,<ref>[https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/critten.asp Amendments Proposed in Congress by Senator John J. Crittenden: December 18, 1860] Avalon Project</ref> which were ultimately [[Table (parliamentary procedure)|tabled]] on December 31. On January 14, 1861, the House committee submitted a plan calling for an amendment to protect slavery, enforce fugitive slave laws, and repeal state [[personal liberty laws]].<ref>{{cite web|author=<!--History.com editors; no by-line.-->|title=House Committee of Thirty Three submits proposed amendment|website=history.com| url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/house-committee-of-thirty-three-submits-proposed-amendment|date=February 1, 2019|orig-year=November 13, 2009|publisher=A&E Television Networks|access-date=April 13, 2019}}</ref> The proposed constitutional amendment declared: {{quote|No amendment of this Constitution, having for its object any interference within the States with the relations between their citizens and those described in second section of the first article of the Constitution as "all other persons", shall originate with any State that does not recognize that relation within its own limits, or shall be valid without the assent of every one of the States composing the Union.<ref name=victor463>Orville James Victor, ''The History, Civil, Political and Military, of the Southern Rebellion'' (NY: James D Torrey, 1861), I, 463</ref>}} While the House debated the measure over the ensuing weeks, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had joined South Carolina in seceding from the Union. The contentious atmosphere in the House during the debate was relieved by abolitionist Republican [[Owen Lovejoy]] of Illinois, who questioned the amendment's reach: "Does that include polygamy, the other twin relic of barbarism?" Missouri Democrat [[John S. Phelps]] answered: "Does the gentleman desire to know whether he shall be prohibited from committing that crime?"<ref name=macveagh/> On February 26, Congressman Thomas Corwin, who had chaired the earlier House committee, introduced his own text as a substitute, but it was not adopted. The following day, after a series of preliminary votes, the House voted 123 to 71 in favor of the original resolution, but as this was below the required two-thirds majority, the measure was not passed.<ref name=victor463/><ref>Francis Newton Thorpe, ''A Short Constitutional History of the United States'' (Boston: Little, Brown, 1904), 207</ref> On February 28, however, the House returned to and approved Corwin's version—House (Joint) Resolution No. 80—by a vote of 133 to 65, just barely above the two-thirds threshold.<ref>Victor, 467</ref><ref name=Gettysburg>{{cite web| url=https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2017/04/10/the-corwin-amendment-the-last-last-minute-attempt-to-save-the-union/| title=The Corwin Amendment: The Last Last-Minute Attempt to Save the Union| last=Christiensen| first=Hannah| work=The Gettysburg Compiler| publisher=Civil War Institute, Gettysburg College| location=Gettysburg, Pennsylvania| access-date=April 13, 2019| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107014256/https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2017/04/10/the-corwin-amendment-the-last-last-minute-attempt-to-save-the-union/| archive-date=November 7, 2017| url-status=dead}}</ref> The Senate took up the proposed amendment on March 2, 1861, debating its merits without a recess through the pre-dawn hours on March 4. When the final vote was taken, the amendment passed with exactly the needed two-thirds majority{{snd}}24β12.<ref name=Gettysburg/> Soon afterward, it was sent to the state legislatures for ratification. The joint resolution containing the Corwin Amendment called for the amendment to be submitted to the state legislatures,<ref name=brandon219220>Brandon, 219β220</ref> as it was believed that the amendment had a greater chance of success in the legislatures of the Southern states than would have been the case in [[state ratifying conventions]], given that state conventions were being conducted at that time throughout the South at which votes to secede from the Union were successful. The Corwin Amendment was the second proposed "Thirteenth Amendment" submitted to the states by Congress. The first was the similarly ill-fated [[Titles of Nobility Amendment]] in 1810.
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