Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union by Daniel W. Crofts (review)

Controversy is life, proclaimed author and former Civil War correspondent Edmund Clarence Stedman; stagnation is death. Although addressed to a poet, Stedman’s aphorism is equally applicable to history. And if recent scholarship on Abraham Lincoln, Republicans, and emancipation is any guide, history is alive and well.

Daniel W. Crofts’s recent contribution covers more ground than its subtitle might suggest, ranging from abolitionists’ competing constitutional theories to the significance of the Fourteenth Amendment. Crofts delves most deeply into antislavery politics, Republicans’ words and deeds during the secession crisis, and the oft-misunderstood “other” Thirteenth Amendment, which Congress passed in early 1861. Sponsored by Thomas Corwin of Ohio, it would have prevented any future amendment from empowering Congress to interfere with slavery in the states. At its heart, however, the book is a critique of the “Lincoln Legend”: the increasingly common depiction of Lincoln (or Republicans more generally) as a “farsighted” figure who “knew in advance what he wanted—and who stood ready to fight a war so that he could abolish slavery” (189). Crofts’s complex rebuttal can be summarized thus: The impetus for secession was the pervasive but groundless fear in the Cotton States that Republicans menaced slavery in the states; mainstream Republicans, who focused strictly on blocking slavery’s expansion, were more conservative than antislavery activists who wanted to destroy slavery by denationalizing it; Republican support for the failed Thirteenth Amendment demonstrates the party’s genuine belief that slavery in the states was beyond the reach of federal power; the move by Lincoln and other Republicans to destroy slavery was purely a product of the Civil War itself. Crofts, then, suggests that the war was a proslavery conflict from the start and only became an antislavery conflict over time. Far from demonstrating slavery’s irrelevance to the war, Lincoln’s endorsement of the abortive Thirteenth Amendment simply shows how badly secessionists misread his intentions.

Crofts supports his argument methodically, drawing on broad research and his detailed knowledge of the desperate compromise efforts made by moderate Republicans, particularly William H. Seward, and Upper South Unionists. In part 1, he explores how antislavery activists handled the federal consensus—the widely shared belief that slavery in the states was constitutionally shielded from federal intervention. Some wanted to destroy slavery by denationalizing it; that is, by removing all federal support from slavery and outlawing it in areas under federal jurisdiction. But Republicans, who had to build a broad coalition in order to win elections, were generally more moderate, focusing on territorial restriction alone. In part 2, Crofts uncovers the origins of the “other” Thirteenth Amendment and clarifies the differences between it and overtly proslavery alternatives, such as the Crittenden Compromise. Backed by some Republicans, including Lincoln and Seward, but rejected by others who refused to bargain away any of their hard-won victory, the amendment was designed to hold the border and Upper South in the Union. In part 3, Crofts surveys Republicans’ reactions to the amendment, distinguishing between its fiercely antislavery opponents in the Upper North (New England, the Burned-Over District, and the Great Lakes) and its moderate supporters in the Lower North. In part 4, he analyzes the razor-thin margins by which Congress passed the amendment (supported by only 40 percent of congressional Republicans), Lincoln’s inaugural endorsement of the measure, and the aborted ratification process.

Crofts peppers the text with historiographical commentary that positions his book between two competing interpretations. On one hand, he denies that Republicans exacerbated the secession crisis by refusing to negotiate. Disunion was the work of Cotton State agitators. On the other, Crofts engages in a more sustained debate with proponents of the Lincoln Legend, particularly James Oakes, author of Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865 (2013) and The...