If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
—Abraham Lincoln, White House conversation, 1865
His reelection handily won, Lincoln was hopeful that his second term would be marked by peace, progress, and prosperity instead of war and discontent. Though the events of 1864 had left him exhausted, Lincoln had neither the time nor the inclination to rest. He kept up a staggering workload in the fall and winter, reviewing requests for pardons and results of courts-martial, attending cabinet meetings, huddling with congressional delegations, and attending public levees and functions. Just as after his election in 1860, he was hounded by office seekers, and once again he met with as many applicants as possible, and tried to reward as many of the party faithful as he could. Mary noticed the physical toll that presidential duties and the sadness of the war continued to take on her husband. “Mr. Lincoln is so broken hearted, so completely worn out,” she fretted.1 But there was still much left to do, and his second term had not even begun.
Lincoln first had to deal with the makeup of his cabinet. As is the case with any two-term president, it was widely speculated that Lincoln would replace some or all of his top advisers. But some of the problems that had plagued and disrupted the group in his first term had been taken care of in recent months. The self-righteous and overtly ambitious Salmon Chase had resigned as secretary of the Treasury in June, replaced by the radical Senator William Fessenden of Maine. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, the enemy of the radicals, had left in the wake of John C. Frémont’s presidential bid and been replaced by William Dennison of Ohio. Much of the bickering that had hampered the cabinet in the first term had now ceased, and Lincoln was satisfied that the newly formed group worked well together and, with some relatively minor tinkering, would continue to do so.
The president particularly enjoyed the respectful relationship he had forged with Secretary of State William Seward, with whom he conferred daily. Seward had the president’s ear on the most important matters and gave thoughtful, reasoned advice. He came to realize that Lincoln controlled his cabinet and not the reverse, and fully accepted that fact. He assured his leader and friend that his own presidential aspirations had abated, and he worked hard for the president’s reelection. Seward thought that Lincoln “should be his own successor,” and when that occurred “the rebellion will collapse.”2 As he grew more comfortable in his role as chief confidant of the president, Seward’s admiration for Lincoln’s resolve grew stronger. “Lincoln will take his place with Washington and Franklin, and Jefferson, and Adams, and Jackson, among the benefactors of the country and of the human race,” Seward said after his chief’s reelection.3 Lincoln thought highly of Seward as well. The friendship between the two men was “absolute and sincere,” wrote Lincoln’s secretary John Hay. “No shadow of jealousy or doubt ever disturbed their mutual confidence and regard.”4
The president was less friendly with his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, but the two men had managed to forge an effective working relationship. Periodically bedridden, Stanton refused doctor’s orders for extended rest, usually working fifteen-hour days (almost never sitting down, but preferring to direct operations from his stand-up desk), instructing his physician to “keep me alive till this rebellion is over.”5 Perhaps the greatest tension between the two men arose because of Lincoln’s inclination to grant pardons in liberal fashion, even for such seemingly inexcusable offenses as desertion or dereliction of duty. Lincoln always looked for an excuse to spare a soldier’s life, particularly when the man’s wife or mother intervened. Stanton the disciplinarian felt compelled to keep military discipline, and believed that sure and swift punishment acted as a powerful deterrent to possible offenders. Serious and stubborn, often abrasively honest, Stanton regularly gave Lincoln advice in his blunt, gruff manner, which the president received while understanding that Stanton’s pressure-packed job “is one of the most difficult in the world.”6 Next to Lincoln, Stanton received more public criticism than anyone, his every movement, order, and decision scrutinized and debated. But his chief was quick to defend Stanton’s performance. “Folks come up here and tell me that there are a great many men in the country who have all Stanton’s excellent qualities without his defects,” he said. “All I have to say is, I haven’t met ’em! I don’t know ’em!”7
Lincoln was equally pleased with the work of Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Welles, to be sure, often disagreed with the president on policy matters—for example, he opposed the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and was fearful that the Emancipation Proclamation would fuel the Southern war effort and lengthen the war. But Welles kept his criticisms private, sharing his feelings only in the diary he faithfully kept. Driven by a strong sense of duty, he was faithful to the president, serving as a go-between when Lincoln and Chase argued and discreetly trying to restore working order to the cabinet. While initially distrustful of Lincoln’s scheme to blockade Southern ports, Welles had vigorously enforced the plan with a fleet that he had built into a world-class power. Under Welles’s direction the American Navy had grown from 76 vessels to 671, and the number of seamen from 7,600 to 51,000.
John Usher had been secretary of the interior since 1862, when he had succeeded Caleb Smith, who became a federal judge. Usher was the least controversial cabinet member. He went about his job dutifully, with little fanfare. He was loyal to the president and rarely offered his opinions at cabinet meetings; for his part Lincoln seems seldom to have sought Usher’s advice. One notable exception concerned the Minnesota Sioux Indian uprising of 1862. Bands of starving Sioux, upset over years of mistreatment by corrupt government agents, revolted and killed hundreds of prairie homesteaders. General John Pope, so ineffective against Confederate forces in Virginia, was sent to Minnesota to put down the rebellion. Amid growing clamor from outraged whites, Pope proclaimed that he meant to “exterminate the Sioux.” The number of Indians killed by federal soldiers is unknown, but nearly fifteen hundred were arrested and summarily convicted by military tribunal. More than three hundred were sentenced to death, and Lincoln felt pressure from Minnesota politicians to approve the executions. Usher went to Minnesota to investigate the situation, then returned to Washington and discussed with Lincoln the jurisdictional and procedural problems raised by the actions of the tribunal. Acting partly upon Usher’s advice, Lincoln insisted on reviewing, individually, the records of the convicted participants. He finally approved the execution of thirty-eight men who were guilty of murder or rape. The case proved to be Usher’s only noteworthy achievement, however, and by the spring of 1865 Lincoln would replace him with Senator James Harlan of Iowa (who would become the father-in-law of the president’s son Robert Todd Lincoln).
That left Edward Bates as attorney general. Now seventy-one years of age, Bates had been a loyal supporter of Lincoln and had served with distinction. A strong advocate of the president’s war powers authority, Bates had written legal opinions justifying the suspension of habeas corpus and the Emancipation Proclamation. A critic of the Dred Scott decision, Bates championed combat duty for black soldiers as well as equal pay for equal service. But now that the election had been won, Bates was urged by his family to return to his home in St. Louis, and Lincoln accepted his resignation cordially. In his place the president sought to nominate Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate General of the Army, but Holt declined. Lincoln then chose the man Holt suggested: Kentucky lawyer James Speed, the brother of his old friend Joshua Speed. Speed had worked for Lincoln’s reelection, declaring himself a “Constitutional Abolitionist,” which meant that, like Lincoln, he was “for abolishing Slavery under the War Power of the National Constitution, and then clinching it by a Constitutional amendment prohibiting it everywhere forever.”8
In all, then, Lincoln was pleased with the makeup of his second cabinet, and hopeful that it would prove to be an effective group. Unlike the original cabinet of four years earlier, only Se-ward was a significant leader within the Republican Party. No one questioned Lincoln’s character, his intelligence, or his abilities. No one had any aspirations to be president; in fact, all felt deep personal loyalty to Lincoln. The group was balanced politically; with the addition of Dennison and Speed, even the radicals were satisfied for the time being. Most important, the group pledged to work together in furtherance of Lincoln’s policies in the second term of his administration.
Lincoln had made significant changes to the Supreme Court during his first term, appointing four new justices to the bench. He made an even more important move in October 1864 when Chief Justice Roger Taney died. The ancient Maryland native and slaveholder had written the infamous Dred Scott decision, declaring that “black people had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” and had been very critical of the legality of Lincoln’s war policies throughout the war. Now Lincoln had the opportunity to replace Taney with a man more sympathetic to moderate Republican views, which was particularly important in view of his forthcoming plans for reconstruction. As always, Lincoln balanced practicality and politics in choosing his nominee. Not surprisingly, the names of men who had served in his cabinet came to the fore: Stanton, Blair, Bates, and Chase. Lincoln struggled with his decision, took advice from many friends, politicians and otherwise, and finally selected Chase. Lincoln had long been weary of Chase’s pettiness and scheming but could not help but admire his abilities. “We have stood together in the time of trial,” he said, “and I should despise myself if I allowed personal differences to affect my judgment of his fitness for the office. . . . His only trouble is that he has ‘the White House fever’ a little too bad, but I hope this may cure him and that he will be satisfied.”9 Again, the radicals within the Republican Party would be satisfied with his choice. Now, along with his other appointees, Lincoln could rest assured that the Supreme Court would look disfavorably upon any challenges to his actions and policies—and would be inclined to respect the rights of African Americans. Within months, Lincoln’s hopes began to be at least partially realized: in January, Chief Justice Chase approved the admission of John Rock of Massachusetts, making him the first black man to practice before the Supreme Court.
As he prepared to deliver his annual message to Congress in December, Lincoln reflected on the legislative achievements of his first term, which had been all but overlooked because of the country’s preoccupation with the war. Many new laws, passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, would prove to have long-lasting consequences as the nation pushed relentlessly westward, settling new lands and expanding its borders.
A series of financial measures had been enacted to fund the war, which was costing $2 million daily. Under the direction of the Treasury Department, and with the administrative guidance of the Philadelphia banker Jay Cooke, the government had issued war bonds (which, over the course of the war, would raise about $3 billion for the Union, or 65 percent of its revenue). Needing an unrestricted currency supply to fuel the bond program, Congress passed the Legal Tender Act in 1862, which authorized the production and distribution of paper money, known popularly as greenbacks.
More significantly, the Internal Revenue Act of 1861, the first federal income tax in American history, assured the financial community that the government would have a reliable source of income to pay the interest on war bonds. Subsequent Revenue Acts of 1862 and 1864 created moderately progressive tax brackets and set rates at 5, 7.5, and 10 percent. By the end of the war nearly one in ten American households (mostly in the affluent states in the industrial Northeast, the section of the country that held most of the wealth) paid an income tax.
Also enacted was an excise tax system that imposed taxes on almost everything: liquor, professional licenses, carriages, yachts, medicines, corporations, stamps, and the like. The Morrill Tariff Acts of 1860 and 1861 doubled the amounts of taxes collected on dutiable items brought into the United States, while at the same time protecting the steel, iron, mineral, beef, and fishing industries, among many others. Congress also enacted the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864, which established a system of national charters for banks and encouraged the implementation of a national currency. They also mandated that one-third of a new bank’s notes had to be backed by federal bonds, thus assisting the war effort. When state banks balked at the new regulation, a provision of the 1864 Act imposed a 10 percent tax on state bank notes; state banks then had to choose to comply or go out of business. Overall, the tax system quickly grew so large that the Bureau of Internal Revenue was created to administer it. These finance measures reversed the downward trends instituted by Democratic Congresses of the 1840s and 1850s, and fulfilled Republican promises from the campaign of 1860.
During Lincoln’s first term, the Republican Congress also passed the Homestead Act of 1862, which made public lands in the West available for small farmers. For decades the distribution of these lands had been the subject of great debate and controversy, in Washington and among the American population. Under the new Homestead Act, any adult citizen who headed a household could win title to 160 acres of frontier land simply by living on it for five years. By the end of the war more than fifteen thousand homestead claims had been filed, with more to come. While some portion of the land ended up in the control of speculators and railroads, many settlers stuck it out, raised their families, and harvested crops, thereby establishing a framework for the large-scale development of vast Western territories over the course of the next forty years. The 160-acre tracts created the model of the American family farm for the next century.
Also in 1862 Lincoln signed into law the Morrill Land Grant College Act, named for Senator Justin Morrill of Vermont. The statute transferred federal lands to states to be sold for the establishment and support of agricultural and mechanical arts colleges, which paved the way for the establishment of state university systems throughout the Midwest and West. The program was set up proportionately, dependent upon the number of congressional representatives, and eventually involved the transfer of nearly seventeen million acres of land. That same year, Congress and Lincoln established the Department of Agriculture to look after the interests of farmers (although the department would not gain cabinet-level status for some twenty years).
These three landmark acts—the Homestead Act, the Land Grant College Act, and the creation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, all enacted in the middle of the Civil War—formed a tripod on which much of America’s great agricultural success has rested from that day until the present.
Also of great importance was the passage of the Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864. These laws provided for the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from Omaha to Sacramento for the movement of passengers and freight as well as government use for postal, military, and other purposes. All told, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads received more than 175 million acres from the government for use as right-of-way, and began construction. Utilizing thousands of immigrant laborers from Ireland, Germany, Italy, and China, and with the Union Pacific pushing west and the Central Pacific pushing east, the two lines met and merged near Ogden, Utah, in 1869, finally and forever linking the two coasts. Lincoln’s support for all these laws was a reflection of the Whig principles that had nurtured him: the belief that the federal government could and should play an important role in the public welfare.
Reconstruction of the Union had been on Lincoln’s mind since the important battlefield victories of 1863. At some point, he believed, the erring rebel states would have to be taken back and the country restored. But on what terms? Lincoln never considered secession to be legal, and he never acknowledged the existence of the Confederacy or the legitimacy of Jefferson Davis’s presidency. He felt that many Southerners—perhaps a majority—had been misled into believing that the only way to protect their way of life from destruction by Lincoln was by secession and war. Lincoln, therefore, wanted reconstruction to take place gently, with a measure of forgiveness. He was not out to punish the Confederates; he did, however, want reunification to be accomplished quickly. Convinced that reconstruction was a province of the executive office and of individual states (not of Congress), in December 1863 he issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, aimed at Southern areas occupied by federal forces. Lincoln hoped that the generous terms of the proclamation would entice war-weary Southern soldiers to lay down their arms while building popular (and political) support in the North.
Lincoln’s proposal came to be called the Ten Percent Plan: that is, once 10 percent of a state’s citizens swore an oath of allegiance to the national government, the state could be readmitted to the Union. Those citizens (excluding high-ranking Confederate officers and government officials) would be granted a full pardon. Elected delegates would then draft new state constitutions (explicitly abolishing slavery) and reestablish state governments. Once those simple conditions were met, Lincoln would offer an “executive recognition” of the state. Moderate Republicans endorsed Lincoln’s plan, believing that the surest way to end the war was to extend an olive branch. But the always vocal radical Republicans vilified it. Insisting that reconstruction was solely a legislative function, they wanted to punish the rebels for causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in an unnecessary war. Radicals meant to reformulate Southern society by guaranteeing civil liberties for blacks. They feared that Lincoln’s overly lenient plan would simply reestablish the old planter aristocracy, when instead that old order, which had in fact caused the war, needed to be replaced with a more modern, industrial-based economic system.
With these objectives in mind, the radicals managed to push the more stringent Wade-Davis bill through Congress in the summer of 1864, as discussed in chapter 6. The bill required that 50 percent of a state’s voters take an “ironclad” oath renouncing the Confederacy and supporting the Union before the state could qualify for readmission. Further, the bill would outlaw slave ownership, making it a federal crime punishable by imprisonment and fine. The president would appoint, and the Senate would confirm, provisional governors who would call a constitutional convention and reorganize the state government. Once approved by Congress, the state could hold state and federal elections, making the reconstruction process complete. Lincoln vetoed the bill, insisting that since Congress had no power to interfere with slavery, it also had no power to abolish slavery through a reconstruction measure. With the president and Congress now at odds over how and when reconstruction might occur, the issue would have to wait.
• • •
Lincoln’s annual message to Congress, which he delivered on December 6, 1864, summarized his thoughts and feelings on a number of important topics as he looked to his second term. First addressing foreign affairs, he told Congress that the state of America’s relations with Mexico, Russia, China, and many other countries was “reasonably satisfactory.” Next Lincoln dealt with financial matters. “The financial affairs of the Government have been successfully administered during the last year,” he said. The Treasury showed a balance of almost nineteen million dollars, but additional taxes needed to be levied to meet the expected war expenses. Quickly summarizing domestic affairs, Lincoln spoke of the building of the transcontinental railroad, the conversion to a national banking system, and the need to reorganize and remodel government bureaucracies to “improve the condition of the Indian.”
“The war continues,” Lincoln said. Union armies had steadily advanced—he noted Sherman’s relentless march through the heart of the South—and there was reason to be optimistic about the future. Lincoln’s will to maintain the integrity of the national government remained strong. The American people had demonstrated a like commitment over the four long years of war; America’s people, in fact, remained its greatest asset. And while the nation surely mourned the hundreds of thousands dead, “we do not approach exhaustion” in terms of living men. Many more were available to fight and, more important, willing to fight for their country.
Without mentioning Jefferson Davis by name, Lincoln insisted that he would never recognize the rebel government and hinted that its leader was out of touch with those he led. “No attempt at negotiation with an insurgent leader could result in any good,” he said.
He cannot voluntarily reaccept the Union; we can not voluntarily yield it. . . . It is an issue which can only be tried by war and decided by victory. . . . What is true, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause is not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he can not reaccept the Union, they can. Some of them, we know, already desire peace and reunion. . . . They can at any moment have peace simply by laying down their arms and submitting to that national authority under the Constitution. . . . In stating a single condition of peace I mean simply to say that the war will cease on the part of the Government whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it.10
Slavery had divided the country and brought on the war. Lincoln now addressed the issue and defended his policies: “I retract nothing heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that ‘while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the acts of Congress.’ ”
Lincoln dearly wanted to permanently abolish slavery through constitutional amendment. Undoubtedly he was concerned that his Emancipation Proclamation would be revoked once the war was over. While the Supreme Court, with its newer members, would in all likelihood uphold the proclamation as legally valid, there was no way of knowing for certain. The proclamation—issued as a military necessity—had been limited in scope, freeing only those slaves in rebel states. Lincoln was worried that a judicial decision might also be limited, and that it perhaps might ratify freedom of only those former slaves who “came into our lines . . . or that it would have no effect upon the children of the slaves born hereafter.” Passage of a constitutional amendment would solve these problems for all time, “a King’s cure for all the evils,” Lincoln phrased it.11
Why should this lame-duck Congress vote to pass the amendment? Lincoln believed that the American people had spoken loudly in the election. The Republican Party, at Lincoln’s insistence, had supported the amendment in its platform. The party had won the election by overwhelming numbers; surely, then, the next Congress would pass the necessary legislation. He had the option of calling a special session after his second inauguration on March 4, but he wanted to avoid that step. “May we not agree that the sooner the better?” asked Lincoln.
The Constitution had not been amended in sixty years. The first ten amendments, or Bill of Rights, were drafted by James Madison and had been adopted in 1791. The Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1795, clarified judicial power and the sovereign immunity of states. And the Twelfth Amendment, which concerned the Electoral College, was added to the Constitution in 1804. John Quincy Adams had proposed an amendment to abolish slavery in 1839, but it gained very little support.
Even with eleven Southern states still out of the Union in 1864 and thus unable to vote on the measure, a constitutional amendment was not an easy undertaking. In 1863 two Republican congressmen, James Ashley of Ohio and James Wilson of Iowa, had introduced a bill to support an amendment, but it failed. So did similar proposals by the war Democrat John Henderson of Missouri and the Radical Republican Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. (One part of Sumner’s plan guaranteed equality and civil rights for blacks, probably dooming its chances.) One year later the Senate Judiciary Committee, under the leadership of Lyman Trumbull, submitted a bill that combined various proposals, and the measure passed the Senate in April by a vote of 38 to 6. It failed to pass the House, and further talk of a constitutional amendment quieted. Now was the time, argued Lincoln, for Congress to reconsider. At Lincoln’s urging, Congressman Ashley reintroduced his measure in January 1865, utilizing simple and direct language: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, nor any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Further, “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” This language seems to make clear that Congress plays a key role in any move to terminate slavery. An amendment would not have the teeth needed to end slavery without a plan and enforcement methods to carry it into operation.
But opposition to the amendment remained formidable. Democratic congressman George Pendleton of Ohio, who had been George McClellan’s running mate for vice president, led the fight. Pendleton had been a vocal critic of Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and his other civil rights policies, and now, as a politician of some clout in Washington, he advised his fellow Democrats that they faced dire consequences if they failed to follow the party line and voted for the amendment. The amendment, he warned his colleagues, would mark a severe blow to states’ rights.
Lincoln used his talents as a master politician to work tirelessly to gain the necessary votes. According to the historian Michael Vorenberg, “No piece of legislation during Lincoln’s presidency received more of his attention than the Thirteenth Amendment.”12 He knew he had to persuade conservative Republicans, border-state Unionists, and (particularly) moderate Democrats to support the amendment, and he invited many of them to the White House for private conversations. One former Whig, James Rollins of Missouri, was told that his vote for the amendment could help end the war by showing that the border states could no longer be relied upon to support slavery. Lincoln invoked the name of Henry Clay, who undoubtedly would have supported the measure. The vote, said Lincoln, “was going to be very close, a few votes one way or the other will decide it.” Could he count on Rollins’s support? When he received that assurance, Lincoln took hold of Rollins’s hands and shook them with gratitude. Tell the other Missouri congressmen of your decision, Lincoln told Rollins. “Tell them of my anxiety to have the measure pass and let me know the prospect of the border state vote.”
Lincoln offered federal jobs to congressmen (or their family members) of both parties in exchange for votes. He twisted arms and called in favors. Politicians whose seats were seen as tenuous were promised support. One congressman, an attorney for a railroad that faced adverse legislation, was assured of political cooperation. Democrat Moses Odell of Brooklyn, for example, was promised, and received, the post of Navy agent in New York, a highly sought-after position. Lincoln assigned politicos to gain the votes of two uncertain House members, telling them that “the abolition of slavery by constitutional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, not only of the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come—a measure of such importance that those two votes must be procured. I leave it to you to determine how it shall be done; but remember that I am President of the United States, clothed with immense power, and I expect you to procure those votes.” And Lincoln was pleased when his words were quoted—“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong”—on the floor of the House.
The measure came up for final debate and vote in the House on January 31, 1865. The gallery was jammed to capacity with newspapermen, congressional staffers, family members, and other observers. Others stood in the lobby outside the chamber, while hundreds more were turned away. Many senators had to search for a vacant chair on the House floor, along with foreign dignitaries, cabinet members, and justices of the Supreme Court. Rumors circulated that Confederate peace commissioners had arrived in Washington; if that were true, some Democrats, believing peace was at hand, might not support the amendment. Lincoln wrote to James Ashley, “So far as I know, there are no peace commissioners in the city, or likely to be in it.” The message was purposely misleading, for Lincoln knew that three peace representatives were just a few miles away, at Fort Monroe. Lincoln’s cunning, Ashley believed, probably saved the bill.
Debate began at ten o’clock in the morning. Ashley believed that passage of the amendment represented all he had worked for in his political life; still, he wisely yielded his time in favor of Democrats who needed to publicly justify their switch in votes. Archibald McAllister of Pennsylvania explained that his aye vote signified a vote for peace, for the amendment would “destroy the corner-stone of the Southern Confederacy.”13 His comments, as well as similar comments from his fellow Democrats, were met with cheers.
At four o’clock, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax announced the tally of the vote: the measure passed by a vote of 119 to 58, with 8 abstaining—just three votes more than the required two-thirds majority. The gallery erupted in shouting and whistles, “a storm of cheers, the likes of which probably no Congress of the United States ever heard before.”14 Normally staid congressmen stood and applauded. By the prearranged order of Edwin Stanton, a hundred-gun cannon salute rocked the city of Washington. Of those who had voted in favor, and particularly those five Democrats who had changed their vote, Stanton said, “History will embalm them in great honor.”15 Congressman George Julian of Indiana wrote in his diary, “I have felt, ever since the vote, as if I were in a new country.”16
The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who had often criticized Lincoln for his slow pace in working toward emancipation, now praised him as the “chainbreaker for millions of the oppressed,” and acknowledged that the amendment would never have passed without Lincoln’s skillful guidance.17 At a celebration at the White House, Lincoln told a group of admirers that the matter was “a great moral victory. . . . The occasion was one of congratulation to the country and to the whole world.”18 Privately he told aides that the amendment consummated his “own great work,” the Emancipation Proclamation.
Unwilling to take any chances, Lincoln floated a plan to pay some $400 million to the states in exchange for ratification of the amendment. The cabinet unanimously rejected the idea as unnecessary, and Lincoln discarded it. Quickly he learned that there was no need for payments: within the year the required three-quarters of states had ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, ending slavery in America forever. And the very first state to do so, Lincoln proudly noted, was Illinois.