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[royce-payne]

The Forgotten Amendment

The Thirteenth Amendment is the Amendment that ended slavery, but there was an original Thirteenth Amendment. This Amendment is also known as the Corwin Amendment, and this Amendment is one source of proof that the American Civil War was NOT fought primarily over the issue of slavery. 

The Corwin Amendment passed Congress on March 2, 1861. This Amendment would have made slavery forever legal. President Abraham Lincoln sent copies of the Amendment to the state governors. Ohio and Maryland were two states to ratify this Amendment. With this Amendment, Lincoln hoped that he could at least keep the border states in the Union. These states included Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland. However, this Amendment failed to receive the support it needed to become law from the states. 

As I said the American Civil War was NOT fought primarily over the issue of slavery. If the South had wanted to keep her slaves, no gun needed to be fired. The South would have accepted this proposed Thirteenth Amendment. It is true that South Carolina and other states had left the Union by March 1861. If the goal had been just over slavery, these states would have started the process to rejoin the Union. Wars are expensive, and if there is a way to avoid one that way will be chosen. Also, if the root cause of the war was over slaver, why did Ohio not secede? Maryland attempted secession, but the United States government prevented the secession from happening. The Corwin Amendment provides proof that the root cause of the American Civil War was NOT slavery.