Earlier Proposed Thirteenth Amendments
Each of two amendments proposed by the Congress would have become the Thirteenth Amendment if it had been ratified when originally proposed.
- Titles of Nobility Amendment, proposed by the Congress in 1810 and ratified by twelve states, would have revoked the citizenship of anyone either (1) accepting a foreign title of nobility or (2) accepting any foreign payment without Congressional authorization.
- The Corwin Amendment was passed by the House on March 1, 1861 and the Senate on March 3, 1861. President Buchanan signed it the same day, which was also his last full day in office; it was later ratified by three states: Ohio, Maryland and Illinois. This proposed amendment would have forbidden the adoption of any constitutional amendment that would have abolished or restricted slavery, or permitted the Congress to do so. This proposal was an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the Southern states not to secede from the Union.
Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, specifically referenced the Corwin Amendment:
"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution . . . has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."Read more about this topic: Thirteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution
Famous quotes containing the words earlier, proposed, thirteenth and/or amendments:
“Fair Hope! our earlier Heaven! by thee
Young Time is taster to Eternity.
The generous wine with age grows strong, not sour,
Nor need we kill thy fruit to smell thy flower.
Thy golden head never hangs down
Till in the lap of Love’s full noon
It falls and dies: Oh no, it melts away
As doth the dawn into the day,
As lumps of sugar lose themselves, and twine
Their subtle essence with the soul of wine.”
—Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
“The proposed Constitution ... is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Just as the French of the nineteenth century invested their surplus capital in a railway-system in the belief that they would make money by it in this life, in the thirteenth they trusted their money to the Queen of Heaven because of their belief in her power to repay it with interest in the life to come.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)