Defeat Of The Crittenden Proposal

Lincoln’s Partial Role in the Defeat of the Crittenden Proposal
As America was on the brink of civil war in 1860, John Crittenden made a last attempt to preserve the Union and prevent the South from seceding. He proposed an amendment that would protect slavery where it already existed, and an extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean. However, this would introduce slavery in the new territories, so Republicans voted against the proposal to ensure it would not pass, causing the South to secede shortly afterwards. This led to the outbreak of the Civil War, which would become one of America’s bloodiest conflicts. Since a majority of the Republican Party members were already against the expansion of slavery before 1860, Lincoln

Without a single electoral vote from the Southern states, Lincoln became the sixteenth president of America. Running against Douglas, a Democrat, Breckinridge, and Bell in 1860, he won forty percent of the popular vote, and a large majority of the electoral vote as well (Doc B). This enraged southern states, because they realized that since Lincoln was able to win with only the northern states’ votes, they did not have enough representation or power to elect the president. After this election, the southern states were more willing to secede from the Union, making Crittenden’s proposal doomed to be rejected from the beginning, because there was no hope for the Southern Democrats and the Northern Republicans to reach a compromise. In addition, though senator Seward was a Republican, he supported the extension of the Missouri Compromise line and was willing to negotiate with the South in order to preserve the Union. He ran against Lincoln for the Republican party nomination and lost, but, in a letter from Lincoln in December 1860, he was offered the position of Secretary of State (Doc I), a common stepping stone to becoming president. Lincoln knew Seward was a threat to his beliefs due to their

In the months leading up to the vote, Lincoln wrote letters to Republican senators, including Lyman Trumbull, that strongly expressed his firm belief that the Republicans should not compromise or back down on the issue of the expansion of slavery. Henry Adams, the son of Republican senator Charles Adams, was a supporter of Lincoln and in a letter to his brother, noticed how Lincoln was exercising “a strong influence through several sources on this committee” (Doc P). Because Lincoln emphasized his beliefs against compromising and the expansion of slavery to the senators so much, they knew they had to support him, or they could risk losing their jobs, so they voted no and to Lincoln’s relief, the proposal was defeated. Additionally, president Lincoln was not afraid to share his strong opinions with the nation. He authorized a public statement to be published in the New York Tribune, a newspaper that he knew many northerners and Republicans would read, and it emphasized how Lincoln was “utterly opposed to any concession or compromise that shall yield one iota of the position occupied by the Republican Party” (Doc S). By clearly and publicly expressing his opinion, Lincoln ensured that the northerners knew that if Crittenden compromise were to be passed, he would be extremely displeased. Not