.jpg)
President Lincoln had
to overcome many different obstacles in order to get the 13th Amendment passed. His first issue was getting the votes needed
in order to get the bill to pass. Even
if everyone on the Republican side voted for the bill, they would still be
twenty votes short. He hired a group of
men to bribe lame-duck Democrats into voting for the bill by offering them
jobs. This succeeds in getting ten to
eleven votes from Democrats, until an important Democrat was forced to vote for
the amendment because the governor that voted in was a Republican. Finally, another issue Lincoln had to deal
with was resistance from his cabinet to get the bill passed. This was mainly came from racism. They did not want the colored people to vote,
own property, hold office, take jobs, or intermarry.
The president needed to
pass the 13th Amendment and he used the Constitution as implied papers in order
to pass the amendment. In order to get
the bill passed he had to do some unethical things. He had to bribe lame-duck Democrats. He had to lie about peace talks in order to
make it look as if the amendment was the only way to get peace. Finally, he had to twist what the
Constitution stated in order to pass the Emancipation Proclamation.
President Lincoln
wanted the 13th Amendment to pass for several different reasons. The first was that if the amendment passed he
would have colored people’s votes for reelection. The second reason was that he wanted to keep
his promise to the colored people that he would free them and keep them free
from slavery. Finally, the third reason
is because he believed that all people should be free no matter their color or
race.
