Lincoln auction at Sotheby's next Wednesday

[David Lockmiller]

(05-20-2016 12:50 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(05-20-2016 10:34 AM)Angela Wrote:  The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is, for some reason, parting with one of the three existing Manuscript Copies of the Thirteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, signed and endorsed by Lincoln.

Does anyone know why Lincoln signed the Thirteenth Amendment? Did he know he was not required to do so? (I may be wrong, but I think it's the only amendment signed by a President.)

Apparently, President Lincoln was under the impression that he was required to sign the Thirteenth Amendment document because of an inadvertent mistake made by Congressional parliamentarians. I located the following information from Seth Kaller.

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Having already been approved by the Senate the previous April, the amendment passed in the House on January 31, 1865. The engrossed manuscript was prepared, and Lincoln signed it on February 1st. There does not appear to be any record of the number of “souvenir” copies of the Amendment prepared for Lincoln to sign. Twelve to fifteen are known with Lincoln’s signature. Several additional manuscript copies are known signed by Senators, Congressmen and other officials, but with the space for the President’s name blank. On February 7th, the Senate, anxious not to set a precedent, resolved that the president’s signature had been “unnecessary” on a joint amendment resolution. The Senate secretary, John W. Forney, was directed to “withhold from the House of Representatives the message of the President informing the Senate that he had approved and signed the same....” (Senate Journal) All of the Lincoln-signed copies were likely completed before February 7th. After the resolution, it is probable that the president would have thought it impolitic to sign any additional copies.

Article XIII.
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Schuyler Colfax
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
I certify that this Resolution }
originated in the Senate. } H Hamlin
J. W. Forney } Vice President of the United States,

Secretary. } and President of the Senate.


Approved. February 1, 1865. Abraham Lincoln

The Withholding Resolution, from the Journal of the Senate
Feb 4, 1865:

Mr. [Lyman] Trumbull submitted the following resolution for consideration:

Resolved, That the article of amendment, proposed by Congress, to be added to the Constitution of the United States respecting the extinction of slavery therein, having been inadvertently presented to the President for his approval, it is hereby declared that such approval was unnecessary to give effect to the action of Congress in proposing said amendment, inconsistent with the former practice in reference to all amendments to the Constitution heretofore adopted, and being inadvertently done; should not constitute a precedent for the future, and the Secretary is hereby instructed not to communicate the notice of the approval of said proposed amendment, by the President, to the House of Representatives….

Feb 7, 1865:

The Senate proceeded to consider the resolution submitted by him the 4th instant, in relation to the presentation by the Committee on Enrolled Bills of the enrolled joint resolution (S. 16) "submitting to the legislatures of the several States a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States" to the President for his approval, declaring such approval unnecessary, and directing the Secretary to withhold from the House of Representatives the message of the President informing the Senate that he had approved and signed the same; and, after debate, the resolution was agreed to.

Also see Lincoln Need Not Have Signed the Resolution Submitting the Thirteenth Amendment to the States. Lincoln Lore, Bulletin of the Lincoln National Life Foundation, October, 1971.

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And, there is a footnote from Harold Holzer’s book “Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment” (Footnote 11) that references additional source material on this subject.