a forced transaction, having behind it an
uncomfortably small proportion of the adult male population of the
several States; and by and by the work, thus done, might be undone; for
such action was lawfully revocable by subsequent legislatures or
conventions, which bodies would be just as potent at any future time to
reestablish slavery as the present bodies were now potent to
disestablish it. It was entirely possible that reconstruction would
leave the right of suffrage in such shape that in some States
pro-slavery men might in time regain control.

In short, the only absolute eradicating cure was a constitutional
amendment;[77] and, therefore, it was towards securing this that the
President bent all his energies. He could use, of course, only personal
influence, not official authority; for the business, as such, lay with
Congress. In December, 1863, motions for such an amendment were
introduced in the House; and in January, 1864, like resolutions were
offered in the Senate. The debate in the Senate was short; it opened on
March 28, and the vote was taken April 8; it stood 38 ayes, 6 noes. This
was gratifying; but unfortunately the party of amendment had to face a
very different condition of feeling in the House. The President, says
Mr. Arnold, "very often, with the friends of the measure, canvassed the
House to see if the requisite number could be obtained, but we could
never count a two-thirds vote." The debate began on March 19; not until
June 15 was the vote taken, and then it showed 93 ayes, 65 noes, being a
discouraging deficiency of 27 beneath the requisite two thirds.
Thereupon Ashley of Ohio changed his vote to the negative, and then
moved a reconsideration, which left the question to come up again in the
next session. Practically, therefore, at the adjournment of Congress,
the amendment was left as an issue before the people in the political
campaign of the summer of 1864; and in that campaign it was second only
to the controlling question of peace or war.

Mr. Lincoln, taking care to omit no effort in this business, sent for
Senator Morgan, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, which
was to make the Republican nomination for the presidency and to frame
the Republican platform, and said to him: "I want you to mention in your
speech, when you call the convention to order, as its keynote, and to
put into the platform, as the keystone, the amendment of the
Constitution abolishing and prohibiting sl