Congress initially sets limited war aims, July 25, 1861
On this day in 1861, Congress enacted a resolution declaring that the Civil War would be fought by the North to preserve the Union and not to abolish the South’s “peculiar institution” of slavery. The resolution, which was widely supported, was named for Rep. John Crittenden of Kentucky, who had joined the Constitution Union Party with the demise of the Whigs, and Sen. Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat who ascended to the presidency when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.
It was aimed at keeping the pivotal states of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland in the Union. Lincoln was concerned that these three slave-holding states might join the Confederacy. (Delaware, the other slave state on the Union side, had so few slaves that its fealty was never in doubt.) Were Maryland to bolt, the nation’s capital would be surrounded by Confederate-held territory. And since Lincoln was born in Kentucky, losing the state early in the war to the secessionists would be viewed as a political setback for the Lincoln administration.
The resolution said the war was being fought not for “overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states,” but rather to “defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union.” The struggle, it further stated, would end when the departed states agreed to return the Union.
The practical effect of the resolution was somewhat undermined two weeks later when Lincoln signed a confiscation act calling for the seizure of property — including slaves — from the rebels. Nevertheless, until September 1862, when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, reunification of the United States — not the abolition of slavery — remained the official prime goal of the North.
Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (R-Pa.) and three other die-hard abolitionists voted against the measure. Stevens led the way to its repeal in December 1861.
By early 1862, Lincoln sensed that ending slavery would actually help the North prevail. Although, for mercantile reasons, London and Paris were initially inclined to back the Confederate cause, were the war to be redefined as a crusade to abolish slavery, he reasoned that England and France might find it more morally difficult to support the South.
What is more, if slaves were encouraged to run away, they could well find a new home in the Union army. Lincoln’s pro-abolition advisers expected that African-Americans would flock to the Union standard were the war goals predominately aimed toward freeing slaves.
SOURCE: “THE LIFE OF THADDEUS STEVENS: A STUDY IN AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY,” BY JAMES WOODBURN (1913)