The OHIO HISTORICAL Quarterly
VOLUME 70 ?? NUMBER 1 ?? J A N U A R Y 1961
The Corwin Amendment
In the Secession Crisis
By R. ALTON LEE*
THE ELECTION of a Republican president
in November
1860, on a platform opposed to further
extension of slavery,
sparked the secession of South Carolina
from the United
States. Between December 20, 1860, and
February 1, 1861,
the other six cotton states followed
South Carolina out of the
Union. "Never since the world
began was there a more
momentous crisis in the affairs of any
people," declared the
report of a congressional committee.1
Although this statement
is too inclusive, secession undoubtedly
was the greatest
exigency the American people had yet
faced.
During the three-months crisis from the
meeting of con-
gress on December 3, 1860, to the
inauguration of Lincoln on
March 4, 1861, both Republicans and
Democrats made various
attempts to compromise and conciliate.
The "lame duck" con-
gress which faced these problems was
dangerously split in
composition. The senate consisted of
thirty-seven Democrats,
twenty-four Republicans, and two
Americans, or Know-
Nothings. The house of representatives
was even more closely
* R. Alton Lee is a graduate assistant
in the department of history at the Uni-
versity of Oklahoma.
1 House Reports, 36 cong., 2
sess., I, No. 31, minority report of Miles Taylor,
John S. Phelps, A. Rust, William G.
Wliteley, and Warren Winslow of the special
committee of thirty-three, 1. This
series of documents, officially designated as Re-
port No. 31, will be cited hereafter as Committee
of Thirty-Three.