Lincoln

Lincoln faced many difficulties while trying to pass the Thirteenth Amendment. One was obviously racism. Another was that many feared what 4 million freed slaves would be doing. Many of those same people also feared that the freed slaves would take their jobs and work for less pay. Another difficulty was the poverty that many of the slaves would face after slavery. Voting was a very common fear among the people. People did not want uneducated slaves choosing who could be in office. Lastly, 2/3 votes were needed to ratify which is very hard to get. Lincoln used a variety of implied powers to try to get the proposed amendment to pass.

 He was a little dirty in his proceedings to try to get the amendment passed. He offered lame duck democrats jobs if they voted for the passing of the amendment. He also "lied" about peace talks with the south to keep the voting from being postponed. Abe did this because he wanted peace to be completely contingent on the amendment. He was a firm believer that the amendment was so important because it would set in stone the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The Thirteenth Amendment did ultimately end up getting passed signing its spot in the timeline of American history.