—It fell to Mr. Trumbull, as the senator who had reported the resolution, to open the debate. He charged the war and all its manifold horrors upon the system of slavery. He stated with clearness the views of the opposition in regard to the legal effect of the proclamation of emancipation, and with eloquent force of logic he portrayed the necessity of universal freedom as the chief means of ending not only the controversy on the battle-field, but the controversy of opinion.—Mr. Willard Saulsbury of Delaware on the 31st of March replied to Mr. Trumbull, and discussed the subject of slavery historically, citing the authority of the old and the new dispensations in its support.—Mr. Hendricks of Indiana objected to a proposition to amend the Constitution while eleven States of the Union were unable to take part in the proceedings. He wished a constitution for Louisiana as well as for Indiana, for Florida as well as for New Hampshire.—Mr. Clark of New Hampshire criticised the Constitution, and traced the woes which the country was then enduring to the recognition of slavery in that instrument. From the twenty-eighth day of March until the eighth day of April, when the final vote was taken, the attention of the Senate was given to the debate, with only unimportant interruptions. Upon the passage of the resolution, the yeas were 38, and the nays 6. The nays were Messrs. Garrett Davis, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell, Riddle, and Saulsbury. Upon the announcement of the vote, Mr. Saulsbury said, "I bid farewell to all hope for the reconstruction of the American Union."
When the joint resolution, passed by the Senate, was read in the House, Mr. Holman objected to the second reading, and on the question, "Shall the joint resolution be rejected?" the yeas were 55 and the nays 76, an even more discouraging vote than the first. With 55 members opposed to the amendment, it would require 110 to carry it, or 34 more than the roll-call had disclosed. The debate was opened by Mr. Morris of New York who treated the abolition of slavery as a necessary preliminary to the reconstruction of the Union.
—Mr. Fernando Wood denounced the movement as "unjust in itself, a breach of good faith utterly irreconcilable with expediency."
—Mr. Ebon C. Ingersoll of Illinois made a strong and eloquent appeal for the passage of the amendment and the liberation of the slave. With the accomplishment of that grand end, said he, "our voices will ascend to Heaven over a country re-united, over a people disinthralled, and God will bless us."
—Mr. Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania argued earnestly against the amendment. He regarded it as the beginning of radical changes in our Constitution, and the forerunner of usurpation. The policy pursued was uniting the South and dividing the North.
—Mr. Arnold of Illinois said, "in view of the long catalogue of wrongs which it has inflicted upon the country, I demand to-day the death of African slavery."
—Mr. Mallory of Kentucky maintained that Mr. Lincoln had been forced to issue the Proclamation of Emancipation by the governors who met at Altoona. He was answered by Mr. Boutwell of Massachusetts, who most effectively disproved the charge.
—Mr. Pendleton of Ohio maintained that three-fourths of the States possessed neither the power to establish nor to abolish slavery in all the States. He contended that the power to amend did not carry with it the power to revolutionize and subvert the form and spirit of the government.
The vote on the passage of the amendment was taken on the fifteenth day of June. The yeas were 93, the nays were 65. The yeas were 27 short of the necessary two-thirds. Mr. Ashley of Ohio, who had by common consent assumed parliamentary charge of the measure, voted in the negative, and in the exercise of his right under the rules, entered upon the journal a motion to reconsider the vote. This ended the contest in the first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress. Mr. Ashley gave notice that the question would go to the country, and that upon the re-assembling of Congress in December he should press the motion to reconsider, and he expected that the amendment would be adopted. This result forced the question into the Presidential canvass of 1864, and upon the decision of that election depended the question of abolishing slavery. The issue thus had the advantage of a direct submission to the votes of the people before it should go to the State Legislatures for ultimate decision.