Ohio, Flanked

Abstract

The schizophrenic nature of Ohio’s politics was represented by two Ohio Republican congressmen in early 1861: the “Corwin amendment” to the Constitution, proposed by the eminent Thomas Corwin, guaranteed slavery’s legality in perpetuity so as to forestall civil war; a bill by James Ashley mandated compensated emancipation for any enslaved person escaping to a free state. Meanwhile, former Governor Salmon P. Chase, widely identified with bringing black men into the Republican Party, joined Lincoln’s cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury.