1863 – Landmark Civil War Speech by John A. Bingham, Congressman from Ohio, castigating Border State politicians and Copperheads for their active opposition to President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation
Washington DC: 1863. Pamphlet. John Armor Bingham was closely aligned with the Radical Republicans, although some historians maintain that his positions fell somewhat in between their and the more moderate Unionists. He was active in the abolition movement and maintained that it was the South who manipulated the Constitution to justify slavery. Later he served as the Assistant Judge Advocate General in the trial of President Lincoln’s assassins, a House Manager (prosecutor) during the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, and, most significantly, as the principal framer of the Fourteenth Amendment which gave former slaves the right to vote.
In this powerful, historic speech, The Constitution as It Is, which he gave Congress on January 9th, 1863, just eight days after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Bingham responded directly to Representative Elijah Hise Norton of Missouri, one of many Copperheads and Border State politician who were heavily criticizing the President and using the slogan, "The Constitution as it is, the Union as it was" to advocate for restoring the pre-war status quo, including the institution of slavery. Complete and in nice shape.
Bingham turned the phrase back upon them by vociferously arguing that defending "the Constitution as it is" actually required crushing the Southern rebellion by any means necessary, rather than coddling insurrectionists. He vehemently asserted that the Constitution inherently granted the federal government the supreme power of self-preservation and that rebelling states had forfeited their constitutional protections regarding property (including enslaved people). He convincingly argued that the federal government possessed the ultimate authority to enforce the principles of life, liberty, and justice across the nation, laying the intellectual foundation for what would become the Fourteenth Amendment following the war.
. Very good. Item #010824Complete and in nice shape..
Price: $100.00