FIFY (in order to assure its accuracy)
Why do you people insist upon putting words in other people's mouths? Does it come from the same place as your insistence on reshaping historical events to suit your agenda?
Did you read historian Phil Magness' article I linked to above "Abraham Lincoln and the Corwin Amendment"? From that article:
Notably, Lincoln’s Green Memorandum of the 28th suggested his opposition to a constitutional amendment in abstract terms, contingent on the wishes of “the American people.” Yet it also contained a specific statement of his position on acceptable compromise measures. Lincoln suggested he would favor a proposition nearly identical to what Seward had put forth in the Corwin amendment: “I declare that the maintainance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively.”
Now let's look at Lincoln's letter to Duff Green to which Magness provided a link. Here is the letter [Link to Lincoln letter to Duff Green, which says (my transcription of the handwritten letter):
Copy
Springfield, Ill. Dec. 28th, 1860
Gen. Duff Green
My dear Sir -
I do not desire any amendment of the Constitution. Recognizing, however, that questions of such amendment rightfully belong to the American People, I should not feel justified, nor inclined, to withold from them, if I could, a fair opportunity of expressing their will thereon, through either of the modes prescribed in the instrument.
In addition, I declare that the maintainance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends - and
So ends the first page, which is all I found on that link. However, there is an online link to the words of the entire letter from "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4" at the University of Michigan. The "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln" is copyrighted, so I just provide the University of Michigan link to its content: [Link].
The letter states Lincoln's non interest in an amendment similar to his statement in his inaugural address. But there is more to the story behind the scene (isn't there always). From Magness again [my bold below]:
Yet as Lee thoroughly documents, Lincoln actively lobbied behind the scenes to drum up support for the amendment after he arrived in Washington in late February. A young Henry Adams, who was clerking for his congressman father and Corwin Amendment co-sponsor Charles Francis Adams, affirms this as well, noting that the amendment’s adoption by the narrowest of two-thirds majorities came only because of “some careful manipulation, as well as the direct influence of the new President.”
Some non interest. Yes, I'd say Lincoln was happy with the Corwin Amendment and in fact urged it.
