"After much hesitation and earnest reflection, I have concluded to vote for the resolution submitting to the people of the States the proposed amendment to the Constitution, which, if successful, with forever settle the vexed and distressing question of slavery.. If I wanted to justify it as an anti-slavery measure it would not be hard to find great authority in my own section. No two names are more worshipped throughout the South than Washington and Jefferson. Washington was a practical emancipationist, and it would not be doing any injustice to Jefferson to all him an abolitionist.." - [page 7].
Most Kentuckians opposed the "anti-slavery" President and though many were pro-Union, they were also pro-slavery. It was in this climate that Congressman Yeaman along with his Kentuckian colleagues Lucian Anderson, William H. Randall and Green Clay Smith cast key votes in support of the 13th Amendment which outlawed slavery. Having won Senate approval in 1864, the House voted in favor of the Amendment on January 31, 1865 with a mere two-vote margin, 119 voting in favor and 56 against. In December of 1865, the 13th Amendment became part of the Constitution after having been ratified by three-fourths of the states. Despite Yeaman's brave vote, Kentucky was one of the states to reject ratification on February 24, 1865. Yeaman's vote eventually cost him his seat and neither he nor Anderson returned to Washington. It wasn't until March 18th 1976 (over a century later) that Kentucky ratified the Amendment.
The Owensboro Congressman, George H. Yeaman, was recently portrayed by actor Michael Stuhlbarg in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln".
RARE in commerce. Fair .
Keywords: AMERICANA; CIVIL WAR; KENTUCKY; CONGRESSMAN GEORGE H. YEAMAN; POLITICS; ANTI-SLAVERY; AMENDMENT OUTLAWING SLAVERY; 13TH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES; SPEECH OF HON. GEORGE H. YEAMAN, OF KENTUCKY, ON THE PROPOSITION TO AMEND THE CONST