Lyman Trumbull: The 13th Amendment Author Who Voted to Acquit Johnson

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Lyman Trumbull was born in Connecticut, taught school and studied law in Georgia in the 1830s, and settled in Illinois. After the 1837 mob murder of abolitionist publisher Elijah P. Lovejoy, Trumbull, then no abolitionist, wrote that he would have defended Lovejoy's press against mob violence. As Illinois secretary of state he demanded liquidation of a failing state bank and was forced out. In the 1840s he won Jarrot v. Jarrot for Joseph Jarrot, an enslaved man suing for freedom and wages, arguing the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 overrode Illinois grandfather clauses and ending the legal footing for slavery in the state.

In the 1855 Senate election in the Illinois legislature, Abraham Lincoln led with about 45 votes but, to stop a pro-slavery candidate, told his backers to switch to Trumbull, who won by one vote. The two co-founded the Illinois Republican Party, and Trumbull later helped steer moderate delegates to Lincoln in 1860. As Judiciary Committee chair he wrote the Confiscation Acts, reported the 13th Amendment using Northwest Ordinance language, and drafted the Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed over Andrew Johnson's veto. He criticized Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, then voted to acquit Johnson at his impeachment trial, and in 1895 argued for Eugene V. Debs before the Supreme Court.

• Illinois slavery persisted through grandfather claims tied to French settlers and 99 year labor contracts.
• The Confiscation Acts treated enslaved people used to aid the rebellion as seizable contraband.
• He called the Tenure of Office Act charges against Johnson flimsy and warned against removal for policy disagreements.
• After leaving the Senate in 1873 he moved through the Liberal Republicans, the Democrats and the Populists.
• He argued the Debs case alongside a young Clarence Darrow after the Pullman strike.