Debate with Stephen A. Douglas and switch to Republican Party

On March 12, 1856, Trumbull delivered a speech in the Senate on the civil violence in Kansas. In it, he criticized the majority report of the Committee on Territories, submitted by his Illinois colleague Stephen A. Douglas, which defended the actions of "border ruffians" against claims of electoral fraud. The speech sparked a debate between the two, in which Douglas said Trumbull's claim to be a member of the Democratic Party was a "libel" and that his junior colleague had been elected by "Black Republicans," "Know-Nothings," and "Abolitionists." The Trumbull-Douglas debate lasted into the summer, and further established Trumbull's position as a leading force in anti-slavery politics. His speeches won praise from his colleagues Charles Sumner and Salmon P. Chase and served to dispel doubts from anti-slavery Lincoln men in Illinois.^[6]

In June 1856, at Lincoln's urging, Trumbull attended the first Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Trumbull and Lincoln agreed to promote a conservative candidate for the presidential nomination, but it went to the more radical John C. Frémont, who had faint hope of victory. After the convention, Lincoln and Trumbull turned their focus to electing a Republican ticket in Illinois, and they were successful despite Frémont's failure to carry the state.^[6] As the debate over the Kansas Territory progressed to its admission as a slave or a free state, Trumbull and Lincoln were joined by Douglas in opposition to the so-called Lecompton Constitution, which guaranteed the property rights of slaveholders in the new state. In a speech on the Lecompton Constitution, Trumbull further argued that the Dred Scott decision, which offered a decision on an issue not before the court, was an illegitimate usurpation by the Supreme Court. Trumbull also contributed $2 to a fund to defray Dred Scott's legal fees.^[7]

Lincoln-Douglas campaign of 1858 and presidential election of 1860

Despite Douglas's apparent volte-face on slavery in Kansas, which won him support from several Republicans in Congress, Trumbull and Lincoln resolved to unseat him in the 1858 elections. Trumbull took an active part in the strenuous campaign, calculated to exploit Douglas's poor health and reputation for inconsistency. Some themes of Trumbull's 1856 Senate debates with Douglass formed the bases for Lincoln's arguments, including the question which elicited Douglass's famous Freeport Doctrine.^[8] On August 7 in Chicago, Trumbull addressed accusations that the Republican Party stood for racial equality by stating, "We, the Republican Party, are the white man's party. We are for free white men and for making white labor respectable and honorable, which it can never be when negro slave labor is brought into competition with it". After Lincoln narrowly lost the election to Douglas, he reassured Trumbull that he would not seek the other Senate seat in 1860, writing, "I cannot conceive it possible for me to be a rival of yours or to take sides against you in favor of any rival."^[8]

Despite his loss, Lincoln's effective campaign and an 1860 speech at the Cooper Union Institute raised his national profile, and he was put forward as the favorite son of Illinois for the upcoming 1860 Republican National Convention. Trumbull and Lincoln both believed William H. Seward, the leading Republican candidate, was too radical to carry Illinois, and they searched together for a conservative Republican who could carry their home state. Several options, including John McLean, Nathaniel Banks, and Edward Bates were considered but ruled out. Instead, Lincoln himself gained the support of Indiana and Pennsylvania at the convention, followed by New England, to secure his own nomination for the presidency. In the fall, Lincoln carried the state of Illinois against Douglas and won the presidency against a divided opposition, while Trumbull ensured his own re-election to the Senate by a single legislative seat. Following their successes, Lincoln wrote to Trumbull, advising him to resist calls to compromise with the South on the extension of slavery in order to stave off growing threats of secession. Consistent with that position, Trumbull delivered a speech in the Senate opposing the Crittenden Compromise.^[9]

As a top Lincoln ally, Trumbull fielded many calls from office seekers after the election, hoping to win his favor and an appointment from the new president. Trumbull advised Lincoln, both personally and in his capacity as Senator, on appointments in Illinois and to his cabinet. Trumbull advised against the appointment of Simon Cameron as Secretary of War, which ultimately ended in scandal for the Lincoln administration. Trumbull's and Lincoln's Illinois ally Norman B. Judd was appointed envoy to Prussia over Gustav Koerner.^[10] At the special session of Congress which Lincoln called on July 4, 1861, to address the secession crisis, Trumbull was elected by his fellow senators as chair of the Committee on the Judiciary, a role he would hold for the remainder of his years in the Senate.

Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862

As war broke out during the emergency session of Congress, Trumbull introduced only one successful piece of legislation, the Confiscation Act of 1861. This Act to permit the seizure of contraband used in rebellion was drafted by Trumbull to include persons held in slavery employed in military or naval work against the Union war effort. It was the first step toward eventual universal emancipation.^[11]

A second Confiscation Act was introduced in December 1861 as a reaction to the stated policies of several rogue generals and military officials, including Frémont, Secretary Cameron, and David Hunter, who sought to establish universal emancipation through their military authority and whose orders were reversed by President Lincoln. As drafted by Trumbull, the initial bill provided that all property held by rebels was immediately forfeited to the United States but preserved the rights of Southern citizens who claimed loyalty to the Union. Trumbull's bill explicitly denied military officers the right to adjudicate claims, instead requiring them to accept any claim of loyalty as valid.^[11] The bill was amended by Senator Jacob Collamer to provide for due process of law. President Lincoln still initially intended to veto the bill under the belief that permanent forfeitures constituted a violation of the Constitution's bar on perpetual punishment of treason, but he was convinced to sign it by Senator Ira Harris of New York, and it became law.^[11] Ultimately, the Second Confiscation Act was never enforced except as it applied to slavery, where it served as the legal basis for the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862.

Criticisms of wartime policy and 1864 election

Trumbull remained a loyal supporter of the Union war effort throughout the Civil War. However, he publicly opposed allegedly excessive or unconstitutional wartime policies, including some Copperhead arrests pursuant to the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the suppression of the Chicago Times, and alleged corruption in the Department of War.^[12] In 1863, following the Union defeat at Fredericksburg, Trumbull was one of a committee of Republican Senators who requested the resignation of Secretary Seward after private comments from earlier in the war, criticizing the "most vehement opponents" of slavery, were leaked. Lincoln rejected their accusations and their efforts to attribute military inefficiency to Seward.^[13]

As the war effort stalled in January and February 1864, Trumbull became estranged from Lincoln politically and began to privately predict the President would fail to be reëlected or even nominated by the Republican Party.^[14] Despite his initial misgivings, Trumbull delivered speeches in favor of Lincoln's reëlection in October.^[15]

Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Because the Confiscation Acts were justified by the President's power to prosecute war, Lincoln's 1862 emancipation order did not extend to slavery in states which remained loyal to the Union or beyond the war's end. Proposals to ban slavery permanently by constitutional amendment were offered throughout the war and referred to the Judiciary committee. In January 1864, Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri, himself a slave holder, proposed a resolution amending the Constitution to include, "Slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall not exist in the United States." On February 10, Trumbull reported out a version of the Henderson resolution which more closely adopted the language of the Northwest Ordinance:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Trumbull spoke at length in its favor, arguing there could be no doubt that the Civil War originated in the institution of slavery and the hostilities between its proponents and opponents. Therefore, he argued, the amendment was proposed to permanently remove all doubt as to the illegitimacy of slavery. In the same speech, Trumbull made his private criticisms of the Lincoln administration public, focusing on the conduct of General-in-Chief Henry Halleck. The amendment passed the Senate easily on April 8, 1864, but it was stalled in the House until February 1, 1865. Section 2 was the subject of significant controversy and negotiation with Southern legislatures, but the amendment was ultimately ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures in December.

Civil Rights Act of 1866 and Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

On January 5, 1866, Trumbull introduced two major pieces of Reconstruction legislation: the Second Freedman's Bureau Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Trumbull's Freedman's Bureau bill, expand the authority of the Freedman's Bureau and provided for the temporary reassignment of abandoned lands to freed slaves. The bill was vetoed by Johnson.

The Civil Rights bill was proposed in response to a growing number of discriminatory "black codes" which sought to restrict the civil liberties of the newly emancipated and compel them to work for little or no wages. Trumbull's bill proposed citizenship be extended to all persons of African descent born in the United States and banned discrimination on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery. Debate over the bill focused on whether Congress had constitutional authority to pass the law, which Trumbull justified under Section 2 of the newly ratified Thirteenth Amendment, arguing:

[Congress has] a right to pass any law which, in our judgment, is deemed appropriate, and which will accomplish the end in view, secure freedom to all people in the United States. The various state laws to which I have referred, — and there are many others, — although they do not make a man an absolute slave, yet deprive him of the rights of a freeman; and it is perhaps difficult to draw the precise line, to say where freedom ceases and slavery begins, but a law that does not allow a colored person to go from one county to another is certainly a law in derogation of the rights of a freeman. A law that does not allow a colored person to hold property, does not allow him to teach, does not allow him to preach, is certainly a law in violation of the rights of a freeman, and being so may properly be declared void.^[16]

Though the Civil Rights bill passed both houses of Congress easily, it too was vetoed by Johnson. In a response to Johnson's veto, Trumbull concluded by saying, "If the bill now before us... cannot be passed, then the constitutional amendment proclaiming freedom to all the inhabitants of the land is a cheat and a delusion." Both houses overrode Johnson's veto in April 1866, the first override of a presidential veto of major legislation in United States history.^[17] Despite this legislative success, some Republicans still feared that Congress lacked the constitutionality authority to pass the Civil Rights Act and that it would be repealed by a subsequent Democratic Congress.^[18][19] Parallel to the debate over its passage, Congress debated a constitutional amendment to ensure citizenship and civil rights against discrimination on the basis of race. A concurrent resolution requesting the President to transmit the proposed amendment to the governors of the states was passed by both houses of Congress on June 18, 1866.^[20][21] The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1868, after ratification was made a precondition for readmission by the seceded states.

Illustration of Senator Trumbull motioning on May 6, 1868, for the arrest of disorderly spectators at the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

During President Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial, Trumbull was one of seven Republican senators^[22] disturbed by their belief that Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Wade and those of similar position had manipulated the proceedings against Johnson in order to give a one-sided presentation of the evidence. Trumbull in particular noted:

Once set the example of impeaching a President for what, when the excitement of the hour shall have subsided, will be regarded as insufficient causes, as several of those now alleged against the President were decided to be by the House of Representatives only a few months since, and no future President will be safe who happens to differ with a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate on any measure deemed by them important, particularly if of a political character. Blinded by partisan zeal, with such an example before them, they will not scruple to remove out of the way any obstacle to the accomplishment of their purposes, and what then becomes of the checks and balances of the Constitution, so carefully devised and so vital to its perpetuity? They are all gone.^[23]

All seven senators, resisting the pressure imposed on them, broke party ranks and defied public opinion, voting for acquittal, although they knew their decision would be unpopular.^[24] In addition, they were joined by three other Republican senators (James Dixon, James Rood Doolittle, Daniel Sheldon Norton) and all nine Democrats in voting against conviction.^[25] None of the Republicans who voted against conviction were reelected (though it should be pointed out that Senators at that time were not subject to popular vote but rather were chosen by the state Legislatures prior to ratification of the 17th Amendment - and thus the whim of the Party in power in said Legislatures). After the trial, Congressman Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts conducted hearings in the House on widespread reports that Republican senators had been bribed to vote for Johnson's acquittal. Butler's hearings and subsequent inquiries revealed evidence that some acquittal votes were acquired by promises of patronage jobs and cash cards.^[26]