Let’s be real: politicians don’t change their minds unless they’re pushed. The real cause of the 13th Amendment was pressure from below. Enslaved people escaped by the thousands to Union lines. They flooded Northern camps and forced the issue.
Amendments - Periodic Presidents
Also, 180,000 Black soldiers fought for the Union. They proved their loyalty and their courage. How could the government say, “Thanks for bleeding for us, now go back to slavery”? It became morally impossible to deny them freedom.
And let’s not forget the abolitionists—Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and others—who screamed for years that the Constitution itself was a “covenant with death” because it protected slavery. Their stubbornness made the amendment feel inevitable.
