Pigs is Pigs

Almost sixty years ago, when the original Star Trek television series was being aired, David Gerrold submitted a humorous episode that was quickly accepted by the producers.  Entitled “The Trouble With Tribbles”, the episode dealt with the crew of the Enterprise acquiring a tribble—a strange little furry alien that was both lovable and harmless.  

Unfortunately, it seemed that Tribbles multiplied so rapidly, that within days, the ship contained hundreds of them, each multiplying rapidly.  Where one of the featureless little balls of fur was lovable, thousands of tribbles were a menace.  (Actually, Spock calculated that there were 1,771,561 tribbles).  How poor Captain Kirk handles this lighthearted crisis is the substance of the plot.  (You can watch an excerpt here.) 

Shortly before the episode aired, the producers of the show became aware that there was more than a passing resemblance between the tribbles and a creature in a story written by Robert Heinlein in his 1952 book, The Rolling Stones.  In Heinlein’s version the crew of a spaceship, the Stone Family, acquire a lovable furry alien while visiting a mining camp on Mars.

Angelo tickled it with a forefinger; it began to purr like a high-pitched buzzer. It had no discernible features, being merely a pie-shaped mass of sleek red fur a little darker than Castor's own hair. "They're affectionate little things and many of the sand rats keep them for pets - a man has to have someone to talk to when he's out prospecting and a flat cat is better than a wife because it can't talk back. It just purrs and snuggles up to you."

Soon after the flat cat arrives on spaceship, the flat cat has eight “kittens”, each of which soon delivers a kitten of its own.  And so forth.  In the Heinlein version, the Stone family solves the problem by banishing the flat cats to a refrigerated cargo hold that puts the little Martian critters into hibernation.  Eventually, the surplus flat cats are sold off to lonely miners in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.  (You can read the entire book here.)

When the producers questioned David Gerrold about the origin of the story, he admitted that he may have unintentionally borrowed the idea from Heinlein.  (Gerrold may have unintentionally borrowed ideas from other authors as well, one of his other scripts bears a striking resemblance to West Side Story.)  As T. S. Eliot said, “Good writers borrow; great writers steal.”

Gene Coon, one of the producers of Star Trek reached out to Heinlein, sending him a copy of the script and asking the author for his approval.  Heinlein, a fan of the television show, graciously waived his rights, not even asking for a credit line when the episode aired on television, saying that he had borrowed the idea for flat cats from Ellis Parker Butler’s book, Pigs is Pigs.

At this point, you’re probably asking, “Who the hell is Ellis Parker Butler and what is Pigs is Pigs?”

A century ago, Butler was a well-known humorist, writing books and magazine articles.  Though he was primarily known for his day job as a prominent New York banker, he also published over 30 books and more than 2,000 short stories (the stories were published in leading magazines, alongside works of such contemporary authors as Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Arthur Conan Doyle.  He created the character Philo Gubb, a detective who solved crimes while murdering the English language.  

Sadly, we frequently forget the works of authors soon after they die.  As Mark Twain once remarked, “The very memory of the departed author is frequently lost, and even the works of many, once in great favor, are soon forgotten.”  

In the case of Ellis Parker Butler, this would be a mistake, because there is a timeless humor about most of his works and his writing is eminently readable.  If you can find them, that is…I checked the local libraries and found but one single copy of any of his books.  Luckily, they are all available online as electronic editions.  I bought the complete works of Butler from Amazon for $2.  (By “complete”, they meant 32 books and short stories, but it is a nice collection.)

By far the most famous of Butler’s works is the short story, Pigs is Pigs.  First published in American Illustrated Magazine in 1905, it was published as a short, illustrated book the following year.  I was able to find a great first edition copy for $10 at a used bookstore in New Jersey, but you can read it online for free here.

In the original story, Mike Flannery is the railway agent in the small town of Westcote.  A devoted company man, Flannery operates strictly by the rule book of the Interurban Express Company.  When a consignment of two guinea pigs arrives, Flannery wants to charge the freight rate for pigs, thirty cents per head.  The consignee, a skinflint Scotsman named Morehouse, refuses to pay more than twenty-five cents per head, the published rate for pets.  When neither man will budge, Morehouse leaves, promising to complain to the home office.

As you have probably guessed, the guinea pigs rapidly multiply while correspondence to and from the home office slowly debates whether ‘pigs is pigs’ or ‘pigs is pets’.  By the time the matter is resolved, there are tens of thousands of guinea pigs.  This is a slight exaggeration, of course.  If Spock can do the math on tribbles, I can do the math for guinea pigs.  Assuming that the first two guinea pigs were both female, both pregnant, and both delivered the day they arrived in Westcote, by the end of a year, the maximum population possible would be 3,636 guinea pigs.  (I’ll spare you the calculations, but guinea pigs mature in 60 days and can have five litters a year.)

In 1910, Edison labs made a movie based on the story.  Another film and an animated cartoon soon followed.   Since these were published in the early days of cinema, Butler didn’t receive any screen credit (let alone, any pay) for use of his work.   Finally, in 1954, Walt Disney produced a high quality color cartoon of the story, that was nominated for an Academy Award.  Though the opening scene briefly displays an animated image of the book, the author’s name is so dim that I had to enlarge the picture to see the faded words, “Ellis Parker Butler”.  I doubt that even a few who watched the cartoon noticed it.  In the opening credits, Disney even says the story is by Leo Salkin.

The Star Trek episode about the tribbles was so popular that later Star Trek series—Star Trek Next Generation and Deep Space Nine—referenced the original episode.  One of the world’s best-selling science fiction authors used Butler’s plot.  And two movies and two cartoons (one of which was nominated for an Academy Award) were published based on the original story. 

And all of this was done without anyone’s giving Ellis Parker Butler any credit.

It’s a New Semester at Enema U

For days now, the residents of my sleepy little town on the high desert of New Mexico have known that a new term was about to start at Enema U, the rather bad football team with a university attached to it like a barnacle on the Titanic.  Almost overnight, our streets turned into racetracks, and it became impossible to drive anywhere without a four-wheeled proctologist six inches off your rear bumper.

The start of classes had the familiar feel—impossibly packed parking lots, lots of strange, leaflet-wielding people who are standing in the hot sun, telling you that their God was the only true God, and students wandering aimlessly around, trying to find the correct building that is represented by only two code letters on their class schedules.  The latter task was made much more difficult because, for some reason, the names had been removed from the outside of several buildings.

After a few decades of being a faculty member, I enjoy being a student again.  And why not?  I hear good lectures on interesting subjects, I have the luxury of being able to use faculty parking, I do my studying in a well-maintained parklike setting, and most importantly of all, retired faculty are allowed to take classes without paying tuition.  Currently, I’m simultaneously a senior in pursuit of degree in Economics and I’m a grad student in pursuit of a degree in Art History.  

Taking a somewhat eclectic mix of classes means that besides being probably the only student to carry a graphing calculator into the art building, I get to talk to a wide variety of students.   Perhaps one of the most frequent topics brought up is student loans.  It seems that almost everyone has borrowed money to attend classes, but—interestingly enough—no one has mentioned the idea of the government’s forgiving those loans.  Since these are students still in college, I assume they have confidence that their future careers will enable them to easily pay back those loans.

Regarding some of them, I have no doubt that they are correct, but as for too many others, I’m a little worried.

Most of the students majoring in business, accounting, and economics seem to have a well-thought-out plan of what they intend to do:  whether they intend to go on to grad school, whether they intend to leave the state after graduation (depressingly, almost all of them do), and what kind of jobs they want.  A surprising number of them have already made strong connections with their future employers.  

One student had a very well-thought-out plan.  Raised in Juarez—his home is literally within sight of the U.S. border—he was labeled a foreign student on a student visa.  Perhaps one of the brightest students I have met recently, he had a double major in math and economics, he was graduating at the end of the semester, and he was already being courted by a number of prestigious companies.  He confided to me that while he wanted to accept the job offer he had from a New York bank, he probably was going to accept the offer from a company in London.  The reason?  His student visa expires after graduation, and he is not assured of being able to secure a new visa that would allow him to work in the US.

In a time when millions and millions of people from all over the world just walk by that young man’s house on their way across the border, we allow one bright young man to come to America long enough to earn two college degrees at a college heavily subsidized by both state and federal tax dollars—then force him to work in Europe before he is able to pay income tax!

New Mexico proudly grows green chili, pecans, and cotton.  We also produce microchips, aircraft parts, and an amazing amount of petroleum.  Our most significant export, however, may be the college-educated young men and women who must flee our state each year in search of employment.  If that wasn’t bad enough, now we are exporting them to London.

Perhaps equally heartbreaking was the young girl I met who was pursuing a degree in music with an emphasis on vocal performance.  This was a very bright young lady who had excelled in school and had been told from an early age that she must go to college and “do something good with your life.”  So, she went to college and for lack of any idea what to do, had ended up studying music.  She’s a senior and has received absolutely no job offers from anybody.  She is currently thinking about going to graduate school in education so she can teach school but is a little concerned about the mounting debts she is accumulating with student loans.

Please don’t misunderstand me:  I am not advocating for turning universities into trade schools—and there is absolutely nothing wrong with vo-tech education.  (And there is also nothing wrong with a liberal arts degree—Hell, I have half a dozen of them!)  If the only way you can be happy is studying some obscure field with few employment prospects, then you should go ahead and pursue that career.  What bothers me is how many students pursue college education without knowing anything about the cost or future benefits of a career in that field.

If I can go down to my local Lowe’s to buy a refrigerator—and that is the only reliable place to buy a household appliance today—Lowe’s and the manufacturer are required by law to provide me with energy information, warranty information, safety information, and the size, capacity, available features, and model number of the refrigerator.  I must be told an estimation of the cost of running the refrigerator for a month, and all of this information must be given to me in an obligatory manual, so that I know precisely what my money is buying.

On the other hand, if I want to pursue a degree in philosophy (which nationwide leads to employment in that field a whopping 9.1% of the time), the university will never give me any information about my chances of future employment, the average salaries in that field, or even what the average monthly payments will be for the student loans I’ll be forced to take out to pay for my education.  Give me at least the same kind of information you would if I were buying a fridge.

I’m not advocating that universities should stop teaching any particular classes.  (Well, they could burn down the College of Education and the average IQ on campus would dramatically improve.).  I just think that before universities help students take out large student loans, they should provide a little information about the likelihood of employment in that field and the average salary.  

Do you want to know a staggering statistic that is NEVER shared with students?  The average lifetime earnings of students who successfully received a college degree in Early Childhood Education, Fine Arts, or Human Services and Community Organization is, on average, lower than that of high school dropouts.  

And high school dropouts don’t have any student loans to repay.

Political Sense but Economic Folly

The presidential election is looming and both candidates are pushing their economic plans for the nation.  Predictably, each promises to lower inflation, to increase employment, and to build the middle class, while warning us that the insane plans of their opponent will bring about a recession, unemployment, and genital warts.   

I want to discuss the economic plan broadly outlined by Vice President Kamala Harris today.  The key word in that sentence was “broadly” since few details were given.  In case you think I’m picking on Harris, let me say I am not fond of the economic plan of former President Trump, either.  Since both candidates seem to be moving away from free trade, I think that both need a semester of freshman economics.  Nonetheless, Harris proposed hers today, so I’m talking about hers now.

The proposal to provide first time homebuyers with up to $25,000 assistance for a down payment doesn’t need much scrutiny, because such a bill has little likelihood of passing.  If it were passed, this bill would increase demand while doing nothing to increase the supply of homes for sale.  Since increasing demand faster than increasing supply guarantees both shortages and higher prices, this proposal would be dead on arrival (at least as it was presented today).

If you really want to reduce the cost of housing, the fastest route would be to lower the cost of production, thus increasing supply.  The easiest way to do that would be to reduce the cost of government regulations on home construction.  According to a study by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the regulations imposed by all levels of government account for approximately $93,870, or about 24% of the current average sales price of $397,300 of a new single-family home.  While this is a national average, the cost of regulations in some areas—think California—is twice that.  (And this regulatory cost has increased by more than 10% during the Biden Administration).

Harris proposed a new federal statute limiting the sale of homes to corporations seeking rental income.  Ignoring the problematic constitutionality of such a proposal, wouldn’t it be better to focus on the cause of the problem?  If government regulations limit production while our country’s immigration policy insures a growing demand, why wouldn’t corporations in search of a steady profit stream invest in housing?  I would also point out that large corporate landlords have a lower overhead cost due to a larger economy of scale and may very well offer lower rents and better service than private owners renting out single houses. 

Nor am I going to spend much time discussing the idea of controls.  Vice President Harris didn’t actually mention price controls, she called it “federal laws against price gauging”.  (We can only assume she meant price gouging.)  Strangely, Harris believes that central regulation is necessary to control the price of food in an industry where the current average profit margin is a measly 1.6%.  Since price controls have a long, long steady record of complete failure in lowering prices, it is hard to believe that Congress would risk almost certain failure to lower prices 1.6%.  I would point out that oil rich Venezuela’s price controls on food have been so successful that the inhabitants of Caracas broke into the zoo and ate many of the animals.

I would also point out that Vice President Harris, the former senator from California and a long-term resident of San Francisco, did not mention controlling prices in Silicon Valley, where the average profit margin is 44.13%.  As a point of reference, the national average profit margin for businesses is roughly 8.5%.

For me, the most disturbing parts of Vice President Harris’ economic plan are the areas that she only hinted at.  For example, there are vague references to giving the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) more power to prosecute price gouging.  The FTC is already tasked with this job but over the last three and a half years has been remarkably unsuccessful in any of its attempts to prosecute  companies.  Without specific details, the voters can only speculate as to how Harris intends to implement her economic policies, but we can project that she will propose legislation similar to what Senator Elizabeth Warren has introduced—a bill that Harris has strongly endorsed.

One of the measures in the bill would empower the FTC to “require companies to publish detailed internal data about costs, margins, contracts and their future pricing strategies.”  What Warren—and evidently Harris—seem not to understand is that published pricing plans allows companies to legally and publicly collude to set prices artificially high.

Allow me to demonstrate.  I collect Golden Age Mystery novels, particularly hard back editions of books by Rex Stout and Ellery Queen.  If, for example, I needed a copy of The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout, I could easily search the internet for copies available from used book stores.  Right now, I could take my pick of purchasing a good quality hardback edition of this book from stores in Reno, Dallas, Atlanta, and Phoenix.  All four stores will sell me a copy for $6.24.

Doesn’t that seem strange?  $6.24 is a rather odd amount, and how is it that all the stores have the same price, exactly to the penny?  If I search for the same book on Amazon, they list almost a dozen used bookstores eager to sell me a copy for $6.29.  Exactly $6.29.

This is not a coincidence; it is an example of what happens when retailers publicly publish prices.  Almost every used bookstore in America lists its books for sale on Abebooks.com, a central listing point for used books.  When a bookseller obtains a new book, it can easily check for the prevailing price for that book among its competitors.  If you are curious why the bookstores on Amazon are a nickel higher than those listed on Abebooks, I presume it is a handling fee for Amazon.  You see, Amazon, the world’s largest seller of new books owns Abebooks, the world’s largest seller of used books.

Somehow, this price collusion is legal and absolutely results in me paying a higher price for books.  If grocery stores were forced to publish their prices, we could expect the same result for food prices.

So much for the Harris economic plan.  Even if she is successful this fall and becomes our next president, none of the policies listed today is likely to ever become law.  None of the proposals makes any economic sense, but all do make political sense.  This nonsense will probably become popular with some voters.

Unfortunately, the people who have taken freshman economics are outnumbered by those who haven’t.

The Debates that Never Were

By the early 1960’s, it was obvious that television and the daily news coverage were changing politics and how our candidates were being elected.  It wasn’t an accident that Disney had created campaign ads for Eisenhower or that it was a televised presidential debate had catapulted Kennedy into the White House ahead of the front-runner, Nixon.  Nor was it an accident that, just 20 years later, an actor-turned-politician was elected president.

Increasingly, campaigns became more about optics and sound bites and less about issues and policy.  John F. Kennedy, despite being an obvious benefactor of this trend, (to his credit) wanted to change the trend and bring back the days of whistle-stop campaigns and issue-driven elections.

By 1963, the upcoming presidential election was obviously going to be a contest between Democrat Kennedy—who would be seeking reelection—and Republican Barry Goldwater.  Even though Kennedy was a New England liberal and Goldwater was a Western conservative, the two men were close friends.  Despite being political rivals, the two men often discussed issues, with Goldwater even advising the President about how his policies were being received in various parts of the country. 

Simply put, the two friends had agreed to disagree on some issues and could still discuss ideas on which they were diametrically opposed.  This is a skill that has lately become as rare as impartial news reporting, but still exists in a few isolated cases.  My friend Jack, for example, despite being a Yankee who will be embarrassed beyond measure for being mentioned in this blog, differs with me politically on most issues, but in our Laphroaig-laced discussions, we almost always reach a mutually acceptable compromise.   We can do this because there are no overpaid talking heads deliberately twisting our conversations into messages that will fit on a bumper sticker. 

President Kennedy longed for the country to return campaigning back to the days of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, when the two rival candidates for the Senate traveled over 4,000 miles, debating in each Illinois congressional district.  Though the two men did not travel together (Douglas traveled in style with a private railway car that was  equipped with a cannon that was fired at each stop to signal his arrival while Lincoln traveled by coach and boat), they met frequently and had known each other for years.

During the seven debates, the first candidate would speak for an hour, followed by a 90-minute rebuttal.  Finally, the first candidate would end the debate with 30-minute closing remarks.  The two candidates alternated who started first at each of the seven debates.  In an age before television, the three-hour debates were considered great entertainment and attracted large crowds.

President Kennedy proposed to Senator Goldwater that the two men should join together in the upcoming presidential campaign, traveling in the same plane, The Caroline, owned by Kennedy (The Caroline was the very first presidential campaign plane).  They would stay in the same hotels, debating each other at stops across the country.  These debates would be a substantive discussion of issues and policies, not media stunts. 

The logistics of such a campaign were still being discussed when Kennedy was assassinated, ending the dream of holding such debates.  Demoralized, Goldwater even announced that he was dropping out of the race, though months later his party successfully convinced him to reenter it.

There was sharp contrast between the friendship of Kennedy and Goldwater, who respected each other, and the visceral hatred between Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson.  There were no presidential debates in 1964, which makes that race the only presidential campaign since 1960 that has lacked a televised debate.  Absent the cordiality of friendly debates, the race once more became a media circus in which discussion of policy was replaced with sound bites, partisan attacks, and misleading television ads that featured more emotion than honesty.

During the 1964 presidential campaign, the most infamous advertisement was the "Daisy" commercial aired by Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign.  This 60-second spot, which aired only once, on September 7, 1964, depicted a young girl counting petals on a daisy, followed by a chilling sequence of a nuclear explosion.  The commercial was designed to evoke fear and highlight the perceived danger of Barry Goldwater’s stance on nuclear weapons and his perceived willingness to use them.  The imagery of the atomic blast was a powerful and visceral representation of the stakes in the election, aimed at convincing voters that Goldwater's aggressive rhetoric would lead to catastrophic consequences.

The ad never mentioned Goldwater and was only aired as a paid political advertisement once, but was played repeatedly by news programs.  Within a week of the paid spot, it would have been difficult to find a single voter who was unaware of the advertisement.  You can watch the ad here.

The "Daisy" commercial had a profound effect on the electorate by playing on the public's fears of nuclear war.  It successfully framed Goldwater as a dangerous extremist whose policies could escalate into a global catastrophe.  This dramatic and emotional appeal resonated with voters, contributing significantly to Johnson's landslide victory.  The ad underscored the power of television in shaping public perception and so it became a defining moment in campaign advertising, demonstrating how fear and emotional appeals could influence electoral outcomes.

Whether or not Kennedy would have been successful in changing the format of presidential debates is one of those “What If” games that can kill hours and drive historians insane.  Kennedy seems to have been committed to the idea, but as a politician he was also committed to the idea of winning.  In addition, traveling with Goldwater would have inevitably elevated Goldwater in the eyes of voters.

Kennedy wanted to change the nature of presidential debates before the trend of media-driven campaigns became fixed.  It is too late now for such an idea to take hold.  Presidential campaigns have become billion-dollar businesses in which far too many people have a vested interest in continuing their particular partisan circuses.  All we can do now is keep buying tickets to the show and continue watching the clowns.

The Three Thirteenth Amendments

The U.S. Constitution, despite its remarkable endurance over more than two centuries, requires amendments to remain relevant in addressing contemporary issues and societal changes.  Originally designed to establish a foundational framework for governance, it set out broad principles that have needed refinement and expansion to adapt to evolving political, social, and technological landscapes.  For instance, as new civil rights challenges and social justice issues emerge, amendments are necessary to ensure that the Constitution addresses these concerns comprehensively and equitably.  The relatively small number of amendments—just 27—reflects both the Constitution’s inherent strength and the deliberate process required to alter it, emphasizing the balance between stability and adaptability in the American legal system.  

The rigorous amendment process deliberately established by the Constitution itself is a double-edged sword.  It requires a significant consensus across both federal and state levels, ensuring that changes reflect broad national agreement and withstand partisan shifts.  This high bar for amendment has contributed to the Constitution’s stability, making it a lasting document that provides consistency in governance.  However, the difficulty of amending the Constitution can also lead to stagnation, where important updates are delayed or sidelined due to the complexities of garnering sufficient support.  As a result, while the small number of amendments highlights the strength of the original framework, it also underscores the challenges of adapting constitutional provisions to modern realities.

Besides the national constitution, every state has its own individual constitution.  These are much longer documents that tackle a broader range of legal issues.  They are much easier to amend, with some states having passed hundreds of amendments.  Alabama currently sets the high water mark with 950 amendments.  

In comparison, amending the national constitution is extremely difficult.  First, the amendment must pass in both the House of Representatives and the Senate by a two-thirds vote.  Since it hard to get two-thirds of any group of politicians to agree on loving their mothers, but even less anything else, this is a high hurdle.    Should the proposed amendment secure congressional approval, it then has to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.  I’m not sure that three-fourths of the state legislatures are staffed by politicians who ever had mothers

With the difficulty involved in passage and ratification of a proposed amendment, you can understand why the Constitution has only been amended 27 times and why it is highly unlikely that the constitution will be amended any time soon.  There are no currently pending amendments passed by Congress likely to be ratified by state legislatures in the near future.

There are, however, six amendments that have been passed by Congress that could—but won’t—be passed by the state legislatures.  They are still on the books and if a miracle (or six) happened, they would become laws.  One of these amendments is the Equal Rights Amendment—an Amendment that has been pending ratification for decades and is still unlikely to pass anytime soon.

Among the other comatose amendments are two amendments that were supposed to become the 13th Amendment.  These are not the amendment that was ratified in December 1865, that eliminated slavery in the United States, but earlier amendments that were passed by Congress and were ratified by a few states, then simply fell into legal limbo.  They are not laws, but are still valid pending amendments.  If sufficient states were to suddenly choose to ratify these laws, they would become valid constitutional amendments to the United States Constitution.

The first 13th Amendment proposed was the “Titles of Nobility Act” that revoked the citizenship of any American who accepted a title of nobility from any "emperor, king, prince or foreign power".  While two separate articles in the U.S. Constitution already prohibited both the federal government or any state from issuing any form of title of nobility, this proposed amendment went a step further, eliminating any chance of a citizen with formal ties to another government from running for an elected office.

The reason for the proposed amendment was, of course, Napoleon…Jerome Napoleon, the youngest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, married an American woman, Betty Patterson of Baltimore.  Their son, Jérôme Napoléon "Bo" Bonaparte, was both an American citizen and an heir to the Bonaparte royal line.  Though Emperor Napoleon I annulled the marriage by royal decree, it was later restored by Emperor Napoleon III.  

Fearing some form of future royal political career for the young Bonaparte, or the creation of a Legion of Honor with ties to Europe, the proposed amendment was passed by Congress and came close to being ratified by a sufficient number of states to become a valid amendment.  The confusion about the number of states necessary to ratify the amendment became confusing as new states were rapidly joining the union, causing some 19th century law books to mistakenly state that it had become law.  Today, ratified by 12 states, it still  needs the ratification of an additional 26 states to become law.  

The “other” 13th Amendment is the Corwin Amendment, which has been adopted by Congress but also lacks ratification by enough states to become a valid amendment.  It was proposed by Ohio Senator Thomas Corwin in 1861 and was quickly passed by Congress in the time between Abraham Lincoln’s election and his inauguration.  Today, the Corwin Amendment is also known as the “Ghost Amendment”.

The Corwin Amendment was passed in response to the escalating tensions between the Northern and Southern states in the lead-up to the American Civil War.  At the heart of the amendment was an attempt to prevent the dissolution of the Union by addressing Southern concerns about the federal government's slowly growing power over slavery.  The amendment was designed to provide a constitutional guarantee that Congress would not interfere with slavery in states where it already existed, aiming to reassure Southern states that their way of life and economic interests would be protected.  The hope was that this concession might persuade Southern states to reconsider their secessionist stance and remain within the Union.

Additionally, the Corwin Amendment was part of a broader effort to seek a compromise that would preserve the Union and avoid the impending conflict.  The political climate was desperate, war was imminent, and many leaders believed that some form of compromise was essential to prevent the fragmentation of the nation.  By offering constitutional protection for slavery, the amendment sought to address one of the most contentious issues of the time, hoping to defuse the immediate crisis and create a basis for dialogue.

Support for the bill came from both the North and the South.  Though Lincoln never openly supported the bill, he did make sure that copies of it were sent to the legislatures of Southern states, hoping that those states might choose ratification over secession.  President Jame Buchanan, still president until March 4, 1861, wholeheartedly supported the measure and insisted on signing the legislation even though there was no legal reason to do so.

The proposed amendment was ratified by only five states—far short of the number necessary for it to become law.  Southern states chose secession, and the Civil War was the result.  Even though three of the five states later rescinded their ratification (a process of dubious legality), the adopted amendment could still become law if ratified by enough states.

The adopted amendment states:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

The Corwin Amendment, like the original U.S. Constitution, carefully avoids the use of the word “slavery”, substituting instead the euphemisms “domestic institutions” and “involuntary servitude”.

Even today, if sufficient states were to ratify the Corwin Amendment, it would become the 28th Amendment and would invalidate the 13th Amendment, returning slavery or involuntary servitude to those states whose state constitutions have not specifically outlawed the practice.  Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont.   

Although there is almost no chance that another two dozen states will ratify the Corwin Amendment, maybe it is time for those remaining eleven states to amend their state constitutions.