Amendment Fever: The Surge of Moral Amendments in Late Nineteenth Century America

Abstract

This work examines the causes behind the surge of moral amendment proposals to the federal Constitution in the late nineteenth century. These amendments began to take shape in 1860 when Congressmen attempted to pass a series of pro-slavery constitutional amendments to prevent southern secession. For the first time, the content of an amendment was molded by social issues rather than restraining federal authority. While these pro-slavery amendments were unsuccessful attempts at pacification, they had important unintended effects. They opened the door for future Congressmen to utilize the amending process as a means for social and moral reform. This paper includes three parts—the first on anti-polygamy amendment proposals, the second on temperance amendment proposals, and the third on women’s suffrage amendment proposals. Each section contrasts the reform strategies used before and after the Civil War, examines the influence of industrialization and urbanization on the perceived growth of social vices, describes the history of constitutional challenges against morality laws, and develops the basis for my overall thesis that members of Congress proposed a series of moral amendments in the 1880s to ease public hysteria and protect federal morality legislation from looming constitutional challenges.