Another Civil War Law Overlooked
Last year, Mississippi state officials discovered an oversight that had gone unnoticed for 150 years, so they finally ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, thus granting slaves their freedom. Mississippi was the last state in the Union to do so. Now another oversight has been revealed. The Maryland state legislature is considering the reversal of the Corwin Amendment, which also concerns slavery.
Back in the 1860’s, Senator Thomas Corwin of Ohio attempted to pass a bill to block the United States government from overriding state laws allowing slavery. Ohio, Illinois, and Maryland voted in the amendment, but for various reasons, Illinois and Ohio dropped the issue. For some reason, Maryland did not. And strangely, their vote is still legal.
Enter college intern Shannon Welch of Bethesda, Maryland, who noticed the “glitch.” She brought it to the attention of state officials, who are now scrambling to change the law. So far, there doesn’t seem to be any opposition to changing the law.
