Interesting bit of Pre-CW History found...

[Ol Gabe]

Saw this article today and thought it of interest to History Buffs.
Best regards and good reading!
'Ol Gabe
...
Copy of 'ghost amendment' found in N. Carolina archive
McClatchy News Service
Article Last Updated:10/25/2006 12:12:54 PM MDT

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - In the delicate days before the Civil War, Congress proposed a 13th amendment that would have prohibited Washington from interfering with slavery in states where it existed. It was one of many last-ditch efforts to avert war and stem the tide of southern states seceding. The amendment, known as the ''ghost amendment,'' was signed by President James Buchanan and left for the new president, Abraham Lincoln, to send to governors for their legislatures to ratify.
Lincoln did so, sending North Carolina's copy to Gov. John Ellis with a cover letter that didn't endorse or oppose the constitutional amendment. Last week, 145 years later, editors of Lincoln's papers discovered it among Ellis' documents in the state archives in Raleigh. It will be on display today at the archives, then will be placed into a vault with other important documents.
''We had two documents with Lincoln's signature, but were surprised and obviously delighted to discover we have a third,'' said Jeffrey Crow, deputy secretary of archives and history. ''Lincoln doesn't say yea, or nay, but it is clearly a part of a larger effort to try to prevent civil war. He didn't make emancipation of the slaves a goal of the war until late 1862.''
Crow calls the rare and valuable document the ''evil twin'' of the 13th amendment that abolished slavery four years later.