With the impassioned and frenetic political campaign of 1864 at an end, Frederick Douglass reflected: “We have been living at an immense rate, and have hardly had time to take breath and review the ground over which we have travelled. … Only after-generations will be able to contemplate intelligently the events of to-day, and appreciate their grand significance.” Douglass was right – to a degree. With the conflict still raging, it was too soon to render final judgments, but Americans were nonetheless determined to make sense of the war, to understand its origins and survey its results. The renewed debate on the antislavery amendment, which followed soon after the election, became a forum for northerners to express for themselves and each other the way the war had transformed their world.

Over the course of the renewed debate, it became clear that the coalition in favor of the amendment was growing. Many came to support the measure out of newfound principle, others out of political opportunism. As before, the amendment's backers held diverse, sometimes competing notions about the measure's scope and meaning. Yet, even more striking than this division of opinion was the shared realization among the amendment's supporters – and even some of its opponents – that the amending process was a means not only of social reform but of making history.