Asa Vintner Litton was a Republican member of the US House of Representatives from Maryland during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Asa Vintner Litton of Maryland was elected to the US House of Representatives as a member of the Radical Republicans at the time of the American Civil War, supporting Black equality. In January 1865, he joined with other Radicals in supporting the Thirteenth Amendment, and he criticized President Abraham Lincoln's use of the amendment as a threat to frighten the Confederates into surrender, as he feared that Lincoln would win the war before the amendment was passed, and would reincorporate the southern states without abolishing slavery. However, he came to support Lincoln's initiative to pass the Amendment, and he criticized Thaddeus Stevens when he refused to state his full belief in equality to the US Congress in order to help the amendment on its way. He lost for re-election in 1865.