The Corwin Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. It was passed by the Congress on March 2, 1861 and sent to the state legislatures for ratification. Senator William H. Seward of New York introduced the amendment in the Senate. Representative Thomas Corwin of Ohio introduced it in the House of Representatives. It was one of several bills considered by Congress in an unsuccessful attempt to attract the seceding states back into the Union and to convince border slave states to stay. Technically still pending before the states, it would, if ratified, shield "domestic institutions" of the states (which in 1861 included slavery) from the constitutional amendment process and from interference by Congress.