86

REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN CONGRESS.

CHAPTER IV.

SEDITIOUS MOVEMENTS IN CONGRESS.-SECESSION IN SOUTH CAROLINA, AND
ITS EFFECTS.

WHILST Treason was rampant and defiant in the Senate Chamber, it was equally determined, but less demonstrative at first, in the hall of the House of Representatives. It first gave utterance there when Alexander R. Boteler, of Virginia, proposed, by resolution, to refer so much of the President's Message as "related to the present perilous condition of the country," to a special committee, consisting of one from each State (thirty-three), with power to report at any time. This resolution was adopted by a vote of one hundred and forty-five to thirty-eight. During the voting, many members from the Slave-labor States exhibited their treasonable poses, some by a few words, and all by a refusal to vote. "I do not vote," said Singleton, of Mississippi, "because I have not been sent here to make any compromises or patch up existing difficulties. The subject will be decided by a convention of the people of my State." Hawkins, of Florida, said:"The day of compromise has passed. I am opposed, and so is my State, to all and every compromise. I shall not vote." Clopton, of Alabama, considered secession as the only remedy for existing evils, and would not sanction any temporizing policy. Pugh, of Alabama, said:-"As my State intends following South Carolina out of the Union, by the 10th of January next, I pay no attention to any action taken in this body."

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No less than fifty-two members from the Slave-labor States refused to vote on this occasion. These comprised all of the South Carolina delegation, and most of those from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. By this action, they virtually avowed their determination to thwart all legislation in

the direction of compromise or conciliation. And when Mr. • December 4, Morris, a Democrat from Illinois, offered a resolution," that the 1860. House of Representatives were "unalterably and immovably

attached to the Union of the States," these men opposed it, and stayed the further consideration of it that day by carrying a motion to adjourn. It was clearly apparent that they had resolved on disunion, and that nothing in the way of concession would be accepted.

The appointment of the Select Committee of Thirty-three was made by the Speaker,' and it became the recipient, by reference, of a large

1 The Committee consisted of the following persons:-Thomas Corwin, of Ohio; John S. Millson, of Virginia; Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts; W. Winslow, of North Carolina; James Humphreys, of New York; Wm. W. Boyce, of South Carolina; James H. Campbell, of Pennsylvania; Peter E. Love, of Georgia; Orris S. Ferry, of Connecticut; Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland; C. Robinson, of Rhode Island; W. G.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

87

number of resolutions, suggestions, and propositions offered in the House for the amendment of the National Constitution, most of them looking to concessions to the demands of the Slave interest; for there was such an earnest desire for the preservation of peace, that the people of the Free-labor States were ready to make every reasonable sacrifice for its sake. The most important of these conciliatory suggestions were made by Representatives John Cochrane and Daniel E. Sickles, of New York; Thomas C. Hindman, of Arkansas; Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio; and John W. Noell, of Missouri.

Mr. Cochrane, who was afterward a general in the National Army, fighting the Slave interest in rebellion, and also a candidate of the "Radical Abolitionists" for the office of Vice-President of the United States, proposed the

acceptance of the decision of the Supreme Court, in the case of Dred Scott, that the descendant of a slave could not be a citizen of the United States,' as the settled policy of the Government toward the inhabitants of the country, of African origin. He also proposed that neither Congress nor the people of any Territory should interfere with Slavery therein, while it remained a

Whiteley, of Delaware; M. W. Tappen, of New Hampshire; John L. N. Stratton, of New Jersey; F. M. Bristow, of Kentucky; J. S. Morrill, of Vermont; T. A. R. Nelson, of Tennessee; Wm. McKee Dunn, of Indiana; Miles Taylor, of Louisiana; Reuben Davis, of Mississippi; William Kellogg, of Illinois; George S. Houston, of Alabama; F. H. Morse, of Maine; John S. Phelps, of Missouri; Albert Rust, of Arkansas; William A. Howard, of Michigan; George S. Hawkins, of Florida: A. J. Hamilton, of Texas; C. C. Washburn, of Wisconsin; S. R. Curtis, of Iowa; John C. Burch, of California; William Winslow, of Minnesota; and Lansing Stout, of Oregon. The Speaker, in framing this Committee, chose conservative men of the Free-labor States. Those holding extreme anti-slavery views were excluded. Mr. Pennington shared in the feeling throughout the Free-labor States, that conciliation was desirable, and that every concession, consistent with right, should be made to the maleontents.

1 See Note 1, page 34.

88

PROPOSITIONS FOR CONCILIATION.

Territory; that the Missouri Compromise, as to the limits of Slavery, should be revived; that Congress should not have power to abolish the inter-State Slave-trade; that the Fugitive Slave Law should be reaffirmed; that slaveholders might pass unmolested with their slaves through any Free-labor State, and that all nullifying laws of State Legislatures should be inoperative; also, a declaration that the Constitution was an article of agreement between Sovereign States, and that an attempt of the National Government to coerce a Sovereign State into obedience to it would be levying war upon a substantial power, and would precipitate a dissolution of the Union.'

Mr. Sickles, who afterward fought the secessionists in arms, as a commanding general, and lost a leg in the fray, proposed an amendment declaring that when a State, in the exercise of its sovereignty, should secede, the Government of the United States should appoint commissioners to confer with duly appointed agents of such State, and agree upon the disposition of the public property and territory belonging to the United States lying within it, and upon the proportion of the public debt to be assumed and paid by that State; also authorizing the President, when all should be settled, to proclaim the withdrawal of such State from the Union. This was substantially Clingman's proposition, when he made his seditious speech in the Senate a fortnight before.

Mr. Hindman, afterward a general in the armies of the conspirators arrayed against the Republic, proposed an amendment that should guarantee the express recognition of slavery wherever it existed; no interference with the inter-State or domestic Slave-trade, from which Virginia was receiving a large annual income; to give free scope for slaveholders with their slaves while traveling in Free labor States; to prohibit to any State the right of representation in the Congress whose Legislature should pass laws impairing the obligations of the Fugitive Slave Law; to give the Slave-labor States a negative upon all acts of the Congress concerning Slavery; to make these, and all other provisions of the Constitution relating to Slavery, unamendable; and to grant to the several States authority to appoint all National officers within their respective limits.3

4

Mr. Vallandigham, who was afterward convicted of, and punished for, alleged treasonable acts, submitted a proposition for a change in the National Constitution, providing for a division of the Republic into four sections, to be called, respectively, The North, The West, The Pacific, and The South. His proposition, says a late writer, "was the fullest and most logical embodiment yet made of Mr. Calhoun's subtle device for enabling a minority to

1 Proceedings of Congress, December 12, 17, and 24, 1860, reported in the Congressional Globe.

2 Proceedings of Congress, December 17, 1860, reported in the Congressional Globe.

3 Proceedings of Congress, December 12, 1860, reported in the Congressional Globe.

4 See Report of his Trial, published by Rickey & Carroll: Cincinnati, Ohio, 1863.

5 Proceedings of Congress, Feb. 7, 1861, reported in Congressional Globe. Mr. Vallandigham proposed the following grouping of States in the four sections:-The North, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The West, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Kansas. The Pacific, Oregon and California. The South, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri. These were all Slave-labor States.

This scheme for dividing the States, and the accompanying propositions concerning the election of President and Congressmen, was admirably adapted to the uses of the conspirators, for it would make the voice of three hundred thousand slaveholders as potential, politically, as that of twenty millions of non-slaveholders. It was advocated in Congress so late as January, 1863.

AMENDMENTS OF THE CONSTITUTION.

89

obstruct and baffle the majority under a political system preserving the forms of a republic.""

Mr. Noell proposed to instruct the Committee to inquire and report as to the expediency of abolishing the office of President of the United States, and establishing, in lieu thereof, an Executive Council of three members, to be elected by districts composed of contiguous States, as nearly as possible, and each member to be invested with a veto power. He wished the Committee also to inquire whether the equilibrium between the Free-labor and Slave-labor States might not be restored and preserved, particularly by a voluntary division on the part of some of the latter States into two or more States.

There were other propositions for conciliation and the preservation of the Union presented, some similar and some quite dissimilar to those already mentioned; and it was evident to the people at large that the Republic would not be saved by the wisdom of their representatives alone. There seemed to be a general desire among patriots to concede every thing but honor and the best interests of the country for the preservation of the Union, while the conspirators, having trampled both honor and patriotism under their feet, would yield nothing, and even presented their requisitions in such questionable shapes, that they might interpret them, at the critical moment of final decision, as their interests should dictate.

The result of the labors of the Committee of Thirty-three, and the action on measures proposed outside of that Committee, will be considered hereafter.

In the Senate there was a like desire, on the part of many of the members from the Free-labor and the Border Slave-labor States, for conciliation, and a disposition to compromise much for the sake of fraternal good-will and peace. On motion of Lazarus W. Powell, of Kentucky, a Committee of Thirteen was appointed by Vice-President Breckinridge, to consider the condition of the country, and report some plan, by amendments of the National Constitution or otherwise, for its pacification. On the same day, the venerable John J. Crittenden offered to the Senate a series of amendments of the Constitution, and Joint Resolutions, for the protection of Slavery and the interests of the slaveholders, which, embodied, are known in history as the Crittenden Compromise. The amendments proposed were substantially as follows:

I. To re-establish, as a boundary between Free and Slave-labor States forever, the parallel of 36° 30′ north latitude, running from the southern boundary of Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, and known as the Missouri Compromise line. North of that line there should be no Slavery; south of it, the system might flourish, and all interference with it by the Congress should be forbidden. Not only this, but the Congress, by law, should protect this 'property" of the slave-owners from interference "by all the departments of

* Proceedings of Congress, December 12, 1860, reported in Congressional Globe. 'This Committee consisted of L. W. Powell and John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky; William H. Seward, of New York; J. Collamer, of Vermont; William Bigler, of Pennsylvania; R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia; Robert Toombs, of Georgia; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi; H. M. Rice, of Minnesota; Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois; Benjamin Wade, of Ohio; J. R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and J. W. Grimes, of Iowa. The Committee was composed of eight Democrats and five Republicans.

90

THE CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE.

the Territorial government, during its continuance as such. That such Territory should, when legally qualified, be admitted into the Union as a State, with or without Slavery, as its constitution should determine."

II. That the Congress should not abolish slavery in places under its jurisdiction when such places should be within the limits of Slave-labor States, or wherein Slavery might thereafter be established.

III. That the Congress should have no power to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia, so long as it should exist in the adjoining States of

JOHN JAY CRITTENDEN.

Maryland and Virginia, nor without the consent of the inhabitants thereof, nor without just compensation made to the owners of slaves who should not consent to the abolishment. That the Congress should not prevent Government officers, sojourning in the District on business, bringing their slaves with them, and taking them with them when they should depart.

IV. That Congress should have no power to prohibit or hinder the transportation of slaves from one State to another, or into Territories where Slavery should be allowed.

V. That the National Government should pay to the owner of a fugitive slave, who might be rescued from the officers of the law when attempting to take him back to bondage, the full value of such "property" so detained and lost; and that the amount should be refunded by the county in which the rescue might occur, that municipality having the power to sue for and recover the amount from the individual actors in the offense.

VI. That no future amendments of the Constitution should be made that might have an effect on the five preceding amendments, or on sections of the Constitution on the subject, already existing; nor should any amendment be made that should give to the Congress the right to abolish or interfere with Slavery in any of the States where it existed by law, or might hereafter be allowed.

In addition to these amendments of the Constitution, Mr. Crittenden offered four resolutions, declaring substantially as follows:-1. That the Fugitive Slave Act was constitutional, and must be enforced, and that laws ought to be made for the punishment of those who should interfere with its due execution. 2. That all State laws [Personal Liberty Acts] which impeded the execution of the Fugitive Slave Act were null and void; that such laws had been mischievous in producing discord and commotion, and therefore the Congress should respectfully and earnestly recommend the repeal of them, or, by legislation, make them harmless. 3. This resolution referred to the fees of commissioners acting under the Fugitive Slave Law, and the modification of the section which required all citizens, when called upon, to aid the owner in catching his runaway property. 4. This resolution declared that strong measures ought to be adopted by the Congress for the suppression of the African Slave-trade.