Slavery and four years of war

by Joseph Warren Keifer

XXV PROPOSED CONCESSIONS TO SLAVERY—BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION AND CONGRESS—1860-1

The manner of receiving and treating the secession of the States by the administration of Buchanan and the Thirty-Sixth Congress can only here have a brief notice. There was a pretty general disposition to make further concessions and compromises to appease the disunion sentiment of the South. His administration was weak and vacillating. Two serious attempts at conciliation were made. President Buchanan, in his last Annual Message (December 4, 1860), while declaring that the election of any one to the office of President was not a just cause for dissolving the Union, and while denying that "Secession" could be justified under the Constitution, yet announced his conclusion that the latter had not "delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn, from the Confederacy"; that coercion was "not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress." He did not think it was constitutional to preserve the Constitution or the Union of the States. This view was held by most leaders of his party at the time and throughout the ensuing war; not so, however, by the rank and file.

Buchanan did not believe that self-preservation inhered in the
Constitution or the Union.

The President in this Message suggested an explanatory amendment to the Constitution: (1) To recognize the right of property in slaves in the States where it existed; (2) to protect this right in the Territories until they were admitted as States with or without slavery; (3) a like recognition of the right of the master to have his escaped slave delivered up to him; and (4) declaring all unfriendly State laws impairing this right unconstitutional.

This was the signal for the presentation of a numerous brood of propositions to amend the Constitution in the interest of slavery, and by way of concessions to the South.

A committee of thirty-three, one from each State, of which Thomas Corwin of Ohio was chairman, was (December 4, 1860) appointed to consider the part of the President's Message referred to.

Mr. Noel of Missouri proposed to instruct this committee to report on the expediency of abolishing the office of President, and in lieu thereof establishing an Executive Council of three, elected by districts composed of contiguous States—each member armed with a veto power; and he also proposed to restore the equilibrium of the States by dividing slave States into two or more.

Mr. Hindman of Arkansas proposed to amend the Constitution so as to expressly recognize slavery in the States; to protect it in the Territories; to allow slaves to be transported through free States; to prohibit representation in Congress to any State passing laws impairing the Fugitive-Slave Act; giving slave States a negative upon all acts relating to slavery, and making such amendment unalterable.

Mr. Florence of Pennsylvania and Mr. Kellogg of Illinois each proposed to amend the Constitution "granting the right to hold slaves in all territory south of 36° 30´, and prohibiting slavery in territory north of this line," etc.

Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio proposed a long amendment to the Constitution, the central idea of which was a division of the Union into four sections, with a complicated and necessarily impracticable plan of voting in Congress, and of voting for the election of President and Vice-President.

These are only samples of the many propositions to amend the Constitution, but they will suffice for all. None of them had the approval of both Houses of Congress.

There were many patriotic propositions offered looking to the preservation of the Union as it was. They too failed.

The great committee reported (January 14, 1861) five propositions. The first a series of resolutions declaratory of the duty of Congress and the government to the States, and in relation to slavery; the second an amendment to the Constitution relating to slavery; the third a bill for the admission of New Mexico, including therein Arizona, as a State; the fourth a bill amending and making more efficient the Fugitive-Slave Law, among other things giving the United States Commissioner ten dollars whether he remanded or discharged the alleged fugitive; and the fifth a bill for the rendition of fugitives from justice. These several propositions (save the fifth, which was rejected) passed the House, the proposed constitutional amendment of the committee being amended on motion of Mr. Corwin before its passage.

None of the propositions were considered in the Senate save the second, and even this one did not receive the support of the secessionists still lingering in Congress.

The proposition to amend the Constitution passed both Houses by the requisite two thirds vote. It read:

"Art. XIII. No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of any State."

Two States only—Maryland and Ohio (114)—ratified this proposed amendment. It was needless, and, if adopted, would have taken no power from Congress, which any respectable party had ever claimed it possessed, but the amendment was tendered to answer the false cry that slavery in the slave States was in danger from Congressional action.

(What a contrast between this proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution and the Thirteenth Amendment adopted four years later!
The former proposed to establish slavery forever; the latter
abolished it forever.)

The resolutions of John J. Crittenden in the Senate proposed various amendments to the Constitution, among others to legalize slavery south of 36° 30´; to admit States from territory north of that line, with or without slavery; to prohibit the abolition of slavery in the States and also in the District of Columbia so long as it existed in Virginia or Maryland, such abolition even then to be only with the consent of the inhabitants of the District and with compensation to the slave owners; to require the United States to pay for fugitive slaves who were prevented from arrest or return to slavery by violence and intimidation, and to make all the provisions of the Constitution, including the proposed amendments, unchangeable forever. The Crittenden resolutions, at the end of much debate, and after various votes on amendments proposed thereto, failed (19 to 20) in the Senate, and therefore were never considered in the House.(115)

It was claimed at the time that had the Congressmen from the Southern States remained and voted for the Corwin and Crittenden propositions the Constitution might have been amended, giving slavery all these guarantees.

(114) Joint resolution of ratification, Ohio Laws, 1861, p. 190.

(115) Hist. of Rebellion (McPherson), pp. 57-67.