A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention / For Proposing Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Held at Washington, D.C., in February, A.D. 1861

by L. E. Chittenden

No. III.

In the United States Senate, February 27th, 1861, while the Army Appropriation bill was under consideration, proceedings relating to the Peace Conference were opened as follows:

Mr. POWELL:—Is it in order to move to postpone this bill and take up another?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Chair believes it is in order.

Mr. POWELL:—I move to postpone the Army bill for the purpose of taking up the resolutions to amend the Constitution proposed by my colleague. For several weeks Senators have declined to make an effort to call up the propositions of my colleague, for the reason that certain Peace Commissioners were in session in this capital, convened at the call of the State of Virginia. I am confident now that that Commission, or Peace Congress, or Conference, or whatever you may call it, will not accomplish any thing. Indeed, certain facts have fallen under my notice, that cause me to believe that it has been the fixed purpose of certain Republicans that that Conference should not accomplish any thing. I believe, sir, that certain commissioners from States of this Union have been brought into that Conference for the purpose of preventing them from agreeing on any thing. I have thought that for some time past. A friend sent to me yesterday the Detroit Free Press, containing two letters from the distinguished Senators from the State of Michigan to their Governor, which, I think, clearly and fully establish the fact that the Republicans, a portion of them at least, instead of sending commissioners to that Conference with a view to inaugurate something that would compromise the difficulties by which we are surrounded, and save this country from ruin, have absolutely been engaged in the work of sending delegates there to prevent that commission from doing any thing. I send this paper to the desk, and ask the Secretary to read these letters.

The Secretary read as follows:

Washington, February 15th, 1861.

Dear Sir: When Virginia proposed a Convention in Washington, in reference to the disturbed condition of the country, I regarded it as another effort to debauch the public mind, and a step toward obtaining that concession which the imperious slave power so insolently demands. I have no doubt at present but that was the design. I was therefore pleased that the Legislature of Michigan was not disposed to put herself in a position to be controlled by such influences.

The Convention has met here, and within a few days the aspect of things has materially changed. Every free State, I think, except Michigan and Wisconsin, is represented; and we have been assured by friends upon whom we can rely, that if those two States should send delegations of true, unflinching men, there would probably be a majority in favor of the Constitution as it is, who would frown down rebellion by the enforcement of laws. These friends have urged us to recommend the appointment of delegates from our State; and, in compliance with their request, Mr. Chandler and myself telegraphed to you last night. It cannot be doubted that the recommendations of this Convention will have a very considerable influence upon the public mind, and upon the action of Congress.

I have a great disinclination to any interference with what should properly be submitted to the wisdom and discretion of the Legislature, in which I place great reliance; but I hope I shall be pardoned for suggesting that it may be justifiable and proper, by any honorable means, to avert the lasting disgrace which will attach to a free people who, by the peaceful exercise of the ballot, have just released themselves from the tyranny of slavery, if they should now succumb to treasonable threats, and again submit to a degrading thraldom. If it should be deemed proper to send delegates, I think, if they could be here by the 20th, it would be in time.

I have the honor, with much respect, to be truly yours,

K.S. BINGHAM.

To his Excellency Governor Blair.

Mr. FESSENDEN:—I submit whether it is in order to go into a discussion on this motion. If so, I suppose this must be regarded as a part of the speech.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Chair understood the discussion to be in order. It was certainly not objected to at the time the Senator commenced.

Mr. FESSENDEN:—It is not too late to raise the point.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The motion is to lay aside one bill and take up other business; and the Chair understood the Senator from Kentucky to be giving his reasons why he wished that to be done.

Mr. FESSENDEN:—If it is in order, of course I cannot object to it; but I raise that question.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Senator from Maine raises the question whether this debate is in order.

Mr. POWELL:—There was no objection to my proceeding, and I suppose I have a right to go on. I wish the letters read as part of my speech.

Mr. FESSENDEN:—There is no objection to reading them.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Chair has decided that the Senator from Kentucky is in order.

Mr. POWELL:—I have not yielded, except for the purpose of reading these letters.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—Is an appeal taken from the decision of the Chair?

Mr. FESSENDEN:—I take no appeal.

The Secretary read as follows:

Washington, February 11th, 1861.

My Dear Governor: Governor Bingham and myself telegraphed you on Saturday, at the request of Massachusetts and New York, to send delegates to the Peace or Compromise Congress. They admit that we were right and that they were wrong; that no Republican State should have sent delegates; but they are here and cannot get away. Ohio, Indiana, and Rhode Island are caving in, and there is danger of Illinois; and now they beg us, for God's sake, to come to their rescue, and save the Republican party from rupture. I hope you will send stiff-backed men, or none. The whole thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice, and will end in thin smoke. Still, I hope as a matter of courtesy to some of our erring brethren, that you will send the delegates.

Truly your friend,

Z. CHANDLER.

His Excellency Austin Blair.

P.S.—Some of the manufacturing States think that a fight would be awful. Without a little blood-letting this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush.

Mr. POWELL:—I think it evident from these letters, that there is, and has been, a fixed purpose in certain quarters, that the Peace Conference should do nothing. Indeed, it seems, from the letter of the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Chandler], that while he opposed any Republican State going into this Conference, yet, as some of them were there, and Indiana, and Illinois, and Ohio, and Rhode Island were about to cave in, on the advice of Massachusetts and New York he asked Michigan to come in and relieve them, and save the Republican party from rupture. Is it possible that the Republican party is to be saved, even if the Union be destroyed? It is very evident that those "stiff-backed" gentlemen were to be sent here in order to prevent any compromise being presented. The object, then, as I stated, on the part of certain members on the other side of the Chamber, has been to send delegates to the Conference for the purpose of preventing any compromise measures being proposed by that body. They desire, in the language of these letters, to save their party from destruction. They say that if the Conference should agree on any thing, it would have a demoralizing effect upon the people, and upon the two Houses of Congress. In one word, it will have the effect to make a rupture in the Republican party, which, in the estimation of the Senators, is higher, holier, and better, it seems, than the Union.

In consequence of this fact being apparent, that it is not the design or the intention that the Peace Conference should do any thing, I think we should not wait for it any longer, but the Senate should proceed at once to the consideration of the amendments to the Constitution proposed by my colleague. I think we had better be engaged in that work—one that is calculated, if the propositions of my colleague should pass, in my opinion, to save the country from further disintegration. I think we had better be at that, than be appropriating money to support an Army that is to be engaged, it seems, in the work of blood-letting. The Senator from Michigan thinks the Government is not worth a rush until it shall have drawn a little blood. I hope my motion will prevail, and that we shall lay this bill aside and proceed to the consideration of the measures proposed by my colleague.

Mr. CHANDLER:—The Senator from Kentucky has read what purports to be a short note that I sent the other day to the Governor of Michigan. Whether it is a correct copy or not, I cannot say; I kept no copy of it, nor do I care.

Mr. POWELL:—If the Senator will allow me one word, I will state to the Senate that, when I received this paper, yesterday—

Mr. CHANDLER:—I was about to state that.

Mr. POWELL:—I asked both the Senators if the letters were right. They told me they kept no copies, but they believed they were substantially so.

Mr. CHANDLER:—I was going to say that. Now, sir, I desire to answer the Senator from Kentucky, and to set myself right on this question—(my position from the first has been well known upon this question, and upon most others)—but, at the earnest solicitation of the Senator from Maine, who has charge of this bill, I will forego the response which I intended to make, and which I shall make to the Senator from Kentucky, for the present, for the purpose of going on and disposing of the Army appropriation bill. At another day I propose to give my views more at large upon these compromise measures, that the Senator from Kentucky seems so anxious to take up at this time. I am as anxious as he is to go into that discussion. I am anxious to go into it. It is a question that ought to be discussed. It is a question in which the people of Michigan take a deep interest. They are opposed to all compromises; they do not believe that any compromise is necessary; nor do I. They are prepared to stand by the Constitution of the United States as it is; to stand by the Government as it is; ay, sir, to stand by it to blood, if necessary.

Mr. POWELL:—I ask for the yeas and nays on my motion.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. MASON:—I ask the general permission of the Senate to give notice that at three o'clock I shall move to go into executive session; and if it is not agreed to, I shall then ask that the galleries may be cleared, for the purpose of disclosing what I consider ought to be passed on in executive session.

Mr. JOHNSON, of Tennessee:—If I can obtain the attention of the Senator from Kentucky, I wish to make a suggestion. Those resolutions, as I understood, went over until last Monday at one o'clock, and were then to be taken up and considered. I do not know whether the motion was made in that way, or whether it was an informal understanding that they should be taken up last Monday for consideration; but as the Army bill is now under consideration, and the time is growing short, would it not be better to have a night session, and postpone the subject until seven o'clock this evening, and let it be taken up at that time; and then let this other bill go on to-day? Those who want to make speeches on those resolutions could do it to-night; we should thus save time and expedite business.

Mr. FESSENDEN:—I think the Senator from Virginia has given an additional very good reason for taking up the Army bill, and going through with it; and not postponing it for speeches at the present time.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted—yeas 17, nays 27; as follows:

Yeas.—Messrs. Bayard, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, Clingman, Douglas, Fitch, Gwin, Hunter, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, Lane, Latham, Mason, Polk, Powell, and Rice—17.

Nays.—Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bingham, Cameron, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Dixon, Doolittle, Durkee, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, King, Morrill, Pearce, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, and Wilson—27.

So the motion to postpone the Army bill, in order to take up the resolutions of Mr. Crittenden, was not agreed to.

Subsequently the following action, by the Senate, was taken on the report of the Peace Conference.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—The Chair has received a communication from Ex-President Tyler, as President of the Conference which has been recently sitting in this city, which he will lay before the Senate; and also the proceedings of that body.

The Secretary read the communication, as follows:

To the Senate of the United States:

I am instructed, as the presiding officer of the Convention, composed of Commissioners appointed by twenty-one States, now in session in this city to deliberate upon the present unhappy condition of the country, to present to your honorable body the accompanying request and proposed amendment.

JOHN TYLER,

President of the Convention.

Washington, D.C., February 27, 1861.

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To the Congress of the United States:

The Convention assembled, upon the invitation of the State of Virginia, to adjust the unhappy differences which now disturb the peace of the Union, and threaten its continuance, make known to the Congress of the United States that their body convened in the City of Washington on the fourth instant, and continued in session until the twenty-seventh.

There were in the body, when action was taken upon that which is here submitted, one hundred and thirty-three Commissioners, representing the following States: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kansas. They have approved what is herewith submitted, and respectfully request that your honorable body will submit it to conventions in the States as article thirteen of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Attest: J. HENRY PULESTON,

Secretary.

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Article XIII.

Sec. 1. In all the present territory of the United States north of the parallel of 36° 30´ of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of this Union to said territory, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation; but the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law. When any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a population equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without involuntary servitude, as the constitution of such State may provide.

Sec. 2. No territory shall be acquired by the United States, except by discovery and for naval and commercial stations, depots, and transit routes, without the concurrence of a majority of all the Senators from States which allow involuntary servitude, and a majority of all the Senators from States which prohibit that relation; nor shall territory be acquired by treaty, unless the votes of a majority of the Senators from each class of States hereinbefore mentioned be cast as a part of the two thirds majority necessary to the ratification of such treaty.

Sec. 3. Neither the constitution, nor any amendment thereof, shall be construed to give Congress power to regulate, abolish, or control, within any State, the relation established or recognized by the laws thereof touching persons held to labor or involuntary service therein, nor to interfere with or abolish involuntary service in the District of Columbia without the consent of Maryland and without the consent of the owners, or making the owners who do not consent just compensation; nor the power to interfere with or prohibit Representatives and others from bringing with them to the District of Columbia, retaining, and taking away, persons so held to labor or service; nor the power to interfere with or abolish involuntary service in places under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States within those States and Territories where the same is established or recognized; nor the power to prohibit the removal or transportation of persons held to labor or involuntary service in any State or Territory of the United States to any other State or Territory thereof where it is established or recognized by law or usage, and the right during transportation, by sea or river, of touching at ports, shores, and landings, and of landing in case of distress, shall exist; but not the right of transit in or through any State or Territory, or of sale or traffic, against the laws thereof. Nor shall Congress have power to authorize any higher rate of taxation on persons held to labor or service than on land. The bringing into the District of Columbia of persons held to labor or service, for sale, or placing them in depots to be afterwards transferred to other places for sale as merchandise, is prohibited.

Sec. 4. The third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution shall not be construed to prevent any of the States, by appropriate legislation, and through the action of their judicial and ministerial officers, from enforcing the delivery of fugitives from labor to the person to whom such service or labor is due.

Sec. 5. The foreign slave-trade is hereby forever prohibited; and it shall be the duty of Congress to pass laws to prevent the importation of slaves, coolies, or persons held to service or labor, into the United States and the Territories from places beyond the limits thereof.

Sec. 6. The first, third, and fifth sections, together with this section of those amendments, and the third paragraph of the second section of the first article of the Constitution, and the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article thereof, shall not be amended or abolished without the consent of all the States.

Sec. 7. Congress shall provide by law that the United States shall pay to the owner the full value of his fugitive from labor, in all cases where the marshal, or other officer, whose duty it was to arrest such fugitive, was prevented from so doing by violence or intimidation from mobs or riotous assemblages, or when, after arrest, such fugitive was rescued by like violence or intimidation, and the owner thereby deprived of the same; and the acceptance of such payment shall preclude the owner from further claim to such fugitive. Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

Mr. MASON:—I suppose the proper disposition is to have it printed.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—There is nothing to print.

Mr. GREEN:—And refer it to the Committee for the District of Columbia. I think that is about right.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I move that it be referred to a select committee, with instructions to report to-morrow morning.

Mr. MASON:—We ought certainly to have it printed.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—It can be printed in the mean time.

Mr. FESSENDEN:—We should have time to look at it.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—It is moved that the communication be printed and referred to a select committee, with instructions to report to-morrow morning.

Mr. BIGLER:—I would be glad to make a suggestion to the Senator from Kentucky, that he name in addition an hour to-morrow at which the consideration of the report shall be in order, or else a single objection will throw it over to the next day.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—Well, to-morrow at twelve o'clock, I would say. ["One.">[ I move one o'clock.

Mr. BIGLER:—With instructions to the committee to report to-morrow morning, and that the report be the special order at one o'clock?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—Yes, sir.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—Does the Senator indicate the number of the committee?

Mr. GREEN:—Seventeen.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—Five is enough.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—A committee of five; no more.

Mr. COLLAMER:—I would suggest to gentlemen not only that it be made the order of the day for twelve o'clock to-morrow, but that it be adopted by three-fourths of the States the next day. [Laughter.]

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—It is moved and seconded that the communication be printed and referred to a select committee of five members, to report to-morrow at one o'clock.

Mr. HALE:—I ask for a division of the question.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—The first question will be on printing.

The motion to print was agreed to.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—The next question is that the communication be referred to a select committee of five, with instructions to report to-morrow at one o'clock.

Mr. HALE:—I ask for a division of that.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—How would it be divided?

Mr. HALE:—The motion to refer to a select committee is one proposition, and the instructions are another.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—That is the form in which the Senator wants it divided?

Mr. HALE:—Yes, sir.

Mr. BIGLER:—As the Chair states the proposition, it does not reach the object which the Senator from Kentucky had in view. The instructions should be that the committee report to-morrow morning, and that the report shall be the special order at one o'clock. Unless that is done, one objection will put it over.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—The Senator from New Hampshire asks for a division of the question, and it is susceptible of division. The first question is on referring the communication to a special committee of five.

The motion was agreed to.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—The next branch of the proposition is that that committee be instructed to report to-morrow morning, and that their report be made the special order for to-morrow at one o'clock.

Mr. HALE:—On that, I should like to have the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:—The question is upon directing the committee to report to-morrow morning, and that the report be made the special order for to-morrow at one o'clock.

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. CLINGMAN:—Though I am utterly opposed to the proposition, I am willing to give it the direction its friends desire, and I vote "yea."

Mr. LATHAM:—I desire to change my vote. I have no confidence in this thing, and I fear it will be an unnecessary consumption of time; but I yield to the judgment of my political associates and I vote "yea."

The result was announced—yeas 26, nays 21; as follows:

Yeas.—Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bayard, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, Clingman, Crittenden, Dixon, Douglas, Fitch, Foster, Gwin, Hunter, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, Lane, Latham, Mason, Nicholson, Pearce, Polk, Powell, Rice, Sebastian, and Thomson—26.

Nays.—Messrs. Bingham, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Doolittle, Durkee, Fessenden, Foot, Green, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, King, Morrill, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, and Wilson—21.

So the motion was agreed to.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I move that the committee be appointed by the Chair.

The motion was agreed to; and Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Bigler, Mr. Thomson, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Trumbull, were appointed the committee.

On the 28th of February the committee so appointed, presented to the Senate the following report, and the following action was taken thereon:

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—The select committee, to whom was referred the communication received yesterday from the Convention assembled in this place, commonly called the Peace Convention, with instructions to report by twelve o'clock to-day, have had the subject under consideration, and have directed me to make the following report—

Mr. HALE:—I object to its consideration to-day.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Fitch in the chair):—Objection being made, it cannot be considered until one o'clock, but it will be read.

The Secretary read the joint resolution reported by Mr. Crittenden (S. No. 70), proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as follows:

Joint Resolution proposing certain amendments to the Constitution
of the United States.

Whereas Commissioners, appointed on the invitation of the State of Virginia, by the following States, respectively: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kansas, have met in Convention at the City of Washington, for the purpose of considering the distracted and perilous condition of the country, and proposing measures for the preservation of the peace, the safety of the people, and the security of the Union, and having performed that duty, and communicated to Congress the result of their deliberations, with a request and recommendation on the part and in the name of said States, that the following be proposed to the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, according to the fifth article of said instrument, namely: [See [article] preceding.]

Mr. SEWARD:—Mr. President—

Mr. GWIN:—I think I am on the floor.

Mr. SEWARD:—I desire to speak a word from the committee touching the present report.

Mr. GWIN:—Certainly.

Mr. HALE:—I object to its present consideration.

Mr. SEWARD:—I am not proposing to consider it.

Mr. BIGLER:—The Senator from New Hampshire has no right to make the objection.

Mr. SEWARD:—I am not proposing to consider it at the present moment; but I am desirous of making an explanation from the committee, touching the report made by the Senator from Kentucky. The honorable Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull], and myself, constituted a minority of the committee. We dissent from the report, and we proposed in committee to submit a substitute. The majority held that, for some reason, sufficient in their estimation, we were not entitled to submit a minority report. I therefore ask leave of the Senate to introduce a joint resolution in my own name, and in which the honorable Senator from Illinois authorized me to say that he concurs with me, and which I ask unanimous consent to have read and printed; and it will be the subject of consideration at such time hereafter as the Senate shall choose to hear it, either in connection with the other or not.

Mr. MASON:—Is it in the form of a report?

Mr. SEWARD:—No; it is not insisted on in that form; it is submitted on my own behalf. I desire that it may be read for information and printed, subject to the future action of the Senate.

The proposition of Mr. Seward was read, as follows:

A joint resolution concerning a National Convention to propose amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Whereas, The Legislatures of the States of Kentucky, New Jersey, and Illinois, have applied to Congress to call a Convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States: Therefore,

Be it Resolved, &c., That the Legislatures of the other States be invited to take the subject into consideration, and to express their will on that subject to Congress, in pursuance of the fifth article of the Constitution.

Mr. BIGLER:—I desire to make—

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Senator from California was on the floor. No action is now requested on the paper just offered, only a motion to print. Shall the paper be printed?

Mr. HALE:—Was it read for information?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—For information only.

Mr. SEWARD:—I move that it be printed.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Chair hears no objection.

Mr. BIGLER:—I desire to make a remark in reference to the question of order made by the Senator from New Hampshire. The Senator objects to the consideration of the report to-day. Yesterday, when the Senator from Kentucky made the motion, I insisted on further moving that the report of the committee should be the special order at one o'clock to-day.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—That is the record.

Mr. BIGLER:—That instruction was offered, and therefore the Senator's objection will not apply.

Mr. HALE:—Therefore it will.

Mr. SEWARD:—I insist on the motion to print.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Senator from California is on the floor. The Senator from New Hampshire having objected to the present consideration of the resolution reported by the Senator from Kentucky, for the time being it cannot be considered.

Mr. SEWARD:—Will the Senator from California allow the question to be put on my motion to print?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:-The Chair heard no objection to that; and it was ordered.

Mr. DOOLITTLE:—The Senator from California will allow me to say a single word. I observe that, in this report, the State of Wisconsin is mentioned as having sent delegates to this Convention, commonly denominated the Peace Convention. That is a mistake. I desire, also, to give notice that when this subject shall come up for consideration, I shall offer as an amendment to the first section of article thirteen, as proposed, the following proviso:

Provided, however (and this section shall take effect upon the express condition), That no State, or any part thereof, heretofore admitted, or hereafter to be admitted, into the Union, shall have power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and that this Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land therein, any thing contained in any constitution, act, or ordinance of any State Legislature or Convention to the contrary notwithstanding.

The section will then read as follows:

Sec. 1. In all the present territory of the United States north of the parallel of 36° 30´ of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of the Union to said territory, nor to impair the rights arising from the said relation; but the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law. When any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a population equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without involuntary servitude, as the Constitution of such State may provide; Provided, however (and this section shall take effect upon the express condition), That no State, nor any part thereof, heretofore admitted, or hereafter to be admitted into the Union, shall have power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and that the Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land therein, any thing contained in any constitution, act, or ordinance, of any State Legislature or Convention to the contrary notwithstanding.

And I desire that that amendment, which I now send to the Chair, may be printed.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—Is there any objection to printing the paper which the Senator has just read? The Chair hears no objection.

The same day the Report of the Peace Conference was called up for consideration, when Senator Hale objected to the consideration of the report. Considerable discussion then ensued, in which Messrs. Hale, Bigler, Trumbull, Crittenden, and Dixon participated. This discussion related merely to the question, whether under the rules of the Senate the Report of the Peace Conference could at this time be taken up. The merits of the report were not considered, and for that reason it is not deemed necessary to report the proceedings of the Senate in this respect. The joint rules of the two Houses were suspended in order that another subject might be taken up, and no decision was had upon the question, whether the Report of the Peace Conference at this time should be considered.

The allotted time having been consumed in this discussion, the Senate proceeded to the consideration and disposal of several orders of the day. On the first of March it resumed action on the Report of the Peace Conference.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Fitch):—It is the duty of the Chair to announce the special order of the day, being the joint resolution (S. No. 70) proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—I ask that the resolutions from the House of Representatives, in regard to amendments of the Constitution, be laid before the Senate, in order that they may be considered at the same time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Chair will lay before the Senate a joint resolution from the House of Representatives.

The joint resolution (H.R. No. 80) to amend the Constitution of the United States, was read the first time by its title.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—I ask that that be made the special order at the same time, in connection with the joint resolution reported by the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. MASON:—I have looked at that joint resolution, and it certainly ought to be committed to a committee to correct its English. It is unintelligible.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—My object is merely to have it considered at the same time with the other.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The joint resolution will have its second reading.

The joint resolution (H.R. No. 80) was read a second time by its title.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—It is now the subject of any motion that may be made in regard to it.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—I move that it be made the special order in connection with the joint resolution reported by the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. CLARK:—How does that happen to be in order here when there is a special order called up?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—It is not in order to consider it, except by unanimous consent.

Mr. CLARK, Mr. BINGHAM, and Mr. SUMNER:—I object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The special order is before the Senate.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—I ask that the other resolutions which have come from the House of Representatives, be read. There are two of them, I believe.

The House joint resolutions (No. 64) declaratory of the opinion of Congress in regard to certain, questions now agitating the country, and of measures calculated to reconcile existing differences, were read the first time by the title.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The second reading—

Mr. CHANDLER and others:—I object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—Is objection made?

Mr. CHANDLER:—I withdraw my objection.

Mr. SUMNER:—I object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—Objection being made, it cannot be read the second time.

Mr. SIMMONS:—It passed the other House unanimously. There can be no objection, I think.

Mr. CLARK:—We have another subject up.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The special order is before the Senate. The question is on the second reading.

The joint resolution (S. No. 70) proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States, was read the second time, and considered as in Committee of the Whole.

Mr. PUGH:—Let the resolution be read, not the proposition itself, but the formal part, the introduction.

Mr. HUNTER:—Is that open to amendment now?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—It is in Committee of the Whole, and open to amendment. The reading of the formal part of the joint resolution is called for.

The Secretary read it.

Mr. SEWARD:—I offer the following as a substitute:

Strike out all after the word "whereas," in the preamble, to the end of the resolution, and insert:

The Legislatures of the States of Kentucky, New Jersey, and Illinois, have applied to Congress to call a Convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States; Therefore,

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Legislatures of the other States be invited to take the subject of such a Convention into consideration, and to express their will on that subject to Congress, in pursuance of the fifth article of the Constitution.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Chair understands that a proviso was offered to the matter that the Senator from New York proposes to strike out. The vote will first be taken on the proviso offered by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Doolittle], to insert at the end of section one of article thirteen:

Provided, however (and this section shall take effect upon the express condition), That no State, nor any part thereof, heretofore admitted, or hereafter to be admitted into the Union, shall have power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and that this Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, any thing contained in any constitution, act, or ordinance of any State Legislature or Convention to the contrary notwithstanding.

Mr. HUNTER:—I believe that the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin is not pending.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Senator from Wisconsin proposes that as a proviso to the matter which the Senator from New York moves to strike out; and the question must first be taken on that.

Mr. HUNTER:—I did not know that that was before the Senate.

Mr. BIGLER:—He only gave notice of it.

Mr. HUNTER:—I thought the Senator from Wisconsin only gave notice that he would offer it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Chair may have misunderstood the Senator's motion at the time. He called for the printing of it; but if that is the understanding of the Senate—

Mr. SEWARD:—What does the record say?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Chair understands that the record presents it as "intended to be offered."

Mr. SEWARD:—Then the question is on the substitute. I ask that the question be taken.

Mr. HUNTER:—I have an amendment to submit. I propose to amend the first section of the proposition before us, by inserting in lieu of it the first article of what are called the Crittenden resolutions. I move to strike out the first article of the peace propositions, and to insert:

That in all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter acquired, situate north of latitude 36° 30´, slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is prohibited while such territory shall remain under territorial government. In all the territory south of said line of latitude, slavery of the African race is hereby recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Congress; but shall be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance; and when any Territory, north or south of said line, within such boundaries as Congress may prescribe, shall contain the population requisite for a member of Congress, according to the then Federal ratio of representation of the people of the United States, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without slavery, as the constitution of such new State may provide.

Mr. COLLAMER:—I rise to a question of order. It will be observed that this paper is before us under a recital that, whereas these propositions of amendment have been presented by the Commissioners, as they are called, from the several States—naming them—who have asked Congress to submit them, therefore we propose to submit them to the States. The whole proceeding is based and predicated on this recital. I say that it cannot be amended. If it were amended, it would cease to be the application of that body which the recital States. I therefore object to any amendments, except a substitute; perhaps a substitute may be offered striking out the recital and all; but an amendment to it is out of order, in my view.

Mr. HUNTER:—In regard to the question of order, I understand that the recital is the recital of the committee, and that the question before us is on these propositions for amending the Constitution of the United States, which are to be treated as a bill. If so, each section is subject to amendment as a bill would be subject to amendment. It was my purpose to offer the entire series of what are called the Crittenden resolutions, as an amendment to these, and I still intend to offer them, section by section; but I was prevented from offering them in that form, because the Senator from New York got the floor first, and offered his proposition as a substitute. I therefore could not raise the question which I desired to raise, except by offering the amendments, section by section, in order to perfect the original proposition. I submit that it is in order.

Mr. COLLAMER:—I submit, still, my question of order, suggesting to gentlemen that if we make any amendment, we must strike out the recital.

Mr. BIGLER:—I do not see that any ordinary question of order can be raised in this case; but I do think there is a consideration much more grave, and that is the question whether we will treat the series of resolutions presented here by this Peace Congress as a proposition which we ought either to accept or reject. I was one of those in the select committee who took that position. It was manifestly intended that we should accept the entire programme, or reject it. Therefore I was unwilling; and we decided to consider no question of amendment—

Mr. HUNTER:—That is not a question of order, but of propriety. It would be an argument against any amendment.

Mr. BIGLER:—I have said it was no ordinary question of rules; but that there was a far graver question of propriety. I agree with the Senator in that view; and I rose for the purpose of alluding to the view taken of this subject by the select committee. The Senator from New York desired the leave of the committee to report his proposition as a substitute; but the majority of the committee held that the resolutions had not been committed to us for the purpose of considering them and changing them, or substituting something else, but simply to attach to them the formal resolution to present them as amendments to the Constitution for the ratification of the States. For that reason we proposed no amendment; and the Senator from New York yesterday offered his substitute on his own responsibility, because, as I understood him, of the view taken by the committee. Now, sir, I still entertain the view that, while the Senate have a clear right unquestionably to change these resolutions, and to change the resolution of submission to make it conform to any thing we may do, we ought to consider these resolutions sent here by this Peace Conference as a whole, and accept them or reject them; but there can be no question of ordinary rule raised as to the right to offer an amendment; there is a greater, a graver question of propriety as to how they shall be treated.

Mr. SEWARD:—It is not merely a question of form or order, but the proposition of the Senator from Virginia would change the whole character of the transaction. This joint resolution is one single, complete proposition. It is one act. It begins with a declaration by Congress, that "whereas Commissioners, appointed on the invitation of the State of Virginia," have performed a certain duty confided to them, "and communicated to Congress the result of their deliberations, with a request and recommendation on the part and in the name of said States"—of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the rest of the States represented in the Convention—"the following"—nothing different, nothing originating in Congress, nothing originating anywhere else, but—"the following be proposed to the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, according to the fifth article of said instrument." Now, if we should adopt this whole transaction, we should simply do this: we should submit these amendments to the people of the United States for their acceptance, for the reason that the Peace Convention, as it is called, has considered upon the subject, and thought it grave enough to solicit us to invest it with the legislative or congressional sanction, and so submit it to the Legislatures and conventions of the States; but whenever you have made a single alteration in it, such as is proposed now by the Senator from Virginia, it is not, then, the proposition of the States "of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts," or any other States; but it is a recommendation of the Congress of the United States. The whole character is changed. The Convention is swept out of existence in the history of Congress. The resolutions then adopted become the deliberate conviction of the majority of the Congress of the United States, who substitute their own judgment, and their own wisdom, and their own will, for the wishes, the opinions, respectfully submitted to them by the representatives of those States, and take the responsibility of saying that this is what the Peace Convention should have submitted, instead of the proposition which they have sent here.

Mr. HUNTER:—I wish to make a suggestion in regard to the real position of this question, as it now appears before us. The arguments that have been urged by the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from New York might very well be brought up against the propriety of adopting the amendment; but, so far as the question itself stands, it is only brought before us by a report of our committee. The Peace Conference had no power to present questions or make communications to us; but they having made a communication, and we, having respect for that body, agreed to take it up, and we referred their proposition to a committee. The only authority which we have now for considering it in the Senate, is on the recommendation of our committee. This proposition stands here as a recommendation of that committee to alter the Constitution, as proposed by this Conference. It being their recommendation in regard to the alteration of the Constitution, under our rules it stands like a bill; and I have a right to move to amend it, section by section; and in doing so, I should be pursuing the method taken by the Peace Conference, as I understand, for I am told they never took a vote on it as a whole, but voted on it proposition by proposition; and in fact, the majority who passed the propositions were composed of different States, and they never did take a vote on the articles as a whole.

Now, I am proposing to amend this as it comes up, proposition by proposition; and if it would be in order for me to make such a motion, supposing that this proposition had originated with a committee of this body, who had made a report proposing such amendments to the Constitution, I should have a right to make it now, for it is only in that way that it appears legally before us. I say, then, so far as the question of order is concerned, it seems to me that I have clearly a right to do it. I would be willing, in order to get rid of the question of order, to move to strike out the preamble too; but in my opinion it stands before us as a bill would stand. I may amend the particular sections. I am not proposing by this amendment to perfect the whole proposition, but a part of it; and if I should succeed in that, I can then go back, and move to amend the preamble.

So far as the question of order is concerned, I cannot see how it is that I am out of order. There may be a question of propriety. Those who believe that this proposition is one that ought to be accepted as a whole, and ought to be accepted because it comes from this body, eminently respectable, as we all acknowledge it to be, may say that we ought not to amend it; not that we have not the power, but that we ought not to amend it. Those of us, however, who think as I do, that it is a proposition not to be accepted; that it is a proposition highly dangerous, and one which will give rise to great difficulties, on the other hand, may think it eminently proper to amend it. I, thinking in that way, avail myself of what I suppose my parliamentary right, to offer an amendment; and it is upon that question of parliamentary right alone, as I understand, that the Chair is to determine.

Mr. TRUMBULL:—Mr. President, it seems to me very clear that, as a question of order, this proposition does not stand in any respect different from any other. Suppose an individual Senator had thought proper to propose amendments to the Constitution; that they had been referred to a committee; and the committee had approved them: what would it have done? Precisely what this committee has done. It would have reported back the proposition, with a resolution in conformity with that clause of the Constitution which points out the mode of its amendment. The fact that this proposition was adopted by gentlemen from various States does not alter it at all. It comes here as a mere petition. However respectable and dignified the Convention may have been which arrived at these conclusions; however much weight their conclusions may be entitled to in the country, they come here simply as petitioners—in that light, and none other—asking Congress to submit certain resolutions to the States of the Union to be adopted or not as portions of the fundamental law, and, unquestionably, any Senator has a right to propose an amendment in the same way as if they were introduced by an individual Senator. Can it be possible that if I draw up a series of propositions as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and a select committee thinks proper to recommend them to this body, the hands of the body are tied up, and it must take them, word for word, and letter for letter, as I have drawn them? The question is, whether it is proper to do this; whether the respect due the Peace Convention should not deter gentlemen from offering amendments, is a question we are not discussing. The point is one of order; and as a question of order, I was astonished when the Senator from Pennsylvania first suggested it.

Mr. BIGLER:—I suggested no question of order.

Mr. TRUMBULL:—I did understand the Senator from Pennsylvania to say, that that was the view he took in committee in response to what was said by the Senator from Vermont, and it was to that I alluded when I said I was astonished at the ground he took, that the committee could not amend these propositions, or that any other person could not move to amend them.

Mr. BIGLER:—The Senator from Vermont made a distinct point of order; but I did not sustain the Senator's views on the point of order. On the other hand, so far from that, I stated distinctly, that there could be no ordinary question of order under the rule; but a question of propriety, a question as to the consideration that was to be attached to this proposition of the Peace Convention; that the select committee, or a majority, at least, were under the impression that it was expected we would treat it as a whole, and accept it or reject it. That is what I said. I have no doubt whatever of the right of a Senator on this floor to move to amend this resolution. But, sir, I cannot agree with the Senator from Illinois by any means, that this proposition should be treated as the mere report of a committee or the proposition of an individual Senator. Who supposes that twenty States would have sent commissioners here to consider this great question and suggest to Congress—

Mr. TRUMBULL:—The Senator from Pennsylvania, I see, is misunderstanding me. I said, as a question of order, it was to be treated the same as if offered by an individual Senator; that however much respect we might have for it, as coming from the source it did, yet, as a question of order, there was no difference in the rules.

Mr. BIGLER:—I did not understand the Senator as placing entire stress on the question of order. I have been endeavoring to take this question away from the rules, to set it above the rules, and I say that we ought to consider it without reference to the rules. If it be that this programme is not acceptable to the Senate, let it be rejected. What I supposed was intended from the beginning was, that whatever they sent here was to be considered as an entirety—accepted or rejected. I was about to remark, who supposes that twenty States would have sent commissioners to prepare a programme of peace for the consideration of Congress, if they had supposed that immediately the peculiar views of each member of Congress would be set up in opposition to them?

Mr. President, a single remark in relation to what fell from the Senator from New York, and I shall have done. The Senator from New York alludes to the terms of the preamble, that, for the reason that these commissioners agreed, therefore these propositions are submitted as amendments to the Constitution. I do not wish to be understood as regarding it in that light. I do not think it is the right of Congress to submit propositions of amendment of the Constitution because they come from any source. The spirit of the Constitution is, that Congress will submit amendments to the Constitution; because Congress approves those amendments, and it would be a reason why I should vote for or against them, whether I approved them or not. If, as a whole, I could vote for them, I would vote for them; if, as a whole, I could not, I would vote against them. That does not affect the question whether, under all the circumstances, and solemn surroundings, the labor which has been bestowed, and the character of the men that have presented this paper, we should consider it as an entirety, or attempt to cut it up by piecemeal, by which neither they, nor the public, will ever ascertain what the judgment of Congress was on the results of their labor. That is what I say.

Mr. SEWARD:—The honorable Senator may very naturally and very properly take the ground that he would not vote, and that Congress ought not to vote, for submitting this proposition to the people, for the reason assigned in the paper before us. I have not any disposition to quarrel with him about it. I might take the same view, and say that I would not submit to the people a proposition which was futile, which was frivolous. That is not what I was speaking to. What I was speaking to was, the character of this proposition; and this is a proposition just to this effect, logically and technically expressed: that whereas these commissioners appointed by the States have met, consulted, considered, and adopted that resolution, therefore, for that reason, independent of every thing else, Congress submits it to the States.

Mr. PUGH:—I want to make an appeal to the friends of some proposition of peace. This is the last day of the session but one, and we have not made the progress of one line. We have gone into an eternal discussion about questions of order, and that, too, in defiance of the rule of the Senate. I insist that the question shall be decided without further debate.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Fitch):—It is not for the Chair to decide any question of propriety, except as an individual Senator. As Presiding Officer, he does not deem the question of order, made by the Senator from Vermont, to be well taken. The joint resolution differs in no respect from other resolutions, and is open to amendment, and is before the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, for that purpose. The question is on agreeing to the amendment which has been offered by the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. HUNTER:—Mr. President, I have offered this amendment, as the first of a series which I shall offer, for the purpose of carrying out the will of my State, as it has been expressed through its Legislature; and I might say there are other Senators similarly situated, for there are other States which have declared a disposition to settle upon the basis of what are called the Crittenden resolutions. That is the first reason which prompts me; and to me it is imperative, because the Legislature of the State which I have the honor in part to represent, has declared that this is the basis upon which it would settle, and intimated that it would not take less than they propose by way of security for the South. I have also another reason. I have examined this proposition of the Peace Conference—

Mr. WADE:—Will the Senator let us hear it read? We do not understand what his proposition is.

Mr. HUNTER:—My proposition is the first article from the Crittenden amendments, in regard to the territorial adjustment.

Mr. WADE:—We understand that.

Mr. HUNTER:—After as careful an examination as I have been able to give this proposition from the Peace Conference since it was printed, that is to say, within the last day or two, I have come to the conclusion that it would not only make a great many more difficulties than it would remove, if it should be adopted as an amendment to the Constitution, but that it would place the South—the slaveholding States—in a far worse position than they now occupy under the present Constitution, with the Dred Scott decision as its exposition.

Mr. CLARK:—Will the Senator from Virginia allow me to make a suggestion?

Mr. HUNTER:—Certainly.

Mr. CLARK:—I understand him to say he proposes to offer the several propositions of the Crittenden amendment one after the other.

Mr. HUNTER:—Yes, sir.

Mr. CLARK:—Then I suggest, as that is the intention of the Senator, that unanimous consent be given to move them as one amendment, so that we may have them all up for discussion, if any one chooses to discuss them, at the same time.

Mr. HUNTER:—I have no objection to that, if it is the general wish. I was saying, Mr. President, when I was interrupted, that after as careful an examination as I was able to give this peace proposition, since it was printed, I came to the conclusion that it would put the southern States in a far worse position than they now occupy under the present Constitution, and with the Dred Scott decision. Under that Constitution, and with the Dred Scott decision, they had a right, as the court has decided, to carry their slaves into any Territory of the United States. That is a right which has been adjudicated to them by a solemn decision of the Supreme Court; and it is to be remembered that this right has not only been accorded to them by the decision of the court, but by the action of the several branches of the Federal Government. That is their present state of things under the present Constitution of the United States with regard to the territorial question. In what position, then, does this proposed territorial adjustment place them? Why, sir, it excludes them; it puts the Wilmot proviso on all territory north of 36° 30´; and south of 36° 30´ it gives them the privilege of another lawsuit, in order to try their right and title to enter the territory with their slaves. What are the words of this proposed amendment of the Constitution?

"In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons hold to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of this Union to said territory, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation; but the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law."

"In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary servitude or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed." What is the meaning of that word "status"? What is the status? The word status may be applied to different things; there may be a local status or a political status. In some countries a slave may hold property, and, in a certain form, sue; in others, he cannot. Or it may be the social and legal relation, that of the slave to his master, which constitutes the status that is referred to; and I presume it is that which it is declared shall not be changed. But, sir, shall not be changed by whom? By Congress? It does not say so. By the Territorial Legislature? It does not say so in terms. Does it mean that it shall not be changed by Congress or by the government of the Territory? Does it mean that it shall not be changed at all by anybody? Does it mean the master shall not emancipate him if he chooses? Is it an absolute prohibition of any change of the status of the slave, of any sort or description?

These are the terms which we are obliged to resort to in order to escape from the manly declaration of the Crittenden resolution, that south of that line slavery shall be recognized and protected. It was eminently proper, as we excluded them north of it, that our institutions should be recognized and protected south of that line. That, sir, was plain English; that everybody could understand; but here we are interpolating law Latin into the Constitution; this word "status" is introduced; and who is to determine what the status was? I thought it had been considered a march forward, a step of progress, an evidence of improvement in English legislation, when it abandoned Norman French and law Latin, and resorted to the mother tongue; and especially it should be so, when we are making constitutions for American people of English descent, and who speak the English tongue. A constitution is for the millions, and the millions should be able to understand it.

But, Mr. President, let us proceed a little further. This whole matter is to be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of common law. That embraces the right of the master to his slave as a matter of cognizance under the common law before the courts; because what do they mean by the status of all persons held to involuntary servitude or labor? They mean rightfully held. They do not mean if a man is kidnapped and held illegally to involuntary service or labor that he is always to be so held. It means that the status of persons who are rightfully and legally held shall not be changed; and who is to determine that? The courts are to determine it according to the common law. That is to be determined by judges who are to be appointed from a party, and by a party who believe that there cannot be property in man; by a party who believe that, in the Somerset case, Lord Mansfield has laid down the common law properly; by a party who will probably believe that the decision of the English courts, in regard to the slave Anderson, that it was no murder for a slave when escaping to kill his master, was a correct exposition of the common law.

How, then, do we stand? Why, sir, in relation to our right to slaves, we have to try that right before judges who are thus appointed, and appointed from a party who we know entertain these opinions. Why, sir, you might poll that party through the whole United States, and I would venture any thing upon the assertion that you cannot get one in a hundred thousand who would not deny that there could be property in man, especially under the common law. We thus lose the advantage of the Dred Scott decision. According to the Dred Scott decision, we can carry them into the territory of the United States and hold them, and it is decided that there is property in slaves—decided under the Constitution. The court maintain that the Constitution recognizes it. It is upon constitutional ground that we have made our claims, and so far, it is upon this that we have fought and won the battle, not upon common law; and now we are to abandon the advantages that we have got from that ground of title under the Dred Scott decision, and go into court and try a case that has been already decided in our favor; and under the common law, try it before judges who are to be selected by a party entertaining such opinions as I have just described; and I am sorry to say, without appeal to the Supreme Court; because, in the territorial bills which have been lately passed, that right has been taken from us. My friend from North Carolina will be kind enough to read an article in the Chicago platform, showing what is held on that subject by those who wield the power of this Government.

Mr. CLINGMAN read, as follows:

Eighth. "That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that 'no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,' it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States."

Mr. HUNTER:—Thus much, Mr. President, in regard to the status; and it is to be observed that the same word is used in reference to persons who are now held to involuntary servitude in the Territories and to those whom we are to have the right to take into the Territories from the States recognizing slavery. So that we submit this question of our right to slaves, when it reaches the Territories, to be tried under the common law, by courts appointed by the party entertaining the opinions I have described, and that without appeal. This is in regard to the Territories which we now own. What is the settlement provided for in regard to territory hereafter to be acquired? Here it is, in the third section:

Section 3. Neither the Constitution, nor any amendment thereof, shall be construed to give Congress power to regulate, abolish, or control, within any State, the relation established or recognized by the laws thereof touching persons held to labor or involuntary service therein, nor to interfere with or abolish involuntary service in the District of Columbia without the consent of Maryland, and without the consent of the owners, or making the owners who do not consent just compensation; nor the power to interfere with or prohibit Representatives and others from bringing with them, to the District of Columbia, retaining and taking away, persons so held to labor or service; nor the power to interfere with or abolish involuntary service in places under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States within those States and Territories where the same is established or recognized.

That is, they shall not prohibit it as to future acquired territory, where it is established or recognized. Will not the inference be claimed from such an expression, that where it is not established and not recognized, they may prohibit it? Will it not be said that the expression of one exception to the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories excludes the idea of an exception to that power when slavery is not recognized in the Territories?

Mr. COLLAMER:—If the gentleman will indulge me a moment, I desire to say that is a section declaring that Congress shall not abolish slavery in the dock-yards, &c., in the States where it is recognized. There is nothing in it about future acquired territory.

Mr. HUNTER:—This third section applies not only to present but to future acquired territory. It is not confined, like the first section, to the territory at present acquired. It is not confined to dock-yards and arsenals in the Territories and States. If the Senator will examine it, he will find that it is applied to all places where the United States have exclusive jurisdiction. "Exclusive jurisdiction" is the word. Will it not be claimed that they have exclusive jurisdiction in the Territories of the United States? Will not those who have the power to construe, and carry out their construction, so construe it? Will they not say it is a prohibition to Congress to prohibit slavery where it is recognized in the Territories or States, but not a denial of the right to prohibit slavery in Territories where it is not recognized by law, although that Territory may be vacant and uninhabited?

Mr. COLLAMER:—That clause of the section is, that Congress shall not have power—

"To interfere with or abolish involuntary service in places under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States within those States and Territories where the same is established or recognized."

That, so far as I have read, is confined only to where they have local jurisdiction in the States holding slaves.

Mr. HUNTER:—I thought so at first myself; but the Senator will find, on a further examination, I think, that he is mistaken. They shall not prohibit it wherever they have exclusive jurisdiction in places where slavery "is established or recognized." It is not confined to dock-yards, forts, and arsenals. Why should it be in the Territories? They have exclusive jurisdiction over the whole. There is reason for confining it to dock-yards in the States; but there is no reason for confining it to dock-yards, &c., in the Territories. But that is not the construction which will be given; the construction given to it will be, that they shall not prohibit it where they have exclusive jurisdiction, if it is recognized in such places; but if it be not recognized in such places, where they have exclusive jurisdiction, I say the inference will be drawn, plausibly, if not justly, that they shall have power to prohibit; and I say if this be so, then it is a power (so far as Mexican territories are concerned, if there should be any acquisition there) by which the South will be forever estopped; because there the Mexicans have abolished slavery, and there, under this clause giving in that territory exclusive jurisdiction, the party now controlling the Government would claim the right to prohibit it. And what a difference between our position then and our position now under the decision of the Supreme Court! Under the decision of that court, all the people of all the States have a right to go into the common territory with their institutions. It belongs to all in common, and Congress cannot prohibit them from taking their property there.

I say that those who have the power to carry out any construction they choose to give, would be interested in putting upon it the construction which I fear; and it would be difficult to raise an argument which they would deem conclusive against it. But take it the other way; suppose that the Senator from Vermont is right in his first supposition, that it was only meant to be applied to forts, arsenals, and dock-yards, then I ask what settlement does this proposition give us in regard to future acquired territories; what earthly settlement is it? We have all the old difficulties to encounter that we have to meet now, every one of them. We not only have all the old difficulties to encounter, but the slaveholder would have an additional obstacle which this first clause would put in his way. It requires that the right to slaves in the present territory shall be tried by the common law, and it might be said in court that the inferences drawn heretofore from those provisions of the Constitution recognizing slavery were to be overruled by the fact that the people in their latest action—by way of constitutional amendment—had introduced another rule in order to determine the status of those held to involuntary service or labor, and the consequence of that would be that the South never could acquire another foot of territory; that is, the few southern States who are left in the Union.

I am told that here is a provision that you cannot acquire territory except by the assent of a majority of the Senators from both sections. Does any man believe that the North, with its eighteen, soon to be twenty, or thirty, non-slaveholding States, would allow a majority of six, or seven, or eight slave States, that are now attached to them, to prevent them from acquiring any territory hereafter? Would they agree to such an amendment, in the first instance; and if they did, how long before they would change this restriction in the Constitution? Indeed, it is hardly to be supposed that they will agree to it in the first instance, so far as it regards the acquisition of territory; but of what avail would it be to the South? There is but one conceivable acquisition—I speak of possible things, and I hope gentlemen will not understand me as coveting my neighbor's goods, or desiring to lay violent hands on the property of any other States or nations—but, if things should so happen that we could rightfully acquire Cuba, under my view of the probable construction to be given to this clause, and because slavery there is recognized, Congress might be prevented from prohibiting it; but, everywhere else, the South would be shut out and excluded.

Then, sir, what would be its position? It would be prevented from acquiring any territory under this Government as an outlet for its slaves; and the only chance of securing that necessity of its condition would be to quit this Union and join the Southern Confederacy, which can acquire territory. It would be an inducement to disunion so strong as would almost force them to it.

Let us go a little further. Here is another clause holding out the same temptation:

"The foreign slave-trade is hereby forever prohibited, and it shall be the duty of Congress to pass laws to prevent the importation of slaves, coolies, or persons held to service or labor, into the United States and the Territories from places beyond the limits thereof."

This is to be the duty of Congress. As it now stands, it is in the power of Congress. When it was merely given as a power to Congress, was there a failure to execute that power? Do we not know that every State in the present Confederation has desired to suppress the African slave-trade? Some do it from sentiment and principle; some from interest; but there is a controlling motive with each and all of them. It is safe enough to leave it where it stood, giving Congress the power merely. Here you make it their duty. Suppose this case: the States that have left us have set up another Government, another Confederation; under this clause you forbid us to buy their slaves, to interchange and trade in slaves with them: what will be the consequence? They will exclude us from selling our slaves in their territory, and where then do we stand? If you should think it prudent, if you should think it politic, you would have no means, under this proposed amendment, of allowing that to be done between these two coterminous countries. Though it would be to the advantage of both Confederacies that there should be this interchange, you preclude Congress from allowing it; and then where would that place the border slave States? They would not be able to sell their slaves in the States further South; and if they carried them there, they would have to emigrate with them. You would thus prevent Congress from adopting a regulation which would make it possible for them to remain in this Union with safety, with advantage, to themselves. Why was this put in? Why not have left it where it stood, giving Congress the power, when we all know that there is no State in the present Confederation that would not exercise that power for the purpose of suppressing the slave-trade from Africa? This probably would constitute the only exception. Why shut ourselves out from allowing the exception?

But, Mr. President, my desire is to be brief; I do not want to consume the time of the Senate; I am merely endeavoring to state the points of objection as briefly as I can. Here is, at the close of it, another provision which, it seems to me, contains the seeds of civil war; and that is this: "Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States;" that is to say, Congress shall have power to pass laws to force the States to receive those persons whom they have excluded from police considerations—considerations of domestic safety. Yes, sir, to force the States to receive persons who would be dangerous to their peace; to force upon them, if you will, abolition lecturers; to force upon them persons whom they regard as the most dangerous emissaries that could be sent among them; to enable Congress to obtrude, in fact, into all the business of the States. That was not intended when the Constitution was framed, and never ought to have been. The present provision in regard to the rights of citizens in the several States, I regard as in the nature of an inter-treaty stipulation. It is a duty imposed on each State, for the violation of which there is no remedy; no remedy, unless the State aggrieved may resort sometimes to retaliation.

There are various things of that sort in the Constitution. Duties imposed upon the States, but without a remedy for the failure to execute them. No State shall keep a standing army; but suppose it does: what are you to do? Congress cannot remedy it; and it would not be right to give Congress the power to remedy it. You have to trust something to the sense of right and duty of the States themselves; and so it should be in regard to this matter of citizens. Suppose one State should say that the citizens of another should not sue in its courts; how is Congress to enforce their right? Is Congress to say they shall be allowed to sue, and that the Sheriffs and officers of the State shall execute the process? Is it proposed to allow Congress, by law, to interpose in all these delicate matters? Is it not far better to leave it to the sense of justice of the States—to their sense of duty and of honor? Have we not got along very well while we left it there? If there be any instances in which there have been exceptions, they are instances in which persons have been excluded on account of police considerations, deemed to be dangerous to the safety of the people who excluded them. Is it proposed so to amend the Constitution as to take from the people of the States this right of self-defence?

If we once introduced this as an amendment to the Constitution, what would become of the feeble southern States, six or seven (for Delaware can hardly be considered as a slave State), that would be left? Arkansas may conclude to secede when she shall determine finally upon her position in the Union. What would become of us in the hands of this powerful majority, who would pass what laws they pleased in regard to the introduction of their citizens among us, and the rights of those citizens to do as they pleased after they got there? Is it not obvious that these various changes would lead to endless discontents, to irreparable breaches between these States? Would you not certainly drive out the Border States? They would say, "If we go south, we ally ourselves to a homogeneous people; we shall have none of these difficulties; we have no reason to fear their citizens; we can grant all these privileges without the least difficulty or danger; we can send our slaves south from a country where they are not profitable, to one where they are; but if we stay here, we are forbidden to do any of these things; if we stay here, we are prevented from ever obtaining any outlet for our slave property." Will you not offer them the highest inducements, nay, will you not make it almost necessary for them to leave you, if you should adopt such a proposition as this?

Nor is that all, Mr. President. Our present Constitution—for I am comparing our position under it with that in which this would place us—in most of its difficult provisions has been expounded—expounded by the action of the State Governments, by the action of all the departments of the Federal Government. We have had legal interpretations in the decisions of the State and Federal courts. We have come almost to a point—indeed, I, who believe that the Dred Scott decision is law, think we have come to a point—where we have a legal exposition on the whole of these matters. Are we to be turned aside from that, to wander into a new sea of doubt and difficulty and ambiguity? No candid man can take this up and say it is not full of double constructions, full of ambiguities, giving ground for new quarrels between the sections, to new constructions of courts, to new lawsuits.

Mr. COLLAMER:—And to be perpetual.

Mr. HUNTER:—Yes, sir; and to be made perpetual. We cannot change them afterwards, if we want to do it. I can conceive nothing that would endanger what is left of this Union so much as the adoption of this proposition, although it has been produced by persons so eminent and so respectable as those who composed the Peace Congress.

I know that this measure does emanate from a body eminently patriotic and wise, entitled to the public deference and affection; and for their work I feel all possible respect. Against that work I will pronounce nothing except what the necessities of the occasion may require. But when the peace, the safety, the rights of the State which I seek to represent—when the peace of the whole country, as it seems to me, would be so seriously imperilled as it would be if this were adopted, I feel bound by a sense of what I owe to those who sent me here, bound by a sense of what I owe to those who have some respect for my opinions, to express them here on this occasion, and to give briefly the points and the heads upon which I differ from the conclusions of that Congress. Indeed, sir, before taking my seat, I may suggest a doubt whether I am in truth acting against any thing which they have really done. I was informed by a member of that Congress that they never did take a vote upon this proposed article, as a whole.

Mr. DOOLITTLE:—If the Senator will allow me, I beg leave to state that I was informed of the same fact by a distinguished member of the Convention; and I was further informed that the person who claims to be the secretary of the Convention was never elected as such. And there is another fact stated in the preamble that I know is not correctly stated: that the State of Wisconsin was in that Convention, or took any part in it. How many more mistakes there are in the preamble, I am unable to say.

Mr. HUNTER:—I believe it is certain that they never did take a vote on this article as a whole, but upon its separate sections. I think it equally probable that it could not have passed as a whole. That opinion was expressed to me by a member. As it did pass, I think there were three or four States not voting; and the States not voting were supposed to be against it. Under such circumstances, I do not know that this is to be taken as an expression of the will of that Congress. Further: I will say, in regard to myself, that a majority of the members from my own State voted against it, and were very decided in their opposition to it. They believed it was not such a proposition as the South could safely accept; and that majority, I believe, have returned home to express that opinion to the State Convention, and to give their reasons for it. Under all these circumstances, I have thought that I ought to present, as a counter proposition (believing that the people whom I represent cannot and ought not to accept these), resolutions upon which they have said they were willing to settle this controversy. I believe the State of Kentucky has declared the same thing. I understand the State of California has done likewise. I believe, though I may be mistaken, that Tennessee has said the same. The State of North Carolina has made the same declaration unanimously. To the last, I believe I may add Missouri.

Now, I am making a proposition to amend, by inserting the resolutions of the honorable Senator from Kentucky; upon which so many of the border slaveholding States have said they would settle the difference. Why not send them out to the States and the people? We know that some of them would settle on that. Why should we send out such a proposition as this, which there is every reason to believe they will not accept, and which will have the effect of dividing the conservative men of the North? Those northern men who are willing to settle on some proposition that would give satisfaction to the Border States, would just as soon vote for the Crittenden resolutions as for these, and some probably would prefer to do so. They will waste all their strength, and efforts, and energies, in going for a proposition which the South in the end will not accept, or at least which I do not believe they will accept, as there is every reason to suppose they will not accept it. Then, when we know there are propositions upon which so many of the Border States have said they would be willing to settle existing difficulties, why not submit them? I think, under such circumstances, notwithstanding the respect which I feel for the members composing the Peace Congress, my duty to my own State, whose Legislature has spoken in regard to it, and my sympathy with so many of the Southern States who have declared the same opinion, should induce me to present the proposition which they desire instead of one to which none of them have as yet given their adhesion, and to which I have no idea they will ever agree.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I suppose, Mr. President, not only out of deference to the Presiding Officer of this body, but because it seems to me to be entirely reasonable, that the decision of the Chair on the question of order which was made as to the admissibility of these amendments, was correct. The question which these amendments present, I think, is a question of consistency or inconsistency with the proceeding in which we are engaged, with the resolutions offered by the Peace Conference; and each member, in deciding ultimately upon the question for or against the proposed amendment, will consider that question of consistency or inconsistency, and regulate his vote accordingly. It is not, perhaps, strictly a question of order, to be decided on the consistency or inconsistency of amendments. So I take it. I am willing it should be decided by this body. Now, what is it? The proposed amendment contravenes the whole nature of the transaction, and changes its character. The representatives of twenty-one or twenty-two States—we will not make any question about Kansas; whether it be in or not, is not material—the representatives and delegates of over twenty States of the Union have recommended to us the adoption of certain amendments to the Constitution, which they say will arrest the troubles of the country and adjust those great differences which now so much threaten us; and they ask Congress to propose these amendments to the several States, according to the fifth article of the Constitution, for their adoption. These amendments have been submitted to us, and the question is, whether we will submit them to the States or not? That I take to be the specific and solitary question. This imposes no obligation on us to sanction these constitutional amendments by proposing them to the people. We can do as we please upon that point; but what is the question and the only question? It is not whether we ourselves will propose amendments to the Constitution, but whether we will propose to the people the amendments which this Convention has proposed to us. Now, that whole character is effaced, and a new character is given to the transaction, if any one of the amendments proposed by Senators be adopted.

Suppose these same States, by their Legislatures, had respectively recommended to us these particular and specific constitutional amendments, asking us to propose them according to the Constitution: would it have been proper for us then to undertake to amend their resolutions? It would be a different transaction altogether. In the one instance, out of respect to the States, we are proposing their resolutions; in the other case, we are proposing our own to the States. Now, the question here is, whether the resolutions have come to us with a sufficient sanction to constitute in our minds a reason for referring to the States the amendments which the States themselves have asked. That is all. It seems to my mind to be a clear question. They have asked us, they have requested us, to submit their resolutions, and not any others, to the States; and the question is, will we comply with their request, not whether we will fabricate amendments of our own and refer them to the people. They have asked of us to submit their proposals; and the question is, whether we will do it.

This amendment implies, in the first instance, that we will not do that, because the moment we adopt the amendment of the Senator from Virginia, that moment we say in effect, "We will not propose your recommendations to the people; while proposing our own, which we will substitute for yours." That is passing by this Convention altogether; it is negativing the States represented in it.

If gentlemen take this view it will be a sufficient reason, I trust, in itself, for voting against the proposed amendment. These propositions which the Convention has recommended may be such as we may refuse; it is in our power to refuse; but the question is, whether a recommendation, coming so sanctioned to us, is not, in itself, a sufficient reason why Congress, if disposed to satisfy the people, shall do the small act of presenting this to the people themselves, for their adoption. We may reject it, if we please. The people, when it is sent to them, will, of course, have the power to reject or adopt it. The only question now is, whether we will give the States an opportunity of saying whether this proposition is satisfactory or not.

Sir, I do not wish to occupy time; but I cannot perceive the justice of the criticisms made upon these resolutions of the Convention. They seem to me to be perspicuous and intelligible in every part and in every sentence. I do not see where the difficulty is to arise. Gentlemen need not tell us here, in respect to these resolutions, that a member of the Convention told them thus and so. No matter what a member of the Convention told this one or that one about the votes that were given, it is certified to us, in a formal manner, by the President of the Convention—himself a Virginian, and once a President of the United States—that this is the result of the proceedings of the Convention.

Mr. HUNTER:—If the Senator will allow me, I will state to him how that occurred. It was decided, as it will be seen when we get the Journal, that, according to some rules of the old Convention, they should not vote upon a proposition as a whole, but upon each particular provision. That was the rule of the Convention; and therefore he certified it as the Convention had instructed. The vote was taken only section by section, and the vote was never taken on it as a whole. There is no inconsistency between what I have said, and the certificate of the President of the Convention, because, according to the rules adopted by them, he had to certify it if it was adopted by sections, though it was not voted upon as a whole.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I suppose this remark is intended to annul the Convention, and discredit all their proceedings, though the Senate have received the letter of the President and Secretary as authentic evidence that this does contain the result of the deliberations and the proceedings of the body. I take it so, whatever a discontented member here and there may have said to the contrary notwithstanding. He may have said it all truly, for aught I know, but we must regard this as the authentic act of the Convention; otherwise it was nothing; and it is certified to us by the proper authority as its act, by the President of the Convention, with the request that we shall adopt it. It must have had, in some form or shape, the sanction of a majority of the Convention, or it could not have been so certified to us. How they voted, whether upon parts or the whole, they gave such votes as, they thought were necessary to ascertain the meaning of the body, and the expression of their will and opinion upon the subject. This is what they have done.

I do not stop to inquire whether I like these resolutions better than I do those proposed by myself, or the amendments now offered by the Senator from Virginia. We are near the close of our session. I have looked upon the proceedings of this great and eminent body of men as the best evidence of public opinion outside of this body, and of the wish and will of the States they represent. I am for peace. I am for compromise. I have not an opinion on the subject of what would be best that I would not be perfectly willing to sacrifice to obtain any reasonable measure of pacification that would satisfy the majority. I want to save the country and adjust our present difficulties. [Applause in the galleries.]

The Presiding Officer (Mr. Bright in the chair) called to order.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—That is what I want to do. That is the object I am aiming at. I attach no particular importance—I feel, at least, no selfish attachment—to any opinions I may have proclaimed on the subject heretofore. I proclaimed those opinions because I thought them right; but I am ready to sacrifice them, any and every one of them, to any more satisfactory proposition that can be offered. I look upon the resolutions proposed by this Convention as furnishing us, if not the last, the best hope of an adjustment; the best hope for the safety of the people and the preservation of the Government. I will not stop to cavil about the construction of these words; but I see none of the difficulties that suggest themselves to the mind of my friend from Virginia. Look at that third section, which has been the subject of his particular criticism. Every part and portion of it is a negation of power to Congress, and nothing else; and yet he has argued as if it gave Congress power; as if it conferred more power upon Congress. It leaves to the States all the rights they now have; all the remedies which they now have; and consists merely in a negation of power to Congress. How can that take away the rights of the people? How can that make our condition worse? I cannot possibly see. It is nothing but a negative from beginning to end, and therefore it cannot take away any thing from the people. It may take from Congress, but cannot take away from the States, or the people, any thing. It is a negative in its form and in its language, from beginning to end, that Congress shall have no power to do this, that, or the other. If they have that power under the present Constitution, it is taken away. That is all. It takes away no power from the States. It takes away no rights from individuals. Its simple office is the negation of power to Congress. That is all there is in it; and how, under that, can the gentleman find constructions which are to increase our difficulties and diminish our rights? He says the language will need construction. So does all language need construction. I do not see that this is particularly so.

Now, sir, the Senator offers my own proposition as an amendment to this. I shall vote against my own proposition here; I shall vote for this. [Applause in the galleries.]

Mr. MASON:—I shall be constrained to require that the galleries be cleared, if there be any further demonstrations in that quarter.

Mr. BAKER:—I hope the galleries will not be cleared. The admiration of a noble sentiment is never out of place.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—There is no motion to clear the galleries.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I shall vote for the amendments proposed by the Convention, and there I shall stand. That is the weapon offered now, and placed in my hand, by which, as I suppose, the Union of these States may be preserved; and I will not, out of any selfish preference for my own original opinions on this subject, sacrifice one idea or one particle of that hope. I go for the country; not for this resolution or that resolution, but any resolution, any proposition, that will pacify the country. Therefore, I vote against my own, to give place to a proposition which comes from an authority much higher than mine—from one hundred and thirty of the most eminent men of this country, out of which number a Senate might be selected that might well compare in point of talent and intellect and ability even with this honorable body. They have recommended this on arduous, laborious consultation with one another; through many difficulties, through many diversities of opinion, they have at last arrived at these conclusions, and sent them to us. Shall any Senator stand upon the little consideration, "this changes my resolution," and shall he compare that little atom of his production with the great end and object proposed to be attained for a whole nation? No, sir; not a moment. I believe our best hope of preservation is in adopting the resolutions proposed by this Convention, and I adhere to them against all amendments.

Mr. President, the only material or substantial change in respect to the first section of this proposed amendment from my first proposition is, that it omits all reference to territory hereafter acquired, limiting our consideration and our settlement to territory which we now have. When I first offered my resolutions, I explained somewhat in reference to that particular provision which related to future territory. I said that I wanted no more territory. Our great trouble now is from the magnitude of the territory which we have already acquired. New Mexico is one of our acquisitions, and what a subject of dispute it has been! I want no more acquisitions. My country is big enough, and great enough. I say that further acquisitions are dangerous. We have found them to be so. Our experience and our reason, then, unite in teaching us "to beware of that sin, ambition." National aggrandizement! I want no more. I proposed that, however, as the idea then was, that we wanted a settlement that was to last forever; to be eternal; to embrace the present and to embrace the future, with all its acquisitions, all its changes. Reflection since, and the arguments of others, I will say, have changed my opinion on that point. If they had not changed it, however, I should be ready here to sacrifice it and give it up, if thereby I could obtain the assent of any respectable portion of my countrymen to the propositions for peace. If we can settle in respect to what we have, in God's name let us do it; and if we are to have future acquisitions, let us leave the troubles they may bring upon us to a future day. We have enough for to-day. I do not object, therefore, to the first section of the proposition of the Convention, that it is confined to the territory which we now have. The adjustment which they have made varies but little in substance in regard to the territorial question, and the question of slavery as connected with it, from my original proposition. South of the line which we propose to establish, 36° 30´, you have no foot of territory left, but what is embraced in the Territory of New Mexico. In New Mexico, by law of the Territory—a constitutional law, a valid law of the Territory—slavery exists as fully and completely as the law can establish it, or has established it.

Now, this proposition is, that the status of things shall continue as it is until that Territory becomes a State; and when it becomes a State, let it dispose of the question of slavery as it chooses. There is no ambiguity about this. In substance, though in a different form of words, the same is expressed in my proposition. The proposition of the Convention is the same in substance, only omitting the words—a very proper and a very timely omission—supposed to be offensive in certain parts of the country, and substituting others that are equally well understood in all parts of the country, and which were less offensive to some.

Sir, now is the time for mediation; now is the time for pacification; now is the time to omit every word that can give offence or add to the irritation under which the country is. I desire, by the most moderate terms, by the most unoffending language, to reach some mode of adjustment that can give satisfaction to the whole country and reunite us all.

My friend from Virginia seems to apprehend that under these amendments we shall be worse off in respect to territory hereafter acquired. That is supposed to be sufficiently provided for and secured in the provision, that no future acquisition shall be made, by purchase or by treaty, except that treaty or that purchase be ratified by a majority of the Senators from the slaveholding States, as well as a majority of Senators from the non-slaveholding States. Does not this give the South a safe assurance, an assurance to be relied upon? My friend from Virginia says, however, do we believe the North, with its superior number, would submit to this provision of the Constitution? Why, sir, the Convention have had the caution to make this provision, if I understand them, irrepealable by any future amendment of the Constitution. There it stands, then, in the most solemn form that men can enter into any compact, in the most formal language by any terms that Government can establish, that all are bound by that provision of the Constitution which requires a majority from each section. When the gentleman asks whether we can believe for a moment that this law will be acquiesced in and adhered to, I say we must to some extent have confidence in one another, or all human society must lose its basis, not merely of government, but its foundation, and all society would be torn up at once by the roots. That confidence is the root of society; it is the root of all the associations of men in public or private life; it is the root and foundation of all government. What more can you have, what better security can you have than written, solemn terms upon any subject which is to regulate government? There is nothing more solemn among men, unless you would require angels to come down and make responses for them. Here you have the very highest security that can be given; and when any gentleman shall say these are not to be relied upon, he says there is no Government that stands upon any foundation that can be relied upon. Such an assertion strikes not at this provision; it strikes at the root of all government. What further security can be had? If our brethren of the other section were willing to give the highest possible security they could, what can they give more? Nothing. This argument, then, can avail nothing.

Mr. President, I have gone perhaps a little further than I ought to have done. It is not now necessary that I should enter into a vindication of every provision of these amendments offered by the Convention. It is sufficient to speak to the amendment which the gentleman has offered. Excluding territory hereafter to be acquired, I think, in substance, we ought to be satisfied with that; I believe that will make peace; I believe that will give substantial security to our rights, and to the rights which the Southern States claim. With that I am satisfied. It is enough for the dreadful occasion. It is the dreadful occasion that I want to get rid of. Rid me of this, rid the nation of this, and I am willing to take my chance for the future and meet the perils of every day that may come. Now is the appointed time upon which our destiny depends. Now is the emergency and exigency upon us. Let us provide for them. Save ourselves now, and trust to posterity and that Providence which has so long and so benignly guided this nation, to keep us from the further difficulties which in our national career may be in our way.

I prefer the propositions which the Convention have made to my own propositions, because I have no hope for my propositions. They have not been so fortunate as to receive the favor of my colleagues of the Senate from the North, the men whose sanction of them was necessary to give them effect. I transfer all my hopes of peace to these propositions and terms proposed by the Convention representing twenty-odd of the States of this Union—a large majority of all the States. I will not go into particulars about it; but since gentlemen have made some allusion to the out-of-door rumors and reports and sayings in respect to this Convention, I believe that perhaps a majority of those who voted for these amendments were men representing non-slaveholding States. I do not know the fact, and I will not state it, but I am under that impression now, and that impression encourages my hopes that the Senate, rather than see the country fall into ruin, fall into dismemberment, limb from limb, and blood flowing at the plucking out of every limb, will supply the remedy which is proposed. It seems to me proper and just. But little is asked, and great is the reward, and mighty are the consequences that are to flow from it.

Sir, I have occupied more of the time of the Senate on this particular question than I ought to have done.

Mr. MASON:—Mr. President, there is a very grave duty devolving upon the Senate on the proposition which is now before us. We are called upon, pursuant to the Constitution, to propose amendments to the Constitution. The fifth article of the Constitution says this:

"The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution."

Now, sir, I cannot agree, for one, to propose an amendment to this Constitution unless it has the sanction and the approbation of my judgment; and I suppose no other Senator will. I am bound, therefore, by every obligation of faith and honor to my State, when a proposition is submitted to the Senate as one that should be proposed to the States as an amendment to the Constitution, to examine it and understand it, and see it in all its bearings and effects, as far as my intellect will enable me, and to propose it or to withhold it by my vote, as I shall be guided by my judgment. I can see no other position of a Senator.

Now, sir, what are the facts? The country was convulsed by the success in the late presidential election of one of the political parties of the country. The tremor was evinced at once in all the Southern States, in a belief that their existence and their safety was imperilled by that election. Congress met. As was proper and necessary, the very first act in each House was to appoint a committee to take the condition of the country into consideration, and see if, by any mode of amendment to the Constitution, those perils could be avoided. A committee was raised in the collateral branch. A committee was raised in this Senate, I think upon the motion of the honorable Senator from Kentucky, actuated as he always is by principles of the highest patriotism. Those committees met. They remained in anxious deliberation for weeks. What was the result? They were unable to agree. I think the committee came before the Senate and admitted the fact. They could agree upon no form of amendment which they believed would remedy the evils and avert the perils under which the country suffered.

In that state of things, the Legislature of Virginia—my own honored State—having been called into special session on the 19th of January, passed a series of resolutions, one of which recites this:

"That on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia, an invitation is hereby extended to all such States, whether slaveholding or non-slaveholding, as are willing to unite with Virginia in an earnest effort to adjust the present unhappy controversies in the spirit in which the Constitution was originally formed, and consistently with its principles, so as to afford to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights."

That is the recital of the resolution of the Legislature of Virginia: "to afford to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights;" and there was a further provision, that, if those States should meet and agree upon any form of adjustment, it should be submitted to Congress. A number of the States—some twenty or twenty-one, it seems—some by their Legislatures, some by their Executives—met the invitation of Virginia, and deputed their commissioners to the conference in Washington, to see if they could agree upon a mode of adjustment. We have the report of that Conference before us now, presented through a committee of this body; and they propose an additional article to the Constitution. Mr. President, the honorable Senator from Kentucky, who has pronounced so deserved a eulogium upon that body, does not exceed me in the respect which I bear to it. If there be one more than another Senator upon whom it would devolve to treat the work of that Convention with peculiar respect, it would devolve upon me and my colleague, because they met at the invitation of my State. I yield to none in the respect which I bear to those gentlemen or to the purity of their motives in the results which they have attained in that Conference; but, sir, I am bound by my obligations to the Constitution, by my honor as a man, by my faith to my own State, to understand what they have done, and to exhibit it either in recommendation or disapproval, as my judgment may dictate. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri.

I admit no authority to bind my judgment as a representative of one of the States of the Union. I yield my respect to what they have done; but I will scan it, and if, in my honest, unbiased judgment, I cannot recommend it as an amendment to the Constitution, I am bound to withhold that recommendation, and to give the reasons for it.

As I have said, sir, the State of Virginia, finding that Congress was at a loss for a mode of adjustment, invited the States to send commissioners here for this purpose:

"To agree upon something which would afford to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights."

Virginia knew that, under the Constitution as it was interpreted under the constituted authorities of the country as they have been elected, there was no security for their rights; and it was in the hope of obtaining such a security—Congress failing to agree upon it—that, at her invitation, these gentlemen from the different States met here in conference. I am to look, therefore, to their work, and to see if it affords that security for their rights; and if I am satisfied in my own judgment, as I honestly am—and the reasons for which I am now to announce to the world—that it not only affords no security for the rights of the South, but takes away what little they have, I should be a traitor if I would recommend it as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Now, sir, let us look at it. It is presented as an entire article, to be the thirteenth article, if adopted, of the Constitution. The first section of it relates to the Territories—the great and difficult point of division between the two sections. If that could be overcome—if these rights that are spoken of in the resolutions of Virginia in the Territories could be guaranteed by adequate securities to the slaveholding States—I believe the rest of the path would be smooth. It embraces almost the whole controversy. What securities are provided in the Territories to the slaveholding States by this first section of the thirteenth article? It proposes to divide the present Territories—for it is confined to them—by an east and west line, a parallel of latitude. North of that line, there is a clear cut entirely, unsusceptible of misinterpretation. None can doubt what the condition of servitude is north of that line. It is a clear cut; it is prohibited, and prohibited forever. No interpretation can mistake it; no casuist can doubt upon it; it is a work well done. North of that line involuntary servitude, except for crime, is prohibited. How is it south? My honorable colleague, I think, has well said that, south of that line, for our rights, at best we are remitted to a lawsuit. I will read the language:

"Nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons—"

That is, persons held to service—

"from any of the States of this Union to said Territories, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation."

Neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature has power to interfere with the rights arising from the relation of master and servant, or master and slave. That is the meaning; that is clear. What next?

"But the same—"

The rights resulting from the relation of master and slave—

"shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law."

There is the security for the rights of the South. South of that line they are remitted to the courts under the common law. Now, sir, let us examine that. By this section, if it is adopted as an article of the Constitution, the common law, eo nomine, is made a part of the Constitution, so far as it affects the relations of master and slave. Now, what is the common law? Who is there upon this floor that will tell me what common law is meant by this section? With all my respect for the thorough knowledge and the legal acquirements of the honorable Senator from Kentucky, I know he cannot tell me what common law is meant by that first section. We know, as jurists, what is meant by the term common law, for it is a technical term. The common law is the law of England, the unwritten law of England, the lex non scripta. That is the common law in its legal acceptation. Is it, then, the law of England that is made a part of the Constitution, and to which the master is remitted for the security of his rights between him and his servant? Will any gentleman tell me that it is the common law of England that is to be made a part of the Constitution to which we are to be remitted? If it is the common law of England, is it the common law of England as it stands at this day, on the first of March, 1861?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—If my friend will allow me, I take it that that term applies only to the remedies known to the common law. The laws of the Territories are to be enforced, and the remedies under them are to be administered according to common law. The master is to have his rights according to the law of the Territory, and to secure those rights according to the common law.

Mr. MASON:—The language of the section is, that neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature shall interfere to impair the rights arising from this relation of master and slave; "but the same"—that is, this relation between master and slave—"shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law."

Now, the honorable Senator says that means only the remedy of the common law; that you are to take the law of the Territory, whatever it may be, and administer that, by confining it to the remedies known to the common law. I deny the interpretation. The Senator may be right, or I may be right. I say the text does not warrant the interpretation. The text refers to the rights in the relation of master and slave, and says they (those rights) shall be the subject of judicial cognizance, according to the course of common law. Now, I ask, what is the common law that is thus made a part of the Constitution for the subject to which it refers? Is it the law of England? There is no common law, that I am aware of, known to jurists as the law of England. There is no law in the State of Virginia, and, I presume, none in the State of Kentucky, known as common law. The State of Virginia, when it became independent as a colony of Great Britain, adopted and made its own that which before had been the common law of England, and therefore the common law of the colony. The State of Virginia (and I instance that only because I am familiar with it), when it became independent, adopted as its law the common law of England, as that common law stood at the commencement of the fourth year of James I.; and thereby, by statute, made that which had been the common law, the law of Virginia. Now, it is the law of Virginia, not because it is the common law, but because statutes made it the law of Virginia. But is the common law of Virginia, if you will call it by that name, the common law of Kentucky; or is the common law of Kentucky the common law of Missouri; or is the law of those three States, or any other State, now the common law of England? I demand to know, therefore, when we make the common law a part of the Constitution, if this enactment should prevail, what is meant by the common law? To that vague, grand residuum of judicial legislation we are to be remitted for our rights between master and slave, if this is enacted.

Now, sir, suppose it were so: my colleague has well said (and I will not repeat it after him, for I should only weaken it), that there is not one judicial interpreter or expounder of the common law, in any one of the free States, in reference to the relation of master and slave, that does not deny that the master has any property in his slave, at this day and this hour. Why, sir, what is the pending controversy between the State of Ohio, one of the free States, and the State of Kentucky, one of the slave States—a controversy depending here recently in the Supreme Court? The Governor of Kentucky demanded, under the Constitution, the rendition of a fugitive from justice, who had abducted a slave from Kentucky, and carried him into Ohio. The Governor of Ohio refused the demand, upon the ground that there could be no stealing of a man; that there could be no property in man; and that the slave, being a man, was not a subject of theft, of larceny; and he refused, and refuses up to this day, under the common law, to recognize the existence of property in man.

Now, take the common law of England at this day: here, within the last three or four weeks, the Queen's Bench, in England, has declared as the common law, that if a slave murders his master, or murders the agent of his master, in the attempt to recapture him, he is justified. That is the common law to which we are to be remitted for the rights resulting from the relations of master and slave. Sir, I have looked back a little to see what the common law was in England in this famous Somerset case, I find this in the argument of the counsel there, expounding the common law, which was afterwards sustained by Lord Mansfield in his decision:

"But it has been said by great authorities, though slavery, in its full extent, be incompatible with the natural rights of mankind, and the principles of good government, yet a moderate servitude may be tolerated, nay, sometimes must be maintained."

And again:

"There is now, at last, an attempt, and the first yet known, to introduce it [slavery] into England. Long and uninterrupted usage, from the origin of the common law, stands to oppose its revival."

And again:

"A new species has never arisen till now; for had it, remedies and powers there, would have been at law; therefore, the most violent presumption against it, is the silence of the laws, were there nothing more. It is very doubtful whether the laws of England will permit a man to bind himself by contract to serve for life; certainly will not suffer him to invest another man with despotism, nor prevent his own right to dispose of property."

And again:

"There are very few instances, few, indeed, of decisions as to slaves in this country. Two in Charles II., where it was adjudged trover would lie. Chamberlayne and Perrin, William III., trover brought for taking a negro slave; adjudged it would not lie. 4th Ann., action of trover; judgment by default. On arrest of judgment, resolved that trover would not lie. Such the determinations in all but two cases; and those the earliest, and disallowed by the subsequent decisions. Lord Holt: 'As soon as a slave enters England he becomes free.'"

In the opinion of the court, of Lord Mansfield, as to these principles of common law, that very distinguished and able judge, who made the law, as I understand, for the occasion, but certainly ruled it as the common law, says this:

"The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced for any reasons, moral or political; but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It's so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England."

I need not go back to authority. We have it abundantly in our own country, in all the free States, so far as I know, without exception. They deny what the amendment of my honorable friend from Kentucky affirms. They deny that there is property in a slave. The amendment of the Senator affirms there is property in a slave. This section is silent, ominously silent, portentously and potentially silent. It is not only silent, Mr. President, but when it refers you to that code of law which is to protect the right of the master to the slave, it refers you to the common law, and the common law to be expounded by the Federal courts, and the common law, which is judicially and historically known to the whole country, to be expounded in all the free States as one that denies that very property which we say must be secured. That is our position under this section. Sir, the State of Virginia has said that we must have adequate guarantees; and I am asked here to vote away what little guarantees we have. I am asked, almost in the high ethics or morals of revealed religion, when my adversary takes away my cloak, that I shall give him my coat also. I am required to do that by this section. We believe that our rights are secured under the present Constitution; we know that they have been withheld by the political party which has now come into power; we believe that they are insecure unless there are further and adequate guarantees; but, so far from their being proposed by the section before us, in my judgment, what little we have is taken away. Sir, I cannot vote for these propositions. I regret it. I was prepared, whether it had the approval of my judgment or not, to follow the instructions of my State, and to vote for the amendment offered by the honorable Senator from Kentucky after it had been modified, as was required by the resolutions of my State.

The amendment of the Senator from Kentucky was so modified, I do not know whether at the instance of Virginia or not; but it was modified by a vote of this Senate, so as to embrace what was required in the resolutions of Virginia. I am not at liberty to recommend, or, in the language of the Constitution, to propose to the States this section of the thirteenth article; because it not only withholds, but denies by withholding, any security, far less that security which the State of Virginia requires.

There are further provisions in this proposition that are objectionable, one of which was pointed out by my colleague: that which calls upon Congress to legislate on that clause of the Constitution which secures to the citizens of one State all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States. I need not say that any legislation on that subject by Congress would be any thing but the messenger of peace to which the honorable Senator from Kentucky looks. Why, sir, it has been found indispensable in slaveholding States, as a part of their police regulations, to punish all persons who were either of the State or otherwise, who tamper with the slaves, who have intercourse with them that is forbidden by law, far more those who preach to them sedition, or insurrection, or revolt; and yet, if we were to be controlled within the body of the State by Federal relations in our interior police, we should be completely at the mercy of the free States.

Mr. President, I should have been certainly gratified, if my honored State of Virginia had been successful in the mediation which she invited of all the States, with a view to agree upon an adjustment which would guaranty the rights of the South. I deeply deplore, and I doubt not my State will deplore, that that mediation has not been effected. So far from impugning any motives or purpose of that honorable and distinguished body, I doubt not that, in the short time that was allowed to them, they got together the best mode of adjustment which would satisfy their judgment, but which I am sure will not satisfy the judgment of the Southern States, but would place them in still greater peril, if they were to admit that to become a part of the Constitution. I did not intend to do more than state my objections to it as briefly as I could. I have done so temperately and without heat, I regret that I cannot, as one Senator, propose this as an amendment to the Constitution.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I wish only to reply for a single moment to the material objection urged by the Senator from Virginia. The portion of the article to which the Senator from Virginia objects, declares that the status of persons bound to service and labor shall remain unchanged; that neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature shall pass any law affecting the relation, or the rights growing out of the relation between master and servant—I do not pretend to recite the exact words; but that is the exact idea—well knowing that, according to the laws of the Territory, the status of slavery was fully established, and all the rights of the master in and to his servant established, as they exist in the State of Missouri, or the State of Virginia, by positive law of the Territory. It is therefore equivalent to saying that that law shall stand, when it says that the status shall continue unchanged. It then goes on to say (which I admit was altogether unnecessary) that the remedy for the violation of the rights of the master, whatever they might be, shall be had in the Federal courts, and according to the course of the common law. Now, sir, what right does this take away from any slaveholder? That law which secured and gave him a right, is declared to be unchangeable. That law acknowledges his property in any sense in which you please to take it, or in any sense in which it is applicable. It acknowledges it, and gives legal remedies for the violation of it; and in addition to all that, and, as I admit, by a sort of pleonasm of expression, it says that he shall have his remedy in the Federal court, according to the course of the common law.

Mr. MASON:—Will the Senator allow me a moment?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—Certainly.

Mr. MASON:—With the permission of the Senator I will put this proposition to him: He says that the meaning of the language, "according to the course of the common law," is confined to the remedy. Now, admitting that to be the case, for the sake of the argument, suppose, in one of these Territories, a slave is purloined, seduced, got away; the slave of A gets into the possession of B, and he is there at work for him upon his farm, or in his house, and A brings an action of trover to recover him; that is an action known to the common law; and the decision of the Federal court is, that trover lies only to recover property, and a slave is not property: what is the remedy? That is the decision in England; and I presume it would be the decision in the free States, if the suit were brought.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—It was to avoid going into definitions of that sort that this language was employed in the amendments of the Convention. They saw and had before them the law of New Mexico, which did acknowledge the existence of this right as fully as it is acknowledged by the law of Virginia. However it may be disputed here, however legal opinions may differ about it, the law of New Mexico established property in slaves; and there the law stands; and the Convention now comes and says that status shall remain unchanged.

Mr. BRAGG:—Oh, no.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—That is the resolution.

Mr. BRAGG:—Will the honorable Senator allow me a word, for I am very anxious to understand it?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—Certainly.

Mr. BRAGG:—The Senator says it provides that that law, the law of New Mexico, whatever it may be, shall remain unchanged, if I understand him, and that that fixes the status of slavery in the Territory. I call the attention of the Senator to the language. I think that only fixes the status of persons now in the Territory, and not those to be carried there hereafter—not the status of slavery, but the status of persons who are there now, held to service or labor, and not the status of those who are to be carried there in future. That is provided for in the language which it follows in another part.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—Here it is, sir:

"In all the present territory south of that line"—

Which I have explained, and which gentlemen admit to be embraced in the Territory of New Mexico—

"the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists."

It is not as to such slaves as are now there, but such slavery as now exists.

Mr. BRAGG:—If it said that, I admit that it would cover the status of slavery.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—It does say that. It seems to me that is the only construction that can be given to the language. It could not be intended to confine it to the twenty-six slaves that are now held there, especially when they provided, in a subsequent article, that it shall be lawful for any one to carry slaves there.

Mr. BRAGG:—Will the honorable Senator again allow me to interrupt him?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—Certainly.

Mr. BRAGG:—I have not the slightest doubt that a great many who voted for the proposition consider it as the Senator does. I have equally as little doubt that others intended it to mean precisely what I have stated. I cannot see, for my life, while they were framing a constitutional provision, why they did not place this matter beyond any sort of doubt. If they intended to recognize slavery, they could have said so in one word. If they intended not to recognize it, they could have said it in another word. If they intended to mystify and leave in doubt, then they have been very successful in accomplishing their purpose.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—"In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists;" not as they now exist; not in respect to those that are there now; but part of the same sort of slavery which now exists, shall continue to exist unchanged until the Territory becomes a State; and in the mean time persons shall be admitted to go into that Territory and carry their slaves with them. Now, I submit it to my honorable friend if it is not entirely improbable that any such construction as he suggests can prevail before any court that seeks to attain the real intention of the parties who made this proposition? It is such slavery as now exists. Persons held to that service—you may carry as many there as you please. Put them both together, and they would read so; and they being in the same instrument, can there be a doubt that ought to alarm us here, that the construction will be given to it which I place upon it, that it was intended not to be confined merely to persons now there and held to servitude, but as well to those who might be carried there hereafter? This is all I will say in reference to that; and I submit it to the candor and the judgment of my honorable friend from North Carolina, in which I have entire confidence, whatever result he may come to, that if we put the two propositions together, all doubt would seem to be removed.

Now, sir, my friend from Virginia will argue this question as if the question of slavery was to be decided according to the course of the common law, and then refers us to the express declarations and decisions as though the common law decided that slavery could not exist. What sort of construction would that make of this provision? Here they have provided that the law establishing slavery shall exist, that the property of the master in him shall be recognized as it is there established by law; and then the gentleman supposes that to be exactly contradictory, to refer to the common law as furnishing the rule of decision, which common law says there can be no property, as he interprets it, in man, and that when trover was brought for a slave—

Mr. MASON:—Not as I interpret it, but as interpreted in England.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I know that. He says it may be so interpreted; that when trover was brought for a slave in England, the judges decided there was no property in man. Could the same judges, sitting in a court in New Mexico, have given that decision when the law there established such property? In such a case, their decision must be different. They are referring, according to him, to two contradictory rules: one establishing slavery and acknowledging property in the master, and the other the common law denouncing and deciding against the right of property in man. This could not have been their intention, nor can this be the construction. We cannot consider these gentlemen to have changed their opinion from one sentence to another, to have left an incongruity and a contradiction expressed upon the face of the same section.

Nor, sir, do they refer—and that is my answer to my friend from Virginia—to the common law as furnishing the rule of decision at all. The proceedings shall be according to the course of the common law; that is all. If any violation is done to the rights of the master, he may sue; and, for his greater security, he may sue in the Federal courts; and, for greater security still, the law shall be administered according to the course of the common law. The common law is referred to as determining the mode of trial. We say according to the course of the civil law, and we say according to the course of the common law. What do we mean? We mean this marked and characteristic and essential difference: the course of the civil law is for the judge, without the intervention of a jury, to decide facts as well as the law. The common law takes away from the judge the power of deciding the facts, and demands a trial by jury. What this convention mean, therefore, by this provision is, that trial shall be by jury, according to the course of the common law. That is the explanation of the difficulty, and thus all doubt is removed. By these plain provisions—plain in themselves, and made plainer still by being taken with the context—they say you shall have your rule of right, according to the law of the Territory, which is in your favor as to the right to hold persons as property; that law shall be your security; you shall have a remedy for any violation of that right in the Federal courts, and you shall have that remedy, not according to the course of the civil law, in which the judge is to decide, who might be against you, but in which a jury shall be called to decide the fact according to the course of the common law. That is the whole of it.

Mr. MASON:—Mr. President—

Mr. POLK:—If the Senator will allow me, before the Senator from Kentucky sits down, I will ask him if the Mexican law establishes slavery, or if it does any thing more than to protect the right of the master to his slave? If that is the only establishment of it, then it is established by implication merely.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I really do not know whether the gentleman would consider it as establishing or merely protecting. I do not know that there is a law in any State of the Union that eo nomine establishes slavery; I do not know.

Mr. POLK:—The object of the inquiry was this: it has been contended heretofore that, by the law of Mexico, there could be no slavery there; and then there is another law of New Mexico professing to protect the right of property. I have never seen that New Mexican law.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I believe I have answered the gentleman as far as my information extends. I have examined that law. It is as strong in favor of the master as the laws of Kentucky or Missouri. I believe it is the law of Mississippi transcribed literally, verbatim. That is my understanding. The law is as complete on the subject as the law of any State that I know of.

Mr. MASON:—Mr. President, if the Senator from Kentucky is right, and, in the interpretation of this section, the courts are necessarily to consider the expression, "according to the course of the common law," to which slaveholders are referred for the enforcing of the relation of master and slave, as referring only to common law remedies, then I am at no loss to conceive, after our experience of judicial interpretation against slavery, by what sort of artificial and sophistic reasoning those judges of the Federal courts may feel themselves bound to withhold the remedy. Why, sir, are we to shut our ears and our eyes against experience passing before us every day? What is the present Constitution? The second section of the fourth article is in these words:

"A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime."

That is the text of the Constitution. What is the interpretation in the free States? In the State of Kentucky an African is property, under their laws and usages, and has been so for two hundred years; for it was so when it was a part of Virginia; and did it ever enter into the mind of man to conceive that this plain text of the Constitution would be resisted, upon the ground that property in man was not acknowledged? And yet it is done. If I am not mistaken, the honorable Senator from New York [Mr. Seward], not now in his seat, when Governor of New York, made that very question with the Governor of Virginia; and seeing this, are we to be willingly blind to this as the actual, judicial, and executive interpretation in every thing that affects the question of slavery as it stands in that section, and that, too, while we are seeking equality? Sir, it never entered into the mind of man, at the time this Constitution was formed, to credit that the time could ever come in the relations of these States when a man who fled from the State of Kentucky because he had stolen a negro into the State of Ohio, was screened from the operation of the Constitution, because in Ohio they do not deem a negro to be the subject of property; and yet that is the fact, the very issue now depending between those States; and we are asked to be blind, willingly blind, to all that experience at the very time we are attempting to secure a guarantee for violated rights!

Now, I said, Mr. President, that, if I were to tax my ingenuity, I might find a mode, even if the honorable Senator is right in ascribing to this clause of the section the necessary interpretation that it refers to remedies only. The Senator says the previous part of the section establishes the relation, as he construes it, not directly like the resolution of the honorable Senator which we offer here as an amendment, which establishes directly that there is property in slaves. This does not; but designedly avoids it; not from any improper motive—I do not ascribe that—but it is not only silent, but it avoids the very question. I suppose the honorable Senator is right in saying this language, judicial cognizance, according to the course of the common law, refers only to the remedy. Now, I tax my ingenuity to know how a court, in one of the free States, always leaning, of course, against slavery, would reason out that proposition, whether the remedy could be applied. Suppose an action of trover is brought. The inquiry would be, what is the remedy? We are told this is the remedy for which you are to apply to the law. A remedy is nothing in the world but a redress for wrong. Before you can apply the remedy, therefore, you must ascertain whether a wrong has been committed for which the remedy is adequate. Well, it comes from one side: the wrong was in taking the negro from the possession of the owner, against the local law of the Territory. The answer would be, "that may be true as far as the local law of the Territory is concerned; but here the Constitution adopts the common law as part of its text, and points the judges to the common law, and it applies the remedy." Now, the remedy is redress of the wrong, and we are bound to see that the wrong is one to which the remedy is applicable. The remedy is to recover property in the possession of one who is not entitled to it, and the common law, which applies that remedy to that wrong, says there is no wrong inflicted by taking the negro from the possession of his owner. It comes to that. It is suggested to me by the honorable Senator from Vermont [Mr. Collamer], that the common law, as a remedy, is one applicable to a common-law wrong. I do not say that the reasoning is just; I do not say that it is juridical; but I say, in our experience, we should be willingly blind if we take that for a security which will only be a snare.

Mr. PUGH:—Mr. President, it is very well known to the Senate that I prefer the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky, as a matter of individual choice, to the proposition which is proposed by the Peace Conference. Nevertheless, that Conference having been authorized, if not by Congress, at all events, so far as my State is concerned, by the act of her Legislature; and an overwhelming majority of the commissioners having agreed to this proposition as it stands, I shall hesitate very much in departing from it, whatever might be my individual opinion; but certainly if I thought the two Senators from Virginia had given it a correct interpretation, I should not agree to it. Now, as to this clause, it, in my judgment, had better have been omitted:

"The same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law."

I suggest that the common law is referred to as fixing a right simply. The course of the common law is a phrase defined for more than two hundred years, in Latin, in English, and in Norman French. It means the formula of proceeding. I understood the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason] to say that it had been decided in several of the courts that an action of trover could not be brought for a negro slave in England. I think I am familiar with the case. It is reported in Salkeld's Reports, Lord Raymond's Reports, and in the Modern Reports—the same case reported three times; but the same court which decided that trover would not lie, because trover included the idea of property in the man himself, in the same opinion said that trespass on the case would lie for the loss of the service; so that it was all a question of pleading, and no question of right at all. It is within my recollection—and I believe the case was brought to the Supreme Court on a writ of error, and can be found in Howard's Reports—that a citizen of Kentucky declared in trespass on the case for taking away his slaves, and added two counts in trover. What is trover but an action of trespass on the case? Nothing more; and it never was any thing more. The measure of damages is the same in both actions—the value of the service of the servant; and yet that controversy on mere pleading—which, in nine-tenths of the States of this Union, has ceased to be of any value, because they have a code of procedure, is made a terrific objection here.

Now, sir, I have never read the code of New Mexico, and I do not propose to read it; but it is perfectly understood that that Territorial Legislature, pursuing the privilege, if you call it privilege, conferred by the compromise measures of 1850, has established the relation of master and slave, or master and servant, as perfectly as it is established in any of the fifteen so-called slaveholding States. I do not admire this word "status" which we find in the report of the Peace Conference; but as to the meaning of that word, I cannot be in any doubt. It does not refer to any persons in particular; it refers to a legal relation of servitude as between master and servant, and it provides that that relation, or condition, or status, shall not be changed; that for all wrongs or controversies arising out of that there shall be a remedy through the Federal judiciary.

I can see why the commission made this distinction. There have been many who have insisted that the Congress of the United States should pass laws for the protection of the right of the master to the services of his slave in a Territory; but it has always been my opinion, that the worst thing the slaveholding States ever could have would be to have that; for there would be a perpetual controversy here from session to session, and from day to day, whether the law went far enough in giving protection or went too far; and they would be remitting their right to the adjudication of the Senators and Representatives from the non-slaveholding States. Others have insisted, as the propositions of my honorable friend from Kentucky provided, that the relation should be protected by the legislation of the territorial authority. I would rather it were so, individually, if they chose to establish it. The peace commission do not want that. They evidently do not want to quarrel with the Territorial Legislatures about the measure of legislation; but they declare the right, and then say that this right shall be enforced in the Federal judiciary according to the course of remedies and forms of the common law. I do not see how there can be a doubt; and yet, as I have said, it seems to me that a great deal of it is unnecessary verbiage. I do not mean to debate that; I am not one of the peace commissioners; I am not to select my words to express the idea; but I am here; and my State with other States, having appointed commissioners in view of a crisis like this, as they esteem it, and as I esteem it, and they having agreed upon a great variety of propositions, some of which commend themselves to my judgment and some do not; but taking it altogether as one proposition, I am satisfied that I must either vote for all of it, or let all of it fall. I would rather vote for the proposition of my honorable friend from Kentucky. I said that sixty days ago; and I have said it in season and out of season. I have expressed my views frequently. I think the proposition of the commissioners would be better expressed, though it would come to the same thing, in these words: "in all the territory south of that line, it is hereby declared that no law or regulation shall ever be made or have any effect denying or impairing the right of the inhabitants to the service or labor of such persons as were held in that condition in any State of the Union; and thence taken into the said Territory." That would have expressed my idea more clearly, yet I am satisfied with this; it amounts to that. Whether the word "status" be good Latin or good English, the meaning is very clear.

I believe I admonished the Senate two hours ago that time was very precious; and I shall not detain them myself.

Mr. BAKER:—Mr. President, I mean to vote for the passage of these proposed amendments, just as they are, without any change; and I propose to give very briefly a few of the reasons which govern my judgment in that act. I will do it as pointedly as I can, and I will certainly do it very briefly.

In the first place, I feel that I am but submitting to the people of the whole country, amendments which they, and they only, can incorporate in the present Constitution; and I do not believe that, in any state of the case, I can do very wrong in doing that; but when I consider the immediate condition of the country, I feel that I am doing very right. Twenty States assemble in what is called the Peace Convention. They recommend to us, in times of great trial and difficulty, the passage of these resolutions. They are eminent men; they are able men; they are—very many of them, at least—great men; they have been selected by the States which they respectively represent, because of their purity of character and ability. The country is in great trouble. Six States have seceded; and I am told by very many men in whom I have great confidence, that their States are to-day trembling in the balance. I believe it. I am told—and upon that subject I have not yet made up my mind—that the adoption of these measures by the people will heal the differences with the Border States. I do not believe that I can do wrong, therefore, in giving the people of the whole Union a chance to determine these questions.

In the beginning, I voted against the propositions of the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. Even then I did not perceive any great harm in submitting any propositions to the people of the United States which circumstances might appear to render necessary for any good purpose. I refused to vote for them, for two reasons: first, I believed something better might be attained; and second, I did not believe that the people of the States would agree to them. I do not believe that now, and for one simple reason: I think I may consider myself in some respect a representative of the opinion as well as the power of my own people. I am a Republican, a zealous and determined one. I have all my life been of the opinion that Congress ought not to protect slavery, and to extend the dominion of this Government for that purpose or with that possibility. A great many in the North, who are not Republicans, but are what we call Douglas men, have shown, at the last election, under something of trial and sacrifice, that they too, do not believe that the Constitution does or ought to extend slavery. I am not disposed to give up that opinion; I do not believe they are. I was not disposed to give up when six States were in the Union who are now out, as they say; and I am not disposed to give it up yet. Independently of pride of opinion, I do not believe that kind of sacrifice would accomplish any good result.

These are the reasons in brief which induced me to vote with regret against the propositions of the distinguished Senator from Kentucky in the earlier portion of this session. But now, we are within two days of adjournment. Propositions essentially variant in their character to those are submitted here; and I am asked: "Will you, in your representative capacity, submit these to your people for their decision, either to accept or reject?" Now, why not? I need not dwell upon the fact that, while we are a representative, we are at the same time a democratic Government. I will not shut my eyes to the fact that twenty States appeal to us; I will not shut my eyes to the fact that there is imminent danger of permanent dissolution; I will not shut my eyes to the fact that, though the Republican party is in a constitutional majority, it is not yet, and it never has been, in an actual majority; and I do not believe that it is possible for one-third of the people to coerce the opinion of two-thirds.

Mr. WILKINSON:—I wish to ask the gentleman a question.

Mr. BAKER:—Do, sir.

Mr. WILKINSON:—I understand him as saying that the whole of the twenty States which were assembled in this Peace Convention agreed to this proposition.

Mr. BAKER:—My distinguished friend was writing, instead of listening, when he understood that. I did not mean to say that, and I did not.

Mr. WILKINSON:—I understood the Senator to say that twenty States appealed to us.

Mr. BAKER:—Yes, sir; just as I say that the Government appeals to another Government, I do not say every individual in it; just as I say that Congress appeals to another Government, not every individual member of Congress; but I do say, in the words of the proposition before us, that "they," the Peace Convention, composed of the States recited, "have approved what is herewith submitted, and respectfully request that your honorable body will submit it to conventions in the States, as article thirteen of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States." That is all I said, or, at least, it is all I meant to say.

Now, sir, suppose every argument that the distinguished Senators from Virginia have brought to bear on this proposition was true: what then? Is that any reason why it should not be submitted to the people? Suppose they do not approve of it: what then? It is their business, not ours. Suppose they should: it is a measure of peace, of security, of union. Sir, I know, as you do, many of the members of that Convention. I have acted with them as Whigs in old times, and I wish they could come back. I know they have proved in old times, as they will prove again, that they love this Union to the very depth and core of their hearts. I do not propose to give them up; I do not propose to weaken them; I do admire, with my whole heart, the sacrifice of opinion which they make, and which is typified by the noble expression of the distinguished Senator from Kentucky to-day. Party or no party, North or no North, I, at least, will meet him half way. My State is very far distant. She had no members in that Convention. I do not know whether she will approve this measure; but I know it will neither hurt that State nor me to give her a chance to determine. I know very well that the Senators from Virginia do not approve it. That is the very reason I do. [Laughter.] If I was sure they would not think me guilty of disrespect, I would remind them of what was said by a distinguished man in old times. Phocion, in the last days of his Republic—and I hope in that respect, at least, there will be no parallel—Phocion was once making a speech to the Athenian people, and something he said excited very great applause. He turned around to gentlemen, friends near him, and said: "What foolish thing have I been saying, that these people praise me?" Sir, if Virginia, represented as she is to-day—not as I believe she really is—but if Virginia, represented as she is here to-day, and as she has been during this session, were to approve these propositions, I should doubt them very much indeed.

I was surprised, however, to hear some things that the distinguished Senator from Virginia—I do not know whether to call him junior or senior—said. I do not mean the Senator who spoke last. He [Mr. Hunter] says that this proposition here is worse than the old Constitution. If that be really so, what in the world has he been complaining of so bitterly? He tells us, now, that under the old Constitution slavery was secure. Then, why do you grumble? He considers it as secure, not only wherever it is, but wherever it can go—nay, more than that; wherever the Stars and Stripes of the American Republic can float. I have been telling my people that, as a Republican, for a long while, and complaining of the Dred Scott decision; but he says slavery is secured. All the complaint that the other Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason] makes, is against the decision of the courts in the free States we have been in the habit of making, which he insists are against the decision of the Supreme Court, constituted other than we wished it was. We have been in the habit of believing that one of the great evils we complained of was under the old Constitution, and that a new construction was given to it, alien to the intention, wish, construction, of our fathers; and we have complained that the Supreme Court was so constituted that it could not be reversed. We complained, as partisans, that now this Senate and the other House were so composed that we had no power in the Government, save through the President. Now, the Senator from Virginia indorses the whole of it, and says they were very well off, and did beautifully. Then why dissolve; why threaten; why make a Peace Conference necessary?

Mr. President, let us be just to these propositions. As a Republican, I give up something when I vote for them; but remember, sir, I am not voting for them now; I am only voting to submit them to my people; and I shall go before them, when the time comes, being governed in my opinion and advice as to whether they shall vote for them or not, as I see that Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Missouri, by their people, desire. To be frank, sir; if this proposition will suit the Border States, if there will be peace and union, and loyalty and brotherhood, with this, I will vote for it at the polls with all my heart and with all my soul; but if I see that the counsels of the Senators from Virginia shall prevail; if my noble friend from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson] shall be overwhelmed; if secession shall still grow in the public mind there; if they are determined, upon artificial causes of complaint, as I believe, still to unite their fate, their destiny, and their hope, with the extremest South, then, perceiving them to be of no avail, I shall refuse them. Therefore, at the polls at last, I shall be governed as an individual citizen by my conviction at the moment of what the ultimate result of these propositions will be; but I am not voting for that to-day. I am saying: "People of the United States, I submit it to you; twenty States demand it; the peace of the country requires it; there is dissolution in the very atmosphere; States have gone off; others threaten; the Queen of England upon her throne declares to the whole world her sympathy with our unfortunate condition; foreign Governments denote that there is danger to-day that the greatest Confederation the world has ever seen is to be parted in pieces, never to be reunited." Now, not what I wish, not what I want, not what I would have, but all that I can get, is before me. I know that I do no harm. If the people of Oregon do not like it, they can easily reject it. If the people of Pennsylvania will not have it, they can easily throw it aside. If they do not believe there is danger of dissolution, if they prefer dissolution, if they think they can compel fifteen States to remain in or come back, or if they believe they will not go out, let them reject it. I repeat again, it is their business, it is not mine.

But, sir, whether I vote for it at the polls or not, in voting for it here it may be said that I give up some of my principles. Mr. President, we sometimes mistake our opinions for our principles. I am appealed to often; it is said to me: "You believed in the Chicago platform." Suppose I did. "Well, this varies from the Chicago platform." Suppose it does. I stand to-day, as I believe, in the presence of greater events than those which attend the making of a President. I stand, as I believe, at least, in the presence of peace and war; and if it were true that I did violate the Chicago platform, the Chicago platform is not a Constitution of the United States to me. If events, if circumstances change, I will violate it, appealing to my conscience, to my country, and to my God, to justify me according to the motive. [Applause in the galleries.]

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Foster in the chair). Order will be preserved in the galleries, or they will be cleared.

Mr. BAKER:—Again, sir, let us see how, as a Republican, I give up any thing. First, suppose I did: I would give up a great deal to preserve a great Government; I would give up a great deal to be able to shake hands with Kentucky and Tennessee as friends for the rest of my life, as I have in all that has gone before. I would not be ashamed to give up. I would not at least be giving up to traitorous secession, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina are guilty of to-day; but I would be giving up to loyal and affectionate brethren, who implore me for the love of a common Union to do something to satisfy the doubts and fears of their people. I can stand that; I will do it.

Again, sir; how much do I give up? I have said, as a Republican, that Congress has the power to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States. I believe it to-day. Talking about giving up, there are a good many other people that give up something here. Gentlemen on the other side, who have been contending that Congress had no power whatever to prohibit slavery, acknowledge that they were mistaken; at any rate they go for it; they do prohibit it by law, by the Constitution itself. Therefore I am not the only one that gives up.

Again: I believe it is wrong, politically wrong—I am not now discussing the social and moral question—but I believe it to be politically very wrong to establish slavery in the name of freedom. Sir, twelve years ago or more, it was my fortune, perhaps, to wander in a foreign land beneath the Stars and Stripes of my country. I went there, as I think, impelled by motives of patriotism, perhaps having mingled with them not a little desire of adventure, love of change, and that feverish excitement for which we people of this country are always and everywhere remarkable; but I believe, if I know myself, that I did suppose I was doing something to repay the country for much that she had done for me. Sir, often and again, wandering sometimes beneath

"Where Orizaba's purpled summit shone,"

sometimes by the dark pestilential river that marks the boundary between the two countries, often and often have I wondered to myself whether I was wandering and suffering there to spread slavery over an unwilling people. I am not sorry to see that now that is rendered impossible. I am not sorry to see that it is impossible, first, in the course of events; but if it were not so, I know, if these propositions shall pass, that the foul blot of slavery never will be extended over one foot of territory to be stolen or conquered by the people of the United States.

But I am asked, "What do you say about New Mexico?" I will tell you in twenty words. I am an older Republican than many of those I see around me, who vote to-day differently from me; not a better but an older. I voted in 1850, on the floor of the other House, against the compromise measures of that year. I did so, among other reasons, because I was not willing that Utah and New Mexico should become slave or free according to the wishes of their people, believing as I did then (I have changed my opinion in some respects since), that that was not best for the whole country. Contrary to my wishes, those compromise measures prevailed. New Mexico is nominally now, I believe, a slave Territory; that is, to use the words of the distinguished Senator from New York [Mr. Seward], there are some twenty slaves in the whole Territory. There they may, they probably will, remain. I submit to my people a proposition, that if they approve it as a compromise, as a concession, for peace for the Union, as it happens that that little Territory includes all that possibly can be slave territory, they will let it alone till the people are able and willing to make their own State constitution. That is all. Do I state it fairly? Does it go beyond that?

First, I contend that I give up but little. I give it up, as I understand, for purposes of freedom; and the distinguished Senators from Virginia agree with me. They say, in substance, that I am getting a great deal more than I give; and I confess, taking that view of the subject, at least in part, I wonder that a good many more of my Republican friends do not go with me.

Again: it is said on the Republican side that we protect slavery. In one sense we do, and in another sense we do not. In the offensive idea to me and to you of protecting slavery, I do no such thing, and I would die first. When the resolutions of the Senator from Kentucky were up the other day, I voted for the amendment of the other Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Powell], in order to make them clear, to show what I was voting against. I was unwilling that territory hereafter to be acquired should be rendered slave territory; and I put that proposition distinctly in it, in order that when I voted against them, it might be seen why and how I did it. As I have said, this proposition renders that impossible. First, it refers only to the territory we now possess; that is, New Mexico alone. As to the territory north of 36° 30´, I need not speak. We know that God Almighty has registered a decree in Heaven that that shall never be slave. We, on our part, want no Wilmot proviso there; we all agree that we are willing to let it alone. South, there is but the barren Territory of New Mexico. Beyond that, who knows? If we are to acquire it, we are to acquire it by this proposition, by the assent of a majority of the States of both sections and two-thirds of the whole; and I do not know a man living who believes that with that proposition incorporated in the Constitution, slavery is probable, or even possible.

Therefore, Mr. President, I agree that in the compromise I, as a Republican, do give up to that extent, and no more, what I have said; but doing that, I believe that I consecrate all the territory between here and Cape Horn to freedom, with all its blessings, forever and forever.

So far, sir, as the discussion as to the meaning of this phrase about the common law is concerned, I do not care to indulge in it, and for this simple reason: first, according to the legal view of the Senator from Ohio, everybody knows that this expression, "the course of the common law," means the duly established forms of procedure known to the courts; that is all. In the next place, I am not afraid of the common law. I have been reared under it. With all its imperfections, and they are many, I love it. While it may be an objection to Virginia to quote it, to me it is full of guardianship and blessing. I do not stop to talk about the Somerset case, nor the decision in Salkeld, nor the Modern Reports. It is enough for me that I know, taking the whole proposition together, that slavery is impossible beyond where it now is, and, as a Republican, I can justify myself to my conscience in giving that vote.

Mr. President, I add very few more words. I should have been excessively pleased, as a partisan and a man, if the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln could be one at which all the States would attend with the old good feeling, and with the old good humor. I have seen six States separate themselves, as they say, from us, and form a new confederacy, with great pain and greater surprise. I cannot shut my eyes, if I would, to the existing state of things. I listen to the warning of my friend from Kentucky. I listen to the warning of my friend from Tennessee. I have been in both States. I know something of their people. I believe that there, even there, the Union is in danger; and I believe if we break up here without some attempt to reconcile them to us, and us to them, many of the predictions of friends and foes as to the danger will be accomplished. I said, in the earlier part of the session—I repeat it—I would yield nothing to secession. When the Representatives from South Carolina and Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana came here invoking war, telling us that if we did not yield to them they would secede, they would confederate with foreign Governments, they would break this Union, they would hold us as aliens and strangers and enemies, I believed then, as I believe now, that that was too dear a price to pay even for Union and peace; but to-day the case is altered. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, reiterate their love for the Union. They tell us in unmistakable terms that they desire to remain; and in every county, nay, in every township of those States, we have staunch and true and ardent friends who would be willing to seal their devotion to this Union with their blood. It is they to whose appeal I would listen. It is from them that I would take counsel and advice; and when they tell me, "pass these resolutions; they are resolutions of peace; submit them to your people; listen to what ours say in reply; if it appears to you at the polls that these resolutions will produce peace, restore union, create or renew fraternal, kindly feeling, pass them; let us settle this question, and be one people," I agree; with all my heart, I will do it.

Now, as I close, let me ask what evil; who will be hurt? Suppose, when I get home, I find that the Senators from Virginia are on the stump and they are convincing their people that they are a great deal worse off; the more they convince Virginia that she is worse off, the more Pennsylvania and New York will be convinced that they are better off; and every argument they make against it in Virginia will have a twofold weight North and West. I could not make half as good a speech in favor of these propositions of Union, even in Oregon, or California, or Illinois—I speak of the States I know best—as I should make if I were to read their objections to these propositions.

But suppose—which I do not think possible—they could succeed, not only in Virginia (which I do not believe), but in Kentucky and Tennessee; suppose they were to swear, by the throne of God, they would not take them, but would dissolve and go off whether we passed them or not: we could very easily refuse to vote for them and be in as good a condition as we are to-day, and, in the mean time, next Monday, Mr. Lincoln will be inaugurated. I desire to see around him thronging, nay forming the procession, every augury of hope and peace.

I expect to hear from his lips words of manly trust and confidence in the Union, and of concession, kindness to all its constituent parts. I have hoped that, in response to what he shall say, I shall hear from every part of what is now acknowledged everywhere yet as our Confederacy, a perpetual hymn of hope and praise rising from all parts of the Union; and, above all things else, I have hope and trust in time and patience. Therefore it is that I shall do no harm.

I know that there are very excited feelings upon this subject North and South. I understand that Massachusetts, an honored State—let me say, to qualify what I am going to say, first, that I believe that Massachusetts is the pattern of a community in the world; as well represented here as any State can be; representing herself better than anybody else can do it for her—I know that there are excited feelings in Massachusetts, and I think she has good cause. The act that more than any other else, perhaps, leads to this proposition of a Peace Convention—that "Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"—was an act which I abhorred and condemned from the beginning, and which I am not sorry to perceive that Massachusetts remembers now. Many gentlemen on the floor know to what I allude. On the other hand, South Carolina and Louisiana are ferocious for disunion; and I am afraid that their young men do want war. There is not excitement enough on the plantation and the farm, and in the streets of the towns; but they really want contest, excitement, and bloodshed. What they want I do not; I am trying to keep from it. I do not apprehend, therefore, that the sentiments which I have expressed here to-day will meet the approbation of the extreme men upon either side. I have no doubt my republicanism may be doubted. I think I can see in the look of my friend on my left now [Mr. King] that he has various convictions that I am very far from being sound in the faith. [Laughter.] Sir, it may be. I come from the midst of a people not directly concerned in this controversy; a population about half northern, half southern. We have intermarried together. Our interests, our fears, our hopes, our recollections, are mingled North and South; and I believe I am expressing their opinions—which perhaps form my own—when I say that I can see no possible harm to anybody anywhere in submitting these propositions to the people, who are, and ought to be, sovereign.

Besides, sir, what else can I do? As I sit down, let me ask Senators upon every side, what else can any of us do? Shall we sit here for three months, when petition, resolution, public meeting, speech, acclamation, tumult, is heard, seen, and felt on every side, and do nothing? Shall State after State go out, and not warn us of danger? Shall Senators and Representatives, patriotic, eloquent, venerable, tell us, again and again, of danger in their States, and we condescend to make no reply?

Sir, there is other business to be done here besides the mere ordinary business of the Government; besides the voting of supplies, and the raising of means by which to buy them. We have questions here to-day, as I believe, of peace and war, and I have waited long to see some mode of their solution. I repeat, I go for this proposition, and agree to submit it to the vote of the people, not because I believe it the best that can be done. I believe, however, that, to-day being two days from the close of this session, it is all I can do. When my people ask me, on my return, "Sir, have not States gone out?" I will say, "Yes." "Do not more threaten it?" if that is the word (I trust it is not the best one), I say, "Yes." They say, "Sir, do you believe they will do it?" "On my honor and on my conscience," I say, "if something is not done, yes." They then ask, "What have you done?" Mr. President, what have we done? I believe that is the question the country will ask of us; and I, for one, will vote for this proposition, that I may be able to respond.

Mr. GREEN:—Mr. President, I regard the consideration of this question as one of the most important which has ever been presented to the Senate since I have been a member of it. The Union is in danger; the fate of the country is at stake; and whatever the Senate or the House of Representatives or Congress combined can do, ought to be done to save the country. I have very little faith or hope, and I would express the reason why. But as little as there is, I will cling to the last remaining straw, and sink with it grasped fast in my hands, if I have no other resource. This country is of too much importance to me, to my family, to my friends, to my State, to my associates everywhere, to give up without a struggle. That struggle may prove to be fruitless; it may prove to be unavailing. The taunts and jeers thrown out are calculated to stir up ire and ill-feeling; I shall pass them by with disregard. I choose to sacrifice my feelings, and to make myself a burnt-offering on the altar, if I can do any thing to save the country.

What, then, shall we do? These propositions, presented by what is called the Peace Conference, are not to be compared to the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky; and I will not vote for a single one of them, while I will vote for his. They amount to a sacrifice of my honor, and a destruction of the rights of my State. I am permitted to say that the representatives from my State in the Peace Conference condemned them all, while they are willing to go for the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky. We cannot stand by this, and we will not.

Let us not deceive each other; let us not undertake to practice a system of deception which will sound pleasant to the ear, but will be bitter to the taste. I will not do it. Here is a positive prohibition of slavery north of 36° 30´, and then a doubtful question whether it is recognized south of 36° 30´. The Senator from Kentucky thinks it is; but I will not act upon a doubt. We have had too many doubts heretofore, and out of those doubts have grown many difficulties. I shall never permit, so far as my action is concerned, another question of doubt.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—Will the gentleman allow me to interrupt him? Did he understand me as admitting that it was a doubtful recognition of slavery?

Mr. GREEN:—Not at all. I said expressly that the Senator from Kentucky contended that it did amount to a recognition, but others denied it, and that made it a question of doubt. I will not misrepresent anybody if I know it. Now, sir, I will not act upon a question which admits of doubt. We have passed along in our career for so many years that we have arrived at a point when we must understand each other distinctly and unequivocally, and I will not leave a single point open to equivocation. It must be expressly settled, and settled not only in express words, not only in unmistakable language; but I go further than that; it must emanate from the hearts of a people disposed to stand by it; and if they will not stand by it, I will not associate with them.

I want to preserve this Union; I want to maintain the constitutional rights of all classes, North and South; but to give me a mere written guarantee on parchment, and file it in the office of the Secretary of State, with a predetermination in the hearts and minds of the northern people inculcated and instructed to violate it, I cannot live with, and I will not. I would rather go where I naturally belong, with southern men; but if the true-hearted, the patriotic, and the honorable portion of the North will reverse this inculcated spirit of hostility to southern institutions, and bring them up to the mark where they will recognize constitutional guarantees, then I say, "Hail, thou my brother, we can go together;" but never till that comes to pass. We have approached that period in our country's history when there should be no cheating or attempt to cheat. We must understand each other, and make a permanent, lasting Union, or a permanent, lasting, peaceful separation.

This proposition presented by the Peace Conference, as it is called, I think the merest twaddle—and I use the term with entire respect to the members—the merest twaddle that ever was presented to a thinking people. The proposition of the Senator from Kentucky has some sense in it. If he chooses to desert his own, I shall not complain of him; for I know that warm, patriotic impulses move him in all his action; but I cannot accept the other, and I shall vote against every one of its provisions. When it is said to me that the territory south of 36° 30´ has adopted slavery—that New Mexico has—I must reply to Senators that they misunderstand the law. New Mexico has never adopted slavery. New Mexico has done this: she has provided remedies for redress of wrongs, including wrongs affecting slave property; but she has never established slavery; nor has Utah. Utah has never even recognized it by implication. Utah passed a law of this character: apprentices bound to service for a period of years may be held there; but when their servitude has expired, according to their articles of apprenticeship, they are free; so that the law of Utah absolutely, if it has any effect, prohibits slavery.

Senators overlook these facts. I take the broad and the bold and the unmistakable ground, not that the Constitution establishes slavery anywhere, but that the Constitution, extending over a Territory, will protect me in all my rights not prohibited by a local competent authority; that my rights are to take any property which I own in any part of the Union, Yankee clocks from the North, polar bears from the Rocky Mountains, mules from the Middle States, and slaves from the South; and that, unless there is a competent local authority to prohibit my rights in these respective classes of property, I am to be protected. The second step is that there can be no local authority as long as the territorial condition remains, competent to prohibit slavery in any Territory.

These are my positions; and hence, so far from this extraordinary position that slavery is local being true, the reverse is true. It may be local in the United States, but so far from its being local to the Territory in the United States, the reverse is true. Talk about freedom being national, and slavery local! I have a right to pass through Pennsylvania, and my right of transit is as perfect this day as it was when Pennsylvania was a slave State....

I have been anxious from the beginning of this session to stave off public action, to hold the public pulse still, and give an opportunity for reaction of northern sentiment. I want no reaction south. It has been my only hope, and my last hope, and that hope has failed....

These resolutions are intended to lull old Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, until we are hand-cuffed and tied fast, and then action is to commence. They are all designed simply to lull us into a fancied security; but if we are wise betimes, and look forward to coming events, we will at once strike the blow, and separate from a Confederation which denies us peace, denies us protection, denies us our constitutional rights, and seek them in some other association of States....

Now, Mr. President, I want all these propositions voted down, and I hope my friend from Kentucky will revive his propositions and bring them up again. There is some vitality in them; there is some point in them; but as for these wishy-washy resolutions, that amount to nothing, it is impossible that any Senator here will, for a moment, entertain the idea of supporting them. The Peace Conference! And the smallest peace that ever I have heard of. Let the Senator adhere to his original propositions; let the Senator bring them up and press them upon the attention of the Senate. That is as far backing down as I will go. It is a little more than I want; but still, as a last effort to save the Union, I would go that far. Talk about these measures! These measures that have no vitality—these measures that amount to a total surrender of every principle—I never will vote for; and let the consequences of the future be what they may, I stake my faith and reputation upon the vote I intend to cast.

Mr. WADE:—I move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. LANE:—I hope the Senator will give me the floor before he makes that motion.

Mr. TRUMBULL:—I ask the Senator from Oregon to yield to me a moment.

Mr. LANE:—For a motion to adjourn, I will.

Mr. TRUMBULL:—Yes, sir; I desire the floor with a view to make that motion. It is apparent that no good is to come out of the discussion of the proceedings of this Peace Conference. It is a proposition got up for the purpose of satisfying the Border States; and the Border States, Missouri and Virginia, say they will have none of it. The first section is a proposition establishing slavery—

Mr. MASON:—I rise to a question of order.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Senator from Illinois will pause. The Senator from Virginia rises to a question of order, which he will state.

Mr. MASON:—I understand the motion to adjourn has been made.

Mr. TRUMBULL:—I have not made the motion yet. I stated that I would make that motion, and I was merely going to give the reason. The Senator from Oregon will have the floor to-morrow. I was stating the reason why I should make the motion to adjourn, which I intend to make in the course of a minute, and I merely made that statement to show that there was no object in sitting here and punishing ourselves in regard to resolutions which manifestly cannot command the assent of this body. I now move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—I call for the yeas and nays on that motion.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

And the Senate refused to adjourn, and, for special business, the peace propositions were set aside. The same day they were introduced, as follows:

Mr. LANE:—Mr. President, my object in getting the floor, was to give the reason why I cannot vote for the resolution now before the Senate. You are aware, sir, that I did vote for the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky to amend the Constitution, with the hope, if they could be adopted, that peace, perhaps, might be restored to the country; but those propositions have been superseded, and the Senator from Kentucky himself says that he is willing to sacrifice, on the altar of his country, as he terms it, his own propositions, and take the amendments which are proposed to the Constitution presented by the Peace Congress to the Senate. The resolutions proposed by the distinguished Senator from Kentucky were as low down as I could go. They did not secure to every State that right they have under the Constitution, as I understand it; but the resolution now before the Senate, to speak modestly, as I look at it, with all due respect to the great men who met here to consider this matter, who deliberated for many days, and presented this as the result of their deliberations, is a cheat, a deception, a humbug—nothing that any State can take as a final settlement of the questions that are now giving trouble to this country, nothing that can settle permanently those difficulties. We must have something more definite, something more certain, or there can be no Union even of the States that now remain in the Union, as I believe.

Mr. GREEN:—Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—Does the Senator from Oregon give way?

Mr. LANE:—Only for an adjournment.

Mr. GREEN:—I rise to make that motion, that the Senate do now adjourn.

So the motion was agreed to; and the Senate by a vote—23 to 22—adjourned.

March 2d.—Senator Lane having secured the floor, made the following speech on the report of the Peace Conference:

Mr. LANE:—Mr. President, I hope I shall be permitted to proceed without interruption, and I trust not to consume much time. While I had the floor yesterday, I stated some of my objections to the proposed amendments to the Constitution which are now before us. They are: that they do not do justice to the whole country—that they do not do justice to all the States. I have always held that the territory is common property; that it belongs to all the States; that every citizen of every State has an equal right to emigrate to, and settle in, the common Territories; and that any species of property, recognized as such in any State of the Confederacy, should have a like recognition in the Territories, and be guaranteed, protected, and secured in its full integrity, to the owner thereof. That this should be so, was the intent of the revolutionary fathers who shaped and framed the Constitution; and it was this principle, more, perhaps, than any other, which called into being that noble compact, which has so long been a bond of Union and goodness between all the States. It is the very life-blood and vitality of the Constitution. It is the ligament that has held us together heretofore, and which, if cut now, will result only in hopeless and immutable disruption. I have never deviated a single iota from this correct doctrine. Had we lived up to this equitable principle—the foundation upon which the Constitution rests, upon which only this Union can be maintained—we should have had no trouble in this country to-day. It is not my fault that trouble and dissatisfaction prevail; it is not my fault that secession has taken place, and that further secession will take place, unless Congress shall recognize this great principle of justice, of right, and of equality. That is the doctrine upon which this Union rests; and it must be maintained, or the connection will be severed.

While upon this question, Mr. President, I may be permitted to allude to my course in the Senate last session, and I shall do so very briefly, upon a series of resolutions introduced by the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis]—a series of resolutions that were considered in this body, after having been previously maturely and deliberately adopted by a caucus composed of the Democratic Senators, and agreed upon by them, as setting forth the principles necessary to be maintained in order to secure the existence and perpetuity of this Confederacy. It has been charged upon this floor that, on the 25th day of May last, I voted against the right of protection to slave property in the Territories. In order that the Senate may know how I voted, and that I may show you and every other man that I stood then as I stand to-day, and as I have always stood upon this question, I will read some short extracts from the discussion upon this series of resolutions. The fourth resolution was in these words:

"Resolved, That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect and unfriendly nature, possesses the power to annul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common Territories, but it is the duty of the Federal Government there to afford for that, as for other species of property, the needful protection; and if experience should at any time prove that the judiciary does not possess power to insure adequate protection, it will then become the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency."

Now mark! this resolution states that all the property of all the people of any State, whether slave or otherwise, has an equal right to protection; and if experience should at any time prove that the courts had not the power to afford that protection, then it was the duty of Congress to enact such laws as were necessary to protect every man in his legal and rightful property, no matter of what description or characteristic. Sir, not long since, upon this floor, a Senator was hardy enough to say that I voted against protecting property in Territories; and he desired to know what had happened that States should be concerned; what had occurred to alarm the States that were seceding from the Union? I will show you, sir, very briefly, what I said upon that question then; and I will repeat it now, for I have never changed my sentiments on this subject. No living man can assert, and in so doing tell the truth, that I ever uttered a word against the equality of the States, and their equal right in the common territory of our common country; and any charge that I voted then to refuse protection to property in the territory is false. I have always held that the territory belonged to all; that it was acquired, as I knew, at the expense of the Southern States as well as of the Northern; and upon the battle-fields where I had witnessed the good conduct of Northern and Southern troops, I found the soldier from the Southern States pouring out his blood as freely, and certainly in very much larger quantity—for there were very many more from the Southern States who participated in the battles of our country in the war which resulted in the acquisition of territory, than there were from the Northern States. Then, so far as the acquisition is concerned, it is joint, and it was for the joint benefit of all portions of the country. Consequently, I have held, and I hold now, that the Territories should be so appropriated. And when those resolutions were up last winter, I said what I will now read:

"I only desire to say, in relation to the series of resolutions, a portion of which I have already voted in favor of, that I shall vote in favor of the rest; for the whole of them together meet with my hearty approbation. They assert the truth; they assert the great principle that the constitutional rights of the States are equal; that the States have equal rights in this country under the Constitution; and, as I understand it, they must be maintained in that equality. These resolutions only assert that principle; and I say that it is a misfortune to the country, in my opinion, that the principles laid down in these resolutions had not been asserted sooner. They ought to have been asserted by the Democratic party in plain English ten years ago. If they had been, you would have had no trouble in this country to-day; the Democratic party would have been united and strong, and the equality and constitutional rights of the States would have been maintained in the territory, and in all other things; squatter-sovereignty would not have been heard of, and to-day we should be united. It is the fault of the Democratic party in dodging truth, in dodging principle, in dodging the Constitution itself, that has brought the trouble upon the country and the party that is experienced to-day."

I believe, if we had asserted and maintained these great truths ten years ago, and placed ourselves upon them boldly, as it was our duty to have done, we would have no trouble in this country to-day; but instead of declaring the great truths enunciated in these resolutions, we went off upon issues unbecoming the Democratic party. A portion of our leaders wandered and went astray, and asserted that the people of a Territory had the right to prohibit slavery whenever, in their judgment, it ought to be prohibited; a power which Congress even does not possess, and consequently cannot confer upon a Territorial Legislature, unless the creature becomes greater than the creator. It was this kind of trouble, and this sort of heresy introduced into the Democratic party, that has broken it up, and brought the disasters upon our country which we experience to-day. I say, then, let the blame fall upon the guilty; I am innocent of it; for I have held but one doctrine upon this question from the beginning to the present hour, and I shall hold that doctrine to the end. In the speech from which I have already read, I also used the following language:

"Sir, it appears to me to be very singular indeed, that any man can hold that the territory of this country belongs to a portion of the people, and that the people of one portion of the Union can go there and enjoy their property, when the people of another portion cannot enjoy the right of property in that territory—territory common to the whole country; territory that was earned or acquired by the common blood and common treasure of all; territory that is sustained by the common treasure of all; and to say that all shall not have an equal right there, is to deny a fact so plain, a principle so just, a right so manifest, that I can hardly see how any man who professes to be a Democrat can deny it, or how he can attempt to embarrass the adoption of the correct principles announced in these resolutions. I shall therefore vote against all the amendments, and every thing that is offered to obstruct their passage, upon the ground that they assert justice, that they assert truth, that they assert the equality and constitutional rights of all the States, which principle must be maintained, or this Union cannot be preserved."

That was my doctrine then, it is the doctrine which I have held and advocated for twenty years. It is the doctrine I hold now; and I so notified the Senator from Tennessee, who arraigned me here as voting against protecting property, and who did me willful and gross injustice in it—for I voted for it and he voted against it. That is to say, I voted against the resolution introduced by Mr. Clingman, declaring "that slave property did not need protection in the Territories," while the Senator from Tennessee voted for it; and when the motion was made to reconsider the vote adopting it in lieu of the fourth resolution of the Davis series, I voted to reconsider, and the Senator from Tennessee voted against it, showing clearly that he was against affording that protection to slave property which the fourth resolution provided for. Did I not maintain the truth? Was I not prophetic in the announcement that I made in this Senate Chamber then? I said, that unless this great principle of justice, of equality, of the right of every man to the common territory should be maintained, this Union would be broken up. This great principle has not been maintained, but the Union has been destroyed.

But, sir, to go to the votes. It will be borne in mind, and every Senator on this floor will bear me out in my statement, that while the Davis resolutions—the series of which I speak—were up, various propositions were made to amend them, and I voted against all amendments. There are Senators here at this moment who will sustain me when I say that, when in caucus and we had under consideration this series of resolutions, I said, and said it boldly and in plain terms, that if every man from every Southern State of this Union would come here and say, for the sake of peace, if you please, or any other reason, he was willing to abandon his equality, his right in the common territory, then, if alone, I would stand and protest against it; protest that he had no right to surrender a constitutional right; that none but a coward would do it; that every man had a right in the common territory; that it was his privilege, and he should never surrender it with my permission. On the other hand, I said that if every Northern man in the Senate Chamber—nay, but even every Northern citizen—expressed a desire to surrender his right, his equality, his privilege, to go to the common Territories with his property, I should enter my solemn protest against it, and insist that he had a constitutional right to go there, which he should never surrender with my consent. Then, how any man could assert that I ever entertained the opinion that slavery did not need protection from aggression, is to me the strangest, falsest thing in nature. I said, as I have shown you, that I had voted against all amendments, and would continue to vote against all amendments, or any attempt whatsoever calculated to obstruct the passage of the resolutions; for they asserted the right of the people to go to the Territories, asserted the power of the court to protect them in the possession of their property, and that if the court failed to protect them, Congress should afford the necessary authority to do so.

But, sir, allow me to observe, there was a resolution that I never voted for, and that no man can charge me with ever having voted for. Senators will recollect—and whoever has read the proceedings of the Senate will recollect—that an amendment was offered as a substitute to the fourth resolution, in these words:

"That the existing condition of the Territories does not require the intervention of Congress for the protection of property in slaves."

I did not vote for that resolution; but the Senator from Tennessee did. That amendment was adopted in lieu of the fourth resolution of the series that I have read, which insured protection to slave property in the Territories. It was adopted not entirely by Democratic votes; and that there may be no mistake, I will read what the Senator from Massachusetts said when he moved a reconsideration:

"I wish simply to say that I voted for that resolution because I believed the condition of the Territories requires no such law now or ever, and I do not believe in the enactment of any such law; but my friends on this side of the Chamber have put that resolution in the series; and for myself, I do not wish to be responsible for any portion of these resolutions, and I therefore wish the vote to be reconsidered."

This was the language of the Senator from Massachusetts, when he found that the Republicans, united with some Democrats, had stricken out the fourth resolution of the series, and inserted this as a substitute. I said to Mr. Wilson on that occasion:

"I desire merely to tender my thanks to the honorable Senator from Massachusetts. The series of resolutions, as introduced by the honorable Senator from Mississippi, are germane one to the other. They are a declaration of principles by the Democratic party. This amendment, as the Senator has said correctly, has been fastened on the Democratic resolutions by the votes of the Republican Senators. I feel grateful, indeed, to the Senator for making the motion to reconsider. I hope the vote will be reconsidered, and the resolution voted down."

The motion was put, and on the yeas and nays the vote was reconsidered. I voted for the reconsideration, and I voted against the amendment when it was adopted as a substitute for the fourth resolution. Among those who voted in the affirmative for reconsideration were Messrs. Benjamin, Brown, Chesnut, Clay, Davis, Fitzpatrick, Green, Gwin, Hammond, Harlan, Hunter, Iverson, Johnson of Arkansas, and Lane. Among those who voted against it, I find Johnson of Tennessee. I did not vote to continue in the series a resolution that refused protection to all the people in the common Territories. Portions of the Journal have been paraded to show the vote on Mr. Brown's amendment to Mr. Clingman's amendment. I said, in several speeches, that I should vote against all amendments, because the series had been considered not only here, but in a caucus composed of the Democratic Senators of this body, and we had agreed to take them as a whole, and to vote them through altogether if we had the strength to do so. I voted against every proposition to amend. I voted against Mr. Brown's, and I voted against Mr. Clingman's, and I voted against every other amendment that was calculated to weaken or embarrass the passage of the resolutions. Yet I am represented here as having voted against affording protection to slave property in the Territories! I ask again, if any Senator, if any man who can read, can say that the fourth resolution, for which I did vote and for which I struggled and contended, does not declare that slave property shall be protected in the common Territories of our country.

Could any thing be stronger than the fourth resolution? Could any man desire a more direct declaration of principles than that? Upon the yeas and nays I voted for it. I voted against the amendment that was adopted, and afterwards reconsidered. How, then, can a man arraign me before the country as having said upon oath, on the 25th of May last, that slave property should not be protected in the common Territories with other property? I have always held that all property should be protected, slave as well as other property; that it should have the same protection as, and no more protection than any other property. That they do not secure all this, is the objection I have to the amendments to the Constitution proposed by the Peace Conference. They are ambiguous, loose, and deceptive. I do not know that the people can comprehend them. There will be no certainty under them; and they would, if adopted, result in endless trouble and litigation. I trust no amendments will ever be made to the Constitution, unless they are made upon principles of right, justice, and equality, so that there can be no mistake in construing them hereafter. If we amend the Constitution, let us do it with a view to the peace of the country, with a view to the harmony of the country, with a view to the security of every interest, and of every State in the Union. If we could do that, and this day amend the Constitution so as to provide expressly that every State should have equal rights in the Territories and elsewhere within the Union, this Confederacy would last forever, the States that have left us would come back, and we should have then a great and a lasting Union indeed. Without it, we never can have a permanent Union. We must do something that is clearly right, or the States that have left us will never return. They never ought to return, unless they can have the right of equality secured to them by the Constitution. I claim for my State just that which she is entitled to, and not a particle more. I would concede to the Southern States, that to which they are entitled, and not a particle more. That, they must have, or there can be no peace, no union, no harmony, no security, and no perpetuity of this Confederacy. Such amendments to the Constitution, securing these objects and principles, are indispensable to the maintenance of the Government as it was formed.

Then why not do right? Why not every southern man ask just that which he is entitled to, and no more? He ought to be content with nothing short of what he is entitled to; and if he be, he is untrue to his section and his constituents; untrue to the people whose servant he is; and untrue to the institutions of the country; for the country can exist only upon the triumph of such principles. He who is unwilling to deal fairly by the North and the South, is a man who is guilty of shattering and ruining the Confederacy; destroying the peace and harmony and success of this great experiment of ours.

Mr. President, in the State of Connecticut the Democracy assert the correct principle, and they charge the trouble in the country to the right quarter. I stated, on a former occasion, that the Democracy of old Connecticut would never join the Republican party in any attempt to coerce the Southern States; and I am now authorized by their own declaration to say again, what I said before, that they, like the Democracy of Oregon and of every other Northern State, will never join a party that has refused justice; that has refused equality and right; that has refused to protect property in the Territories, or wherever the jurisdiction of the United States extends, in putting down those who contended for their rights and for the equality to which they were entitled. Sir, the loyal Democracy of this country fully understand the question, and they assert the right.

Now, sir, these great principles were not carried out. The platform on which the Democracy presented their candidates for President and Vice-President was not heeded, though based upon the Constitution. I will say to the Senator who has boasted of his efforts in Tennessee in behalf of the Breckinridge ticket, that I shall notice that hereafter; but I have only to say now, that, for the sake of the country, I would to God the ticket had succeeded. We should then have had those principles endorsed upon which the Government is established, and the country would have been at peace. For that alone I wished it to succeed.

I will say only a word, now, as to the amendments proposed to the Constitution. I had the pleasure of listening, yesterday, to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. I know his patriotism and his devotion to the Union. I know his willingness to take any thing, however small, however trifling, however little it might be, that would, in his opinion, give peace to the country. Sir, I am actuated by no such feeling. We should never compromise principle nor sacrifice the eternal foundations of justice. Whenever the Democratic party compromised principle it laid the foundation of future troubles for itself and for the country. When we do, then, amend the Constitution, it ought to be in the spirit of right and justice to all men and to all sections. I voted for the Senator's propositions, and I will do so again, if we can get a vote, because there is something in them; something that I could stand by; but there is nothing in the amendments proposed by the Peace Conference. He proposed to establish the line of 36° 30´, and to prohibit slavery north of it and protect it south of it, in all the present territory, or of the territory to be hereafter acquired. In that proposition there was something like justice and right; but there is nothing in the amendments proposed by the Peace Conference that any man, North or South, ought to take. They are a cheat; they are a deception; they are a fraud; they hold out a false idea; and I think, with all due respect to the Senator—for I have the highest regard for him personally—that he is too anxious to heal the trouble that exists in the country. He had better place himself upon the right and stand by it. Let him contend, with me, for the inalienable and constitutional rights of every American citizen. Let him beware of "compromising" away the vital rights, privileges, and immunities of one portion of the country to appease the graceless, unrelenting, and hostile fanaticism of another portion. Let him labor with me, to influence every State to mind its own affairs, and to keep the Territories entirely free to the enterprise of all, with equal security and protection—without invidious distinctions—to the property of every citizen. Thus, and only thus, can we have peace, happiness, and eternal Union.

I could not avoid noticing the anxiety of the Senator from Kentucky to accept any thing, and the readiness of the Senator from Oregon to pledge his people—"my people"—to any thing that he chooses. Now, I know there are many free people in the State of Oregon. They generally do as they please. They have no master. No man owns them; and no man can claim to control them. But this I am warranted in asserting—for I know long, well, and intimately, the gallant men of Oregon—that they will not be found ready or inclined, at the Senator's and his masters beck, to imbrue their hands, in a godless cause, in fraternal gore.

Mr. President, the principles asserted in the resolutions adopted by the Senate, last winter, have not been carried out. We see the consequences. We see a dissevered country and a divided Union. A number of the States have gone off, have formed an independent Government; it is in existence, and the States composing it will never come back to you, unless you say in plain English, in your amendments to the Constitution, that every State in the future Union has an equal right to the Territories and all the protection and blessings of this Government—never! I tell you, sir, although some foolish men and some wicked ones may say I am a disunionist, I am for the Union upon the principles of the Constitution, and not a traitor. None but a coward will even think me a traitor; and if anybody thinks I am, let him test me. This Union could exist upon the principles that I have held and that are set forth in the Davis resolutions; but upon no other condition can it exist. Then, sir, disunion is inevitable. It is not going to stop with the seven States that are out. No, sir; my word for it, unless you do something more than is proposed in this proposition, old Virginia will go out too—slothful as she has been, and tardy as she seems in appreciating her own interests and her rights, and kind and generous as she has been in inviting a Peace Congress to agree upon measures of safety for the Union. The time will come, however, when old Virginia will stand trifling and chicanery no longer. Neither will North Carolina suffer it. None of the slave States will endure it; for they cannot separate one from the other, and they will not. They will go out of this Union and into one of their own; forming a great, homogeneous, and glorious Southern Confederacy. It is and it has been, Senators, in your power to prevent this; it is and it has been for you to say (you might to-day, as it is the last day, say so), whether the Union shall be saved or not. I know, that gallant Old Dominion will never put up with less than her rights; and if she would, I should entertain for her contempt. I should feel contempt for her if she were to ask for any thing more than her rights; and so I would if she were to put up with any thing less than her constitutional rights. Then, sir, secession has taken place, and it will go on unless we do right.

Mr. President, in the remarks which I made on the 19th of December last, in reply to the Senator from Tennessee, I took the ground that a State might rightfully secede from the Union when she could no longer remain in it on an equal footing with the other States; in other words, when her continuance as a member of the Confederacy involved the sacrifice of her constitutional rights, safety, and honor. This right I deduced from the theory of equality of the States, upon which rests the whole fabric of our unrivalled system of government—unrivalled, as it came from the hands of its illustrious framers—a model as perfect, perhaps, as human wisdom could devise, securing to all the blessings of civil and religious liberty, when rightly understood and properly administered; but like all other Governments, and even Christianity itself, a most dangerous engine of oppression when, having fallen into the hands of persons strangers to its spirit, and unmindful of the beneficent objects for which it was framed, it is perverted from its high and noble mission to the base uses of a selfish or sectional ambition, or a blind and bigoted fanaticism. I said, on that occasion—referring to this fundamental principle of our Government, the equality of the States—that "as long as this equality be maintained the Union will endure, and no longer." I might here undertake to enforce, by argument and the authority of writers on the nature and purposes of our Government, this, to me, self-evident proposition. But I deem it unnecessary to consume the time of the Senate in discussing that branch of the subject.

I propose, Mr. President, to confine what I have to say in regard to the right of secession to the question, Who must judge whether such right exists, and when it should be exercised? According to the theory of every despotic Government, of ancient or modern times, there is no such right. A province of an empire, how much soever oppressed, is held by the oppressor as an integral part of his dominions. The yoke, once fastened on the neck of the subject, is expected, however galling, to be worn with patience and entire submission to the tyrant's will. This is the theory of despotism. What are its fruits? We have seen, in modern times, some of the bloodiest struggles recorded in history growing out of the assertion by one party, and the denial by the other, of this very right. Hungary undertook to "secede" from the Austrian empire. Her right to do so was denied. She constituted an integral part of the empire—a great "consolidated" nation, as some consider the United States to be. Being an integral part of the empire, according to the theory of the Austrian Government, she must so remain forever. Austria not having the power to enforce an acquiescence in this doctrine, Russian legions were called to her aid; and Hungary, on whose gallant struggle for independence the liberty-loving people of this country looked with so much admiration and sympathy, soon lay prostrate and bleeding at the tyrant's feet. You may call this attempt of Hungary to regain her independence revolution. That is precisely what Austria called it. I call it an effort on her part to peaceably secede—to peaceably dissolve her connection with a Government which, in her judgment, had become intolerably unjust and oppressive. Her oppressors told her it was not her province but theirs, to judge of her alleged grievances; that to acknowledge the right of secession would strike a fatal blow at the integrity of the empire, which could be maintained only by enforcing the perfect obedience of each and every part.

We have, in the recent struggle of the Italian States, an instructive commentary on the now mooted questions of secession and coercion. Indeed, history, through all past ages, is but a record of the efforts of tyrants to prevent the recognition of the doctrine, that a people deeming themselves oppressed might peaceably absolve themselves from allegiance to their oppressors. When our Government was formed, our fathers fondly thought that they had made a great improvement on the despotic systems of modern Europe. They saw the infinite evil resulting from coercing the unwilling obedience of a subject to a Government which he abhorred and detested. They accordingly declared the great truth, never enunciated until then, that "Governments derive all their just power from the consent of the governed." A Government without such consent they held to be a tyranny.

Now, Mr. President, this brings us to the very point in issue. Who is to determine whether this consent is given or withheld? Must it be determined by the ruler? If so, the proposition just stated is an absurdity. Clearly it was the meaning of those who enunciated this great truth, that the subjects of a Government have the right to declare or withhold their consent; otherwise no such right exists. They, and they only, must judge whether their rights are protected or violated. If protected, every consideration of interest and safety impels them to consent to live under a Government which secures the blessings they desire. If, on the other hand, in their judgment, their most sacred rights are violated, interest and honor, and the instinct of self-preservation, all conspire to impel them to withhold their consent; which being withheld, the Government, as far as they are concerned, ceases.

Here I would call the attention of the Senate to the first of the Kentucky resolutions of 1798-'99, written by Mr. Jefferson, in which he says distinctly, that the parties to a political compact must judge for themselves of the mode and measure of redress, when they consider the compact violated and their rights invaded:

"Resolved, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that by compact, under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party; that this Government, created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its power; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."

Here Mr. Jefferson asserts that a State aggrieved shall judge not only of the mode, but the measure of redress. Is this treason? If the measure of redress extends to secession, how can the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson] do less than denounce the great apostle of liberty—as Mr. Jefferson has been called—a traitor?

No less clear and explicit on this point, is the language of Mr. Madison. Being chairman of a committee to whom the subject was referred—the resolutions having been returned by several of the States—he says in his report:

"It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that where resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the States, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The States, then, being the parties to the Constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated, and consequently that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition."

In the remarks which I made on the 19th of December last, I referred to the fact that Virginia, in accepting the Constitution, declared that the powers granted under that instrument "being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." I referred, also, to the fact that New York had adopted the Constitution upon the same condition and with the same reservation. I may here quote the language of Mr. Webster, distinctly recognizing the right of the people to change their Government whenever their interest or safety require it. He says:

"We see, therefore, from the commencement of the Government under which we live, down to this late act of the State of New York"—

To which he had just referred—

"one uniform current of law, of precedent, and of practice, all going to establish the point that changes in Government are to be brought about by the will of the people, assembled under such legislative provisions as may be necessary to ascertain that will truly and authentically."

If the people of a State, believing themselves oppressed, undertake to establish a Government, independent of that to which they formerly owed allegiance, and the latter interferes with the movement, and employs force to prevent such a consummation, no one who acknowledges the great truth that the basis of all free government is the "consent of the governed," will deny that such interference is an act of usurpation and tyranny. Those only who borrow their ideas of political justice from the despotic codes of Europe, and are more imbued with the spirit of Metternich and Bomba than of Jefferson and Madison, will attempt to justify, palliate, or excuse such violation of the sacred rights of the people. I have observed that often the noisiest champions of popular rights are the first to trample those rights under foot. The word "freedom" is continually on the tongues of gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber; and I believe the Senator from Tennessee has been suspected of a decided leaning to agrarianism, so zealous has he been in advocating the rights, so entirely devoted is he to the interests of the "dear people." But now, when the people of the seceding States have pronounced, in tones of thunder, the fiat which absolves them from allegiance to a Government which they no longer respect or love, these same gentlemen all lift their hands in horror, roll up the whites of their eyes, as did old Lord North many years ago, and exclaim "Treason!" "Treason!" Then, boiling with patriotic rage, they rise up and declare that "this treason must be punished; the laws must be enforced." History tells us that this was the language of King George and Lord North when the colonies renounced their allegiance to the mother country. The former of these worthies, we are told, spent much of his life in a state of mental darkness—in other words, he was a lunatic. The other received from nature a narrow intellect, and inherited prejudices common to the aristocracy of that period and of all other periods of the world's history. Their errors were the natural offspring of incapacity and the false teaching received in their youth. While, therefore, we cannot admire or approve their conduct, these circumstances incline us more to sorrow than to anger, disarm our resentment, and dispose us to forgive what, under other circumstances, would deserve the severest censure.

But what excuse can we find for the peculiar champions of popular rights in this Chamber; these zealous servants of the people, forever ringing in our ears, "Let the voice of the people be heard; respect the will of the people; vox populi vox Dei!" Sir, I say too, let the voice of the people be heard and respected. And I think, for the sake of consistency with all my past professions as a Democrat, I am bound to respect the declared will of the sovereign States which, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, have seceded from the Union and established a separate and independent Government. Whatever the causes may have been which impelled them to a separation from the other States, I am bound to respect the expression of their sovereign will; and I heartily reprobate the policy of attempting to thwart that will under the pretence of "punishing treason" and "enforcing the laws." We are told that the design is to attempt nothing more than to collect the revenue in the ports of the seceded States. To say nothing of the justice or injustice of the attempt so to do, I ask Senators from the North, and the Senator from Tennessee, will it pay? Will it not be a declaration of war against the seceding States, involving the people of all the States in a long and bloody conflict, ruinous to both sections? Are their ethics not the ethics of the school-boy pugilist, "Knock the chip off my shoulder"?

One of the framers of the Constitution [Mr. Madison], whose expositions of that instrument all classes, all parties, have heretofore received, and still receive, or pretend to receive, with profound deference and respect, has left on record his views of the injustice, impracticability, and inefficacy of force as a means of coercing States into obedience to Federal authority.

Among the statesmen of the Revolution—those who participated in the formation of our Government—there was no one who had such exalted notions of the power and dignity of the Federal Government, as the great Hamilton. He was a consolidationist. The advocates of coercion might naturally expect to obtain "aid and comfort" from the recorded declarations of one of his peculiar political faith. But an examination of his writings will show, that instead of favoring coercion, instead of being the advocate of force, he was the advocate of leniency and conciliation towards refractory States, and deprecated a resort to force as madness and folly.

If the great names of Madison and Hamilton have not sufficient weight to restrain the madness of those who urge a coercive policy against the seceding States, then, indeed, I see no escape from that most dreadful of all calamities which can befall a nation—civil war. If those in this Chamber who talk so flippantly of war, had seen, as it has been my lot to see, some of its actual horrors, they might, perhaps, heed the warnings and respect the counsels of the sages and patriots whose language I have quoted. They would at least refrain from ungenerous insinuations against the patriotism of those northern Democrats, who, like myself, reprobate the policy of coercion as destructive of the peace, the prosperity, and happiness of every part of the country, north as well as south.

But to return to the remarks of the Senator from Tennessee. In the pamphlet report of his speech, page 7, Jefferson is quoted; but the concluding part of the quotation is repeated in the Globe report and not in that of the pamphlet. That part is:

"When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it."

Jefferson is here quoted to show that the Confederation has a power to enforce its articles on delinquent States. But the citation is unfortunate for the Senator from Tennessee. He had just previously asserted that Vermont and other States had, by personal liberty bills, violated the Constitution. Well; can he tell us how Virginia and South Carolina could enforce the Constitution on Vermont in that respect? It cannot be done. What follows? Why, as Mr. Webster said at Capon Springs, "a compact broken by one party is broken as to all." Hence, according to the doctrines of Jefferson and Webster as to the actual case which, according to the Senator, has occurred, the compact having been broken, the Southern States have a right to retire—are absolved from further obligations under the constitutional compact.

The Senator complains that I replied at all, as I was a northern Senator, and a Democrat whom he had supported at the last election for a high office. Now, I was, as I stated at the time, surprised at the Senator's speech—because I understood it to be for coercion, as I think it was by almost everybody else, except, as we are now told, by the Senator himself; and I still think it amounted to a coercion speech, notwithstanding the soft and plausible phrases by which he describes it—a speech for the execution of the laws and the protection of the Federal property. Sir, if there is, as I contend, the right of secession, then, whenever a State exercises that right, this Government has no laws in that State to execute, nor has it any property in any such State that can be protected by the power of this Government. In attempting, however, to substitute the smooth phrases of "executing the laws" and "protecting public property" for coercion, for civil war, we have an important concession, i.e., that this Government dare not go before the people with a plain avowal of its real purposes, and of their consequences. No, sir; the policy is to inveigle the people of the North into civil war, by masking the design in smooth and ambiguous terms.

Now, sir, I want it distinctly understood, as I have already shown, that during the last session I stood firmly by the Davis resolutions. I voted against every amendment. I voted against an amendment that he voted for, because I believed it was partial, and did not do justice.

But the Senator from Tennessee proceeded with an air and tone of great triumph to bring forward my vote on the amendments proposed to the Davis resolutions. I think I have said all that it is necessary for me to say upon that subject. I have shown that I have voted for them under all circumstances, and against every amendment. Those resolutions assert the right of property in the Territories, and that when the courts fail to afford protection, then it is the duty of Congress to come forward and provide that protection. I wished to put slave property upon the same footing as other property. That is where I then stood, where I now stand, and where I intend to stand. The Senator asks, with a kind of triumphant air, what has happened since that day? Mr. President, I have said that I have done all in my power, by standing firm to the resolutions agreed to by the Democratic party, to afford protection. The Senator misrepresented my vote on those resolutions. I never voted against the Davis resolutions, nor did their substitute ever come up as a separate proposition. It was an amendment to one of that series of resolutions I voted against; and I would vote against any thing and every thing that would embarrass their passage, for they contained just what I thought was right.

What has happened since? Why, a thing has happened that never happened before. The denial of any and all protection to slave property in any and in all the territory; the denial of the right to take slave property to any of them has been proclaimed and affirmed at the ballot-box by a majority of the States, and a majority of the electoral votes of this Union. What has happened? Why, the thing has happened that has been three times before attempted, and three times before failed; the first attempt having endangered the formation of the Union, and the second and third its continuance. The first attempt was made in 1784, to exclude slavery from all the Territories. It was abandoned in 1787 by excluding it only from the territory northwest of the Ohio, leaving it to colonize that portion southwest of that river. The same thing was again attempted in 1820, as to the territory acquired from Louisiana; and after a terrible agitation, was abandoned by adopting the Missouri line. The third attempt was made in 1850, as to the territory acquired from Mexico; and then also the Union narrowly escaped destruction; but the compromise measures were adopted. And now it comes again, but in a more formidable way than ever. A President has been elected on that issue; for the first time the people of the North, after all previous compromises and warnings, have voted on the question, and every Northern State has pronounced for the spoliation.

Mr. President, perhaps the most signal instance of the evils of compulsory union between dissimilar people, is that of Ireland and England. The people of Ireland—the home and heritage of my ancestors—have, as the South has, a representation in the national Legislature; but being also, as the South is, in a minority in that body, have no power to protect themselves from the aggressions of England. The consequence is, that they have been excluded from the common benefits of British legislation, commercially, and even religiously, to say nothing of their exclusion from official station in the empire. And, accordingly, Ireland has been impoverished, degraded, and discontented. She has been trampled upon, outraged, insulted, treated like Cinderella. The people of this country have always sympathized with the wrongs of Ireland, and her struggles for independence. Yet there is now a greater difference between the people of the South and of the North than between those of England and Ireland, and greater antagonism of opinion and feeling. Nevertheless, it is proposed to hold the South in political subjection to the North, and for that purpose to employ naval and military force.

Sir, I might mention many other cases: the subjection of Greece to Turkey; of Poland to Russia; of the Netherlands to Spain; Italy to Austria. In all these cases we have sympathized with, and, in many of them aided, the secession from the common government, by contributions and individual service. Yet those Governments were not founded on consent, and there was no compact conceding the right of secession.

Sir, in conclusion, whether the course the seceding States have seen fit to take be right or not, is a question which we must leave to posterity, and the verdict of impartial history. Our time will probably be more profitably employed in considering how we shall deal with secession than in discussing the causes which have produced it. Secession, right or wrong, justifiable or unjustifiable, is an accomplished fact; and it presents to us no less an alternative than that of peace or war. Sir, I believe that, in the general ruin which would follow coercive measures against the seceding states, all sections, all classes, all the great interests of the country, without any exception, would be involved. How much better, Mr. President, that, in so fearful a crisis as the present, instead of passing "force bills," and preparing for war, instead of "breathing threatenings and slaughter," and preparing implements of destruction to be used against our brethren of the South, how much better, I say, for ourselves, for posterity, for the cause of civil liberty throughout the world, that our thoughts should be turned on peace? Peace, not war, has brought our country to the high degree of prosperity it now enjoys. The energies of the people up to this time have been directed to the development of our boundless resources, to the mechanic arts, to agriculture, mining, trade, and commerce with foreign nations. Banish peace, turn these mighty energies of the people to the prosecution of the dreadful work of mutual destruction, and soon cities in ruins, fields desolate, the deserted marts of trade, the silent workshops, gaunt famine stalking through the land, the earth cumbered with the bodies of the dying and the dead, will bear awful testimony to the madness and wickedness which, from the very summit of prosperity and happiness, are plunging us headlong into an abyss of woe.

Sir, in God's name, let us have peace! If we cannot have it in the Union, as it existed prior to November last, let us have it by cultivating friendly relations with those States which have dissolved their connection with that Union, and established a separate government. Though we and they may not, and, perhaps, in the nature of things, cannot live harmoniously under the same Government, it is our interest, no less than theirs, that we should at once endeavor to establish between our Government and theirs those amicable relations which should ever exist between two neighboring Republics. War, with its attendant horrors, being thus happily averted, the people of each Republic will be left at liberty to pursue, undisturbed, their several vocations. A mutually advantageous commerce will grow up between the two nations; treaties, such as regulate our intercourse with the Canadas, will be formed; confidence in all branches of business will be restored; a new impetus given to every variety of industry; the march of improvement accelerated, and the cause of humanity, of civilization, and of Christianity, advanced throughout the world. The people of Europe, accustomed to refer the settlement of their slightest differences to the bloody arbitrament of the sword, will behold with silent wonder and amazement the spectacle of a great people unable to agree in reference to one of their peculiar domestic institutions, peacefully separating, as did the patriarchs of old; resolving themselves into two distinct political communities, not hostile, discordant, belligerent; but each, animated with a spirit of generous rivalry toward the other, pursuing a more successful and prosperous career in its own chosen path, than when, united under the same Federal head, they painfully sought together the same common destiny.

Mr. President, we are living at a day and at a time when a Northern sectional party have obtained possession of the power of this great Government, who have declared in their platform, in their speeches everywhere, and in their press, that slavery shall never go into another foot of territory; that no other slave State shall ever be admitted into this Union; that slavery shall be put in the course of ultimate extinction. We have the announcement of the party that the foot of a slave shall never press the soil of one of the Territories; that no new slave State shall be admitted; and, in addition to that, that no slave State shall go out of the Union. Who ever saw such a party as that? Who ever knew any thing like it in the world before? They will not let slavery go into the Territories; they will not let a slave State come in; and they will not let one go out! They will not let them go out because they could not carry out their programme of placing slavery in the course of ultimate extinction. They want to keep the slave States in for their benefit—to foot the bills, to pay the taxes—that they may govern them as they see fit, and rule them against their will. Well, sir, I wish to say one word to that party, in all kindness; for I shall not trouble them again on this subject. I shall be a private, independent citizen before long. But I will say to that party, they had better change their tactics; they had better change front, and do it speedily. Let them place themselves upon the high ground of right and justice, and adopt such amendments to the Constitution as will not only hold old Kentucky, which has produced the greatest "compromiser" of us all—that good old State where I was raised, and that I am proud of—but the other Southern States also. I am afraid Republicanism will not do this. I know those old Kentucky people from terrace to foundation. They will endure much—very much—peaceably and quietly; but if they are goaded too far; if, by repeated wrongs, they are compelled to fight, then I would say to their enemy "beware!" There are chivalry and patriotism in Kentucky which is neither in the power of accident nor nature to subdue. You had better not press them too far. Do not drive them to the goal of last resort. Give them justice while you have it in your power to do so. Satisfy them that ultimately they shall have equality in this broken Government, or Union, if you will. But, sir, I leave the patching up of the Constitution to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky and other gentlemen, especially my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Bigler], who has labored harder to patch up the Constitution than any man I ever knew, except my friend from Kentucky, and I wish him God speed in the work. Let it be upon just principles; let it be right; let us have justice; and I shall be content.

Now, Mr. President, I have paid all the attention to the attempt that was made to place me in the wrong that I deem necessary. I can only now repeat, in the conclusion of my speech, that neither the Senator from Tennessee, nor any other Senator, nor can any man, tell the truth and say that I have, by any vote, word, or act of mine, at any time or on any occasion, refused protection to all property alike in the Territories. I have made it a point always. Indeed, the doctrine of the equal right of property, whether slave or any other, in the Territories, and its equal right to protection, is as strong in me as life itself. I have never uttered a word against that principle; but I have said, upon all occasions, that that doctrine must be maintained, or this Union could not stand. I have fought for it; but as I said in the outset, while I deeply deplore the condition of the country, it has been caused by no act of mine. And with this remark, I part with him, who, in imitation of Esau, seeks to sell his birthright. I would, if there was time, give a little advice to all sides, to every Senator on this floor. I would say: Senators come up to the great importance of this question; meet it; adopt, by a two-thirds vote—as we could do if Senators would deal rightly—amendments to the Constitution, placing all the States upon an equality in the Territories, and on every other question; submit them to the people; and by such amendments I believe we could prevent, or stop, a further rupture of this Union.

In a reply to the speech of Senator Lane of Oregon, the following remarks on secession, coercion, the Territorial question, and the Peace Conference propositions, are furnished by

Senator JOHNSON, of Tennessee:—Mr. President, it is painful for me to be compelled, at this late hour of the session, to occupy any of the time of the Senate upon the subject that has just been discussed by the Senator from Oregon. Had it not been for the extraordinary speech he has made, and the singular course he has taken, I should forbear from saying one word at this late hour of the day and of the session. But, sir, it must be apparent, not only to the Senate but to the whole country, that, either by accident or by design, there has been an arrangement that any one who appeared in this Senate to vindicate the Union of these States should be attacked. Why is it that no one, in the Senate or out of it, who is in favor of the Union of these States, has made an attack upon me? Why has it been left to those who have taken both open and secret ground in violation of the Constitution, for the disruption of the Government? Why has there been a concerted attack upon me from the beginning of this discussion to the present moment, not even confined to the ordinary courtesies of debate and of senatorial decorum? It is a question which lifts itself above personalities. I care not from what direction the Senator comes who indulges in personalities toward me; in that, I feel that I am above him, and that he is my inferior. [Applause in the galleries.] Mr. President, they are not arguments; they are the resort of men whose minds are low and coarse. Cowper has well said:

"A truly sensible, well-bred man
Will not insult me; no other can."

Sir, have we reached a point at which we cannot talk about treason? Our forefathers talked about it; they spoke of it in the Constitution of the country; they have defined what treason was; is it an offence, is it a crime, is it an insult to recite the Constitution that was made by Washington and his compatriots? What does the Constitution say:

"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

There it is defined clearly that treason shall consist only in levying war against the United States, and adhering to and giving aid and comfort to their enemies. Who is it that has been engaged in conspiracies? Who is it that has been engaged in making war upon the United States? Who is it that has fired upon our flag? Who is it that has given instructions to take our arsenals, to take our forts, to take our dock-yards, to take the public property? In the language of the Constitution of the United States, have not those who have been engaged in it been guilty of treason? We make a fair issue. Show me who has been engaged in these conspiracies, who has fired upon our flag, has given instructions to take our forts and our custom-houses, our arsenals and our dock-yards, and I will show you a traitor. [Applause in the galleries.]

Mr. President, if individuals were pointed out to me who were engaged in nightly conspiracies, in secret conclaves, and issuing orders directing the capture of our forts and the taking of our custom-houses, I would show who were the traitors; and that being done, the persons pointed out coming within the purview and scope of the provision of the Constitution which I have read, were I the President of the United States, I would do as Thomas Jefferson did, in 1806, with Aaron Burr; I would have them arrested, and, if convicted, within the meaning and scope of the Constitution, by the Eternal God I would execute them. Sir, treason must be punished. Its enormity and the extent and depth of the offence must be made known. The time is not distant, if this Government is preserved, its Constitution obeyed, and its laws executed in every department, when something of this kind must be done.

The Senator from Oregon, in his remarks, said that a mind that it required six weeks to stuff could not know much of any thing. He intimated that I had been stuffed. I made my speech on the 19th of December. The gentleman replied. I made another speech, and now he has replied again; and how long has he been "stuffing"? How often has he been "stuffed"? [Laughter.] He has been stuffed twice; and if the stuffing operation was as severe and laborious as the delivery has been, he has had a troublesome time of it, for his travail has been great and the delivery remarkable. [Laughter.]

We know how the Senator stands upon popular or squatter sovereignty. On that subject he spoke at Concord, New Hampshire, where he maintained that the inhabitants of the Territories were the best judges; that they were the very people to settle all these questions; but when he came here, at the last Congress, he could make a speech in which he repeated, I cannot tell how many times, "the equality of the States, the rights of the States in the Union, and their rights out of the Union;" and he thus shifted his course. If the conflict between his speech made in Concord in 1856, and his speech made here on the 25th day of May last, can be reconciled, according to all rules of construction, it is fair to reconcile the conflict. If the discrepancy is so great between his speech made then and his speech on the 25th of May last, of course the discrepancy is against him; but I am willing to let one speech set off the other, and to make honors easy, so far as speech-making is concerned.

Then, how does the matter stand? There is one speech one way, and there is another speech the other way. Now, we will come to the sticking point. You have seen the equivocation to-day. You have seen the cuttle fish attempt to becloud the water and elude the grasp of his pursuer. I intend to stick to you here to-day, as close and as tight as what I think I have heard called somewhere "Jew David's Adhesive Plaster." How does your vote stand as compared with your speeches? Your speeches being easy, I shall throw in the scale against you the weight of what you swore. How does that matter stand? I intend to refer to the record. By referring to the record, it will be found that Mr. Clingman offered the following as an amendment to the fourth resolution of the series introduced by Mr. Davis:

"Resolved, That the existing condition of the Territories of the United States does not require the intervention of Congress for the protection of property in slaves."

What was the vote on the amendment proposed to that resolution by Mr. Brown, to strike out the word "not." I want the Senator's attention, for I am going to stick to him, and if he can get away from me he has got to obliterate the records of his country. How would it read, to strike out the word "not."

"That the existing condition of the Territories of the United States does require the intervention of Congress for the protection of property in slaves."

Among those who voted against striking out the word "not," who declared that protection of slavery in the Territories by legislation of Congress was unnecessary, was the Senator from Oregon. When was that? On the 25th day of May last. The Senator, under the oath of his office, declared that legislation was not necessary. Now where do we find him? Here is a proposition to amend the Constitution, to protect the institution of slavery in the States, and here is the proposition brought forward by the Peace Conference, and we find the Senator standing against the one, and I believe he recorded his vote against the other.

But, let us travel along. We have only applied one side of this plaster. The Senator voted that it was not necessary to legislate by Congress for the protection of slave property. Mr. Brown then offered the amendment to the resolution submitted by Mr. Davis, to strike out all after the word "resolved," and to insert in lieu thereof:

"That experience having already shown that the Constitution and the common law, unaided by statutory enactment, do not afford adequate and sufficient protection to slave property—some of the Territories having failed, others having refused, to pass such enactments—it has become the duty of Congress to interpose, and pass such laws as will afford to slave property in the Territories that protection which is given to other kinds of property."

We have heard a great deal said here to-day of "other kinds," and every description of property. There is a naked, clear proposition. Mr. Brown says it is needed; that the court and the common law do not give ample protection; and then the Senator from Oregon is called upon; but what is his vote? We find, in the vote upon this amendment, that but three Senators voted for it; and the Senator from Oregon records his vote, and says "no," it shall not be established; and every Southern man, save three, voted against it also. When was that? On the 25th day of May last. Here is an amendment, now, to protect and secure the States against any encroachment upon the institution within the States; and there the Senator from Oregon swore that no further legislation was necessary to protect it in the Territories. Well, his speeches in honors being easy, and he having sworn to it in the last Congress, I am inclined to take his oath in preference to his speeches, and one is a fair set-off against the other. Then, all the amendments being voted down, the Senate came to the vote upon this resolution:

"That if experience should at any time prove that the judicial and executive authority do not possess means to insure adequate protection to constitutional rights in a Territory, and if the territorial government should fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency, within the limits of its constitutional powers."

Does not the resolution proceed upon the idea that it was not necessary then; but if, hereafter, the Territories should refuse, and the courts and the common law could not give ample protection, then it would be the duty of Congress to do this thing? What has transpired since the 25th day of May last? Is not the decision of the court with us? Is there not the Constitution carrying it there? Why was not this resolution, declaring protection necessary, passed during the last Congress? The Presidential election was on hand.

I have been held up and indirectly censured, because I have stood by the people; because I have advocated those measures that are sometimes called demagogical. I would to God that we had a few more men here who were for the people in fact, and who would legislate in conformity with their will and wishes. If we had, the difficulties and dangers that surround us now, would be postponed and set aside; they would not be upon us. But in May last, we could not vote that it was necessary to pass a slave code for the Territories. Oh, no; the Presidential election was on hand. We were very willing then to try to get northern votes; to secure their influence in the passage of resolutions; and to crowd some men down, and let others up. It was all very well then; but since the people have determined that somebody else should be President of the United States, all at once the grape has got to be very sour, and gentlemen do not have as good an opinion of the people as they had before; we have changed our views about it. They have not thought quite as well of us as we desired they should; and if I could not get to be President or Vice-President of all these United States, rather than miss it altogether, I would be perfectly willing to be President of a part; and therefore we will divide—yes, we will divide. I am in favor of secession; of breaking up the Union; of having the rights of the States out of the Union; and as I signally failed in being President of all, as the people have decided against me, we have reached that precise point of time at which the Government ought to be broken up. It looks a little that way.

I have no disposition now, in concluding what little I am going to say, to mutilate the dead, or add one single additional pang to the tortures of the already politically damned. I am a humane man; I will not add one pang to the intolerable sufferings of the distinguished Senator from Oregon. [Laughter.] I sought no controversy with him; I have made no issue with him; it has been forced upon me. How many have attacked me; and is there a single man, North or South, who is in favor of this glorious Union, who has dared to make an assault on me? Is there one? No; not one. But it is all from secession; it is all from that usurpation where a reign of terror has been going on.

I repeat, again, the Senator has made a set-to on me. I am satisfied if he is. I am willing that his speech and mine shall go to the country, and let an intelligent people read and understand, and see who is right and who is wrong on this great issue.

But, sir, I alluded to the fact that secession has been brought about by usurpation. During the last forty days, six States of this Confederacy have been taken out of the Union; how? By the voice of the people? No; it is demagogism to talk of the people. By the voice of the freemen of the country? No. By whom has it been done? Have the people of South Carolina passed upon the ordinance adopted by their Convention? No; but a system of usurpation was instituted, and a reign of terror inaugurated. How was it in Georgia? Have the people there passed upon the ordinance of secession? No. We know that there was a powerful party there, of passive, conservative men, who have been overslaughed, borne down; and tyranny and usurpation have triumphed. A convention passed an ordinance to take the State out of the Confederacy; and the very same convention appointed delegates to go to a congress to make a constitution, without consulting the people. So with Louisiana; so with Mississippi; so with all the six States which have undertaken to form a new Confederacy. Have the people been consulted? Not in a single instance. We are in the habit of saying that man is capable of self-government; that he has the right, the unquestioned right, to govern himself; but here, a government has been assumed over him; it has been taken out of his hands, and at Montgomery a set of usurpers are enthroned, legislating, and making constitutions and adopting them, without consulting the freemen of the country. Do we not know it to be so? Have the people of Alabama, of Georgia, of any of those States, passed upon it? No; but a Constitution is adopted by those men, with a provision that it may be changed by a vote of two-thirds. Four votes in a convention of six, can change the whole organic law of a people constituting six States. Is not this a coup d'état equal to any of Napoleon? Is it not a usurpation of the people's rights? In some of those States, even our Stars and our Stripes have been changed. One State has a palmetto, another has a pelican, and the last that I can enumerate on this occasion, is one State that has the rattlesnake run up as an emblem. On a former occasion I spoke of the origin of secession; and I traced its early history to the garden of Eden, when the serpent's wile and the serpent's wickedness beguiled and betrayed our first mother. After that occurred, and they knew light and knowledge, when their Lord and Master turned to them, they seceded, and hid themselves from his presence. The serpent's wile, and the serpent's wickedness, first started secession; and now, secession brings about a return of the serpent. Yes, sir; the wily serpent, the rattlesnake, has been substituted as the emblem on the flag of one of the seceding States; and that old flag, the Stars and the Stripes, under which our fathers fought and bled and conquered, and achieved our rights and our liberties, is pulled down and trailed in the dust, and the rattlesnake substituted. Will the American people tolerate it? They will be indulgent; time, I think, is wanted, but they will not submit to it.

A word more in conclusion. Give the Border States that security which they desire, and the time will come when the other States will come back; when they will be brought back—how? Not by the coercion of the Border States, but by the coercion of the people; and those leaders who have taken them out will fall beneath the indignation and the accumulating force of that public opinion which will ultimately crush them. The gentlemen who have taken those States out are not the men to bring them back.

I have already suggested that the idea may have entered into some minds, "if we cannot get to be President and Vice-President of the whole United States, we may divide the Government, set up a new establishment, have new offices, and monopolize them ourselves when we take our States out." Here we see a President made, a Vice-President made, cabinet officers appointed, and yet the great mass of the people not consulted, nor their assent obtained in any manner whatever. The people of the country ought to be aroused to this condition of things; they ought to buckle on their armor; and, as Tennessee has done (God bless her!), by the exercise of the elective franchise, by going to the ballot-box under a new set of leaders, they will repudiate and put down those men who have carried these States out and usurped a Government over their heads. I trust in God that the old flag of the Union will never be struck. I hope it may long wave, and that we may long hear the national air sung:

"The star-spangled banner, long may it wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

Long may we hear old Hail Columbia, that good old national air, played on all our martial instruments! long may we hear, and never repudiate, the old tune of Yankee Doodle! Long may wave that gallant old flag which went through the Revolution, and which was borne by Tennessee and Kentucky at the battle of New Orleans, upon that soil the right to navigate the Mississippi near which they are now denied. Upon that bloody field the Stars and Stripes waved in triumph; and, in the language of another, the Goddess of Liberty hovered around when "the rocket's red glare" went forth, indicating that the battle was raging, and watched the issue; and the conflict grew fierce, and the issue was doubtful; but when, at length, victory perched upon your Stars and your Stripes, it was then, on the plains of New Orleans, that the Goddess of Liberty made her loftiest flight, and proclaimed victory in strains of exultation. Will Tennessee ever desert the grave of him who bore it in triumph, or desert the flag that he waved with success? No; we were in the Union before some of these States were spoken into existence; and we intend to remain in, and insist upon—as we have the confident belief we shall get—all our constitutional rights and protection in the Union, and under the Constitution of the country. [Applause in the galleries.]

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Fitch in the chair):—It will become the unpleasant but imperative duty of the Chair to clear the galleries.

Mr. JOHNSON, of Tennessee:—I have done.

[The applause was renewed, and was louder and more general than before. Hisses were succeeded by applause, and cheers were given and reiterated, with "three cheers more for Johnson.">[

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—The Sergeant-at-Arms will immediately clear the galleries, and the order will not be rescinded.

The order having been executed by clearing the galleries and locking the doors leading to them, the Presiding Officer announced that the business of the Senate would be proceeded with.

The Senate, having disposed of several bills, was about to take action on a proposed amendment to the House resolutions, when the Peace Conference amendments were adverted to as follows:

Mr. MASON:—Now, I desire to say a word. There was a commission from twenty or twenty-one States summoned here by the State of Virginia to take into consideration the state of the country, and they have proposed an elaborate amendment to the Constitution, which they ask this body, in connection with the other House, to refer to the States. That has been under consideration for two days; no vote has been taken upon it; and the Senator from Illinois now proposes to postpone that in order to give precedence to a resolution from the House of Representatives proposing to amend the Constitution by prohibiting Congress from interfering with slavery in the States. His motion is, at this stage of the session, to put aside any further consideration of this amendment to the Constitution proposed by that Peace Conference, presented in the impressive manner in which it was done by the honorable Senator from Kentucky, in order to give precedence to this joint resolution of the House on this the last day of the session. Sir, I shall vote against giving it that precedence. I think it is due not only to those honorable gentlemen who came here and have submitted to us the result of their labors that we should give it that precedence, but I feel that it is due to the State of Virginia, who invited the Conference, that no precedence should be given over it. For that reason, I shall vote against it.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—I am glad to find that the Senator from Virginia has become such a warm advocate of the report of the Peace Conference. How many hours is it since we heard him denounce it as unworthy the consideration of Southern men or of this country? How long is it since these denunciations were ringing in our ears? We do not hear the praises of the Peace Conference sounded until we are about to get a vote on another proposition to pacify the country; and for fear we may have a vote that will quiet the apprehensions of the Southern States in respect to the designs of the North to change the Constitution, so as to interfere with slavery in the States, we find now that the Peace Conference is to be pushed forward, to defeat this. Sir, if he is a friend of the proposition of the Peace Conference, let him act with me and sit as long as I will in urging it upon the Senate. I am for both; but this one is within our reach. We can close this much in five minutes. We should have had it passed before this time, if the Senator from Virginia had not interposed objections. If the amendment to the Constitution which furnishes guarantees to the border slave States fail, it will be the result of the efforts of the Senator from Virginia. My object is to take that up; we can dispose of it in a very few minutes; and then, when we have secured thus much, we will proceed immediately to take up the report of the Peace Conference; and I tell the Senator from Virginia he will find me standing here adhering to it as long as he will; and when the vote comes, I think I shall show that I am as friendly to it as he; and that I have as much respect for and appreciation of the services of the great men who reported it.

Mr. MASON:—The Senator from Illinois and I construe our duties in a very different way. I have no parliamentary ends to obtain here by dexterous motions to give preference. The Senator has never heard me express the slightest approbation of these resolutions from the Peace Conference. On the contrary, he has heard me point out, with whatever ability I might, the objections that would compel me to vote against them. I intend to vote against them; but I deem it due to the character of these resolutions, and the way in which they were brought before the Senate, that their precedence should not be taken from them, and that we should have the first vote upon them. The Senator from Illinois will not find me taking back one word that I have said of objection to the resolutions that came from the Peace Conference; but I protest against their precedence being taken from them—a matter which has engaged the attention of the Senate for the last two hours to effect it. Now that it is done, I shall vote against the motion to give precedence. The resolutions of the Peace Conference should not be thrust aside by this resolution of the House; but that is the motion now before us, to thrust aside these resolutions in order to give place to the resolution of the House, and I shall vote against it.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I shall pursue, on this occasion, the course I have pursued throughout. My object is to attain a great end, and, if possible, to give entire satisfaction to the country, and restore it to peace and quiet, or to go as far in that direction as it is in my power to go. I shall vote to take up the resolution of the House, because we can act upon it immediately. I am an advocate of the resolutions from the Peace Conference. I have shown it; I have expressed it, and my determination to vote for them, and so I will; but I confess that I feel somewhat as the gentleman from Illinois does—surprised at the great zeal with which gentlemen want to keep up these propositions merely to strike a blow at others, claiming a precedence for a thing they mean to trample and spit upon.

Mr. MASON:—It has precedence, if the Senator will allow me, and he took it from it.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—And he wants to continue that precedence. Sir, the way to manifest respect for their proposition is to vote for it. I do not understand this sort of proceeding on the part of gentlemen who desire to afford any means of pacification to the country. I am for this resolution of the House of Representatives; and I hope the Senate will vote to take it up. We can act upon it, and we can vote upon it, and we know well that we cannot pass these propositions of the Peace Conference. There are but two hours more of session in the other House—from ten to twelve o'clock on Monday morning. I cannot indulge in a hope, sanguine as I have been throughout, of the passage of those resolutions; and, indeed, the opposition here, and the opposition on this [the Democratic] side of the Chamber to those resolutions, are confirmation strong as Holy Writ that they cannot pass. Do gentlemen want to press them forward in order to prevent a vote on this resolution of the House? I hope not. I hope the motion of the gentleman from Illinois will prevail, and that we shall take up the House resolution.

Mr. BAYARD:—Mr. President, I have forborne to take any part in this discussion about the merits of any of these propositions before the Senate, nor do I intend to do so now. I shall reserve what I may have to say to another occasion. I shall not occupy the time of the Senate now. I shall vote against this motion, because, while I feel I do no injustice to others, I must necessarily exercise my own opinions. I consider the resolution passed by the House of Representatives as not worth the paper on which it is written, for the purpose of adjusting the difficulties in this country. I shall not detain the Senate by any attempt to give the reasons. Sufficient for me to state the ground of my objection, why I shall not vote to give preference to a resolution which, as it stands, I think will lead to no attainable result as regards peace or quiet in the country. As regards the other propositions, for which it is sought to be substituted, I express no opinion now, except to say, they are not exactly those that I should have preferred; but that I would gladly and willingly vote to adopt the distinct resolutions offered originally by the Senator from Kentucky. As to attaining a vote and disposing of this House resolution at once, of course, as I do not attach any importance to the measure, if passed, for the purpose for which it is to be passed, that would be a sufficient answer; but further, it will not stop debate, and it cannot prevent amendments. Amendments may be made; one substitute after another may be offered, and you can be led into debate quite as much as on the other. I would rather see the other proposition discussed; and on the whole, not thinking the particular resolution of the House entitled to preference as being of any great importance, I am not disposed to give it precedence.

Mr. SEBASTIAN, in speaking on the House resolutions, said: "It is now past four o'clock in the morning of the 4th of March, and it is evident, from obvious causes, that it is utterly impossible that any expression of preference for any other resolution than this can now have any effect, or receive even the notice of the House of Representatives."

At different stages of the proceedings of the Senate, in proposing and voting in relation to various amendments, the following among other things said and done, occurred with reference to the Report of the Peace Conference:

Mr. JOHNSON, of Arkansas:—I beg leave to offer as an amendment, and I presume it will be the last, the propositions submitted by the Peace Conference. I offer them not with a belief that they will be accepted or sustained at all. I should be glad to see even that step taken by the party who are to have, and who, in point of fact, do have possession of this Government. I offer them for the purpose of obtaining a vote upon them. I offer them, stating frankly that I shall not vote for them. I offer them with the conviction that there is between the Representatives on the other side of the Chamber, and those on the southern side, an irreconcilable difference; and it ought to be proclaimed, and it ought to be made frank and unmistakable. I offer it because it evolves truth. There is nothing left here to this Senate, on this the last night of the session, but this: to declare to the American people what is true, in order that they may know it, and may prepare themselves to meet it; that they may prepare, if they can, to reconcile it with peace, or to reconcile it to themselves; to stand by all the sorrowful consequences that shall otherwise come. This is the reason why I present this amendment. I believed when I voted for them that the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky were fair, were just to the people of the South, and to my own State among that number; and it is but honest that I should say now in presenting this amendment, that I consider these propositions a thousand fathoms beneath the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky.

It is in that condition that I offer this amendment. I hope Senators will have the courage and the nerve, if they have faith in and regard for their constituents, to whom they have taught their doctrines heretofore, to adhere to them and to stick to them now; and while they will vote against this amendment, I will stand by them also and vote against it, as one person who for fourteen years has represented his State in one or the other branch of this Congress. In saying this, I say it as the last act of my political life, and it is one upon which I put my faith, and on which I would put the last hope I have on earth. I know from the bottom of my soul that I am not averse to the continuation and the preservation of the present Union of States, which I have always considered sanctifies the continent of North America to peace and to prosperity forever. I feel from the bottom of my heart that whenever it shall be divided, it will be given up, from petty causes, and from petty irritations and misapprehensions, to the contingencies of war and the contingencies of blood and disaster, which have followed the divisions and separations of every other continent in the whole wide world.

Then, Mr. President, I offer this amendment from the conviction that common honesty of purpose, and the common frankness of men of nerve and of honor, will give us one vote to show that there is among us an irreconcilable difference, or that will give hope to those who, like the Senator from Kentucky, it seems to me, can hope against hope, that there is something to be done. I cannot believe that any thing is gained by this resolution. I cannot conceive that the proposition of the House gives security to my people. I will not stop to comment upon it, and to show why it is that I cannot vote for it. I sincerely hope that we may have a vote of the Senate upon the amendment I now offer; and I call for the yeas and nays upon it.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. JOHNSON, of Tennessee:—I wish merely to repeat again, before the yeas and nays are called on this amendment, that I shall vote against this, as I have voted against all preceding amendments, with the distinct understanding that I am not committed for or against any proposition contained in those amendments. I hope we shall vote them all down.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—I will merely state that when we have disposed of this resolution, I hope we shall take up the Peace Conference propositions immediately, and get through with them.

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. CRITTENDEN (when his name was called):—I desire to say that, although preferring this amendment, I shall vote against it, as I have against all others, in order to pass it as it came to us from the House.

Mr. JOHNSON, of Arkansas:—I should like to have made a further explanation; but I will not do it. I vote "nay."

The result was then announced—yeas 3, nays 34; as follows:

Yeas.—Messrs. Foot, Nicholson, and Pugh—3.

Nays.—Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bigler, Bingham, Bright, Chandler, Clark, Crittenden, Dixon, Doolittle, Douglas, Durkee, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harlan, Hunter, Johnson of Arkansas, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, King, Latham, Mason, Morrill, Polk, Rice, Sebastian, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wigfall, Wilkinson, and Wilson—34.

So the amendment was rejected.

Other amendments—of which some were approved and some rejected—were offered to the joint resolutions, and, finally, the proposals of amendments to the Constitution from the Conference Convention were again brought forward in this manner:

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I intend to be perfectly consistent in my course on this subject. I look upon the result of the deliberations of the Peace Congress, as they call it here, as affording the best opportunity for a general concurrence among the States and among the people. I determined to take it in preference to my own proposition, and so stated to many of the members of that Convention. I now propose the propositions agreed to by them as a substitute for my own.

I came here this morning, without the least expectation of any vote being taken on this proposition of mine. It has never been in a condition before where I was prepared to offer amendments to it. I had amendments which I intended to propose, not intending to make material changes, as I supposed, in substance and effect, but changing the phraseology, particularly of the first article, in which I propose to substitute an amendment, to declare merely that the status of persons held to servitude or labor under the laws of any State shall continue with the laws thus unchanged, as long as the Territory remains under a territorial government; and when it forms a constitution, to come into the Union as a State, to be received with or without slavery. All my papers and the amendments which I prepared are at my room, not here. That is the condition of the thing.

Mr. HUNTER:—The resolution stands now as several States have instructed for it, and I hope we shall have a vote on it.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I now move to substitute the resolutions of the Peace Convention. I have declared that I would do this; that I would abandon my own resolutions, and take that proposed by the Peace Conference.

Mr. HUNTER:—Then I call for the yeas and nays on the amendment of the Senator from Kentucky.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:—Does the Chair understand the Senator from Kentucky to offer as an amendment to the resolution now before the Senate, the resolution of the Peace Conference?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—Yes, sir.

Mr. HUNTER:—That is an amendment, and on that I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:—I wish to say a word in explanation; of course I shall make no speech at this hour. I have examined the propositions offered by that Convention; they contain, in my judgment, every material provision that is contained in the resolution called the Crittenden resolution. The resolution that I offered contained nothing substantial that has not been adopted by the Convention, except in one particular, and that particular is this: they reject so much of the resolution offered by me as embraced future acquired territory. They said it was enough to settle in regard to the territory we now hold; and they have substituted a provision which, I think, ought to be perfectly satisfactory, as to acquisition of future territory. They say none shall be acquired, unless it be by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which two-thirds vote shall include a majority of the Senators from the slaveholding States, as well as a majority of the Senators from the North. That gives ample security to the South; it gives ample security to the North. No territory can be acquired without the approbation of both sections of the Union, and having this in their power, they can then make any previous arrangement in regard to slavery that they please, before the acquisition of territory. That is the way they dispose of future acquisitions. I prefer it to the disposition made in the resolutions which I submitted to the Senate. I therefore offer them, and for other reasons: out of deference to that great body of men selected on the resolution of Virginia, and invited by Virginia herself. The body having met, and being composed of such men, and a majority of that Convention concurring in these resolutions, I think they come to us with a sanction entitling them to consideration; therefore I have moved them.

Mr. GWIN:—I hope the substitute will not be adopted. The very reason the Senator has given in favor of it, with reference to the acquisition of future territory, I think should be the cause of its being voted down. I am sure Senators from Northern States should not vote for such an amendment as this; because the first acquisition, if we get any at all, will be the very kind of acquisition that the Northern States want. It is well known that if we had had the same counsels in 1854 that we had in 1803, we should have acquired the whole Russian Pacific territory to Behring Straits. If Thomas Jefferson had been President, we should have got the whole of the Pacific possessions of Russia, as we got Louisiana from France, on the same principle; and I believe the first acquisition of territory we shall get will be the Russian possessions to Behring Straits. I hope this amendment of the Constitution will not be voted for by those who are in favor of acquiring territory, especially which will give us such important advantages on the Pacific Ocean. I am utterly opposed to restricting all acquisition hereafter; especially on the Pacific coast of the United States, both north and south. I hope this amendment will be voted down.

Mr. DOUGLAS:—I was exceedingly anxious to get a separate and distinct vote, first on the Peace Conference propositions, and then on the Crittenden proposition, as perfected by the Senator from Kentucky. I have announced several times to-night, that that was my purpose; but after what the Senator from Kentucky has said about his obligations to the Peace Conference, to give priority to their proposition, I must follow him, although I should be delighted if we could make arrangements for separate votes. I prefer his perfected amendment to the Peace Conference proposition; but still, I cannot separate from him on this question, when he thinks he is bound to bring it forward.

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll on the amendment.

Mr. NICHOLSON (when his name was called):—I greatly prefer the resolution of the Senator from Kentucky, because it is unequivocal, unambiguous in its language, and embraces future as well as present territory; but I am willing, if that cannot be got, to vote for the other; and I do not concur in the criticisms that have been made on it to the full extent, though there are features in it to which I very much object. I shall, therefore, vote "nay" on this proposition.

Mr. POWELL:—As I have before announced, I have paired with the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cameron]. If I were not paired, I should vote "nay."

Mr. GWIN:—He would vote with you, if he were here.

Mr. POWELL:—I cannot tell; he is not here.

The result was announced—yeas 7, nays 28, as follows:

Yeas.—Messrs. Crittenden, Douglas, Harlan, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, Morrill, and Thomson—7.

Nays.—Messrs. Bayard, Bigler, Bingham, Bright, Chandler, Clark, Dixon, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Gwin, Hunter, Lane, Latham, Mason, Nicholson, Polk, Pugh, Rice, Sebastian, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wigfall, Wilkinson, and Wilson—28.

So the amendment was rejected.

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