The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

There was one proposition, and probably only one, which embodied a competent basis of settlement, and was entitled to favor. This was called the “Crittenden Compromise,” and originated with the venerable Kentucky Senator, by whose name it is designated. For a time it seemed that the demonstrations of popular sentiment in its favor, especially the well-ascertained readiness of a large majority of the Southern people to accept it, and its exceedingly practical nature, as a final settlement of the slavery question, would eventually secure its adoption by Congress. The result was a disappointment of this patriotic expectation, and a conclusive demonstration of the purpose of the Republican party to consent to no settlement which the South could accept.

An examination of the Crittenden proposition will reveal a most striking illustration of the ever-present spirit of accommodation, in matters affecting the safety of the Union, which, even in its last hours, was characteristic of the leaders and people of the South, and of the narrow, selfish, and exacting sectionalism of the North. In reality, it was little short of a surrender, in its ample concessions, to the encroachments of Abolitionism.

The resolutions introduced by Mr. Crittenden, in the Senate, on the 18th of December, 1860, contemplated amendments to the Constitution having the following objects: The prohibition of slavery in all Territories north of the old Missouri Compromise line, and providing protection for it south of that line; a denial of the power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, or in ports, arsenels, dock-yards, or wherever else the Federal Government exercised jurisdiction; remuneration to owners of escaped slaves by communities in which the Federal laws, providing rendition of slaves, might be violently obstructed. Such were the material features of the “Crittenden Compromise.”

It will be seen at a glance how absurd was the misnomer of “compromise” applied to so one-sided a settlement. The South was required, by its provisions, to abandon the sacred right of protection to her property, guaranteed by the Constitution and unequivocally re-affirmed by the highest judicial tribunal in the land. The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, had already decided the right to take slaves into all the Territories, while the Crittenden proposition prohibited it entirely in the major portion of the common Territory, and merely tolerated it in the residue. The Constitution, as expounded by the Supreme Court, guaranteed the right of introduction and protection of slavery in all the Territories, in whatever latitude, as the common property of the States. The Crittenden amendment proposed to confine this right to Territory south of 36° 30', prohibiting, in the meanwhile, slavery forever north of that line, and in regions where its legal existence had been emphatically affirmed by that august tribunal, the Supreme Court. If adopted, it would have yielded every thing to Abolition rapacity, save a mere abstraction. Of all the vast territory yet remaining to be hereafter divided into States, only in New Mexico did it propose even to tolerate slavery, and in that locality the laws of nature precluded its permanent establishment.

A few days after its introduction in the Senate, the Crittenden amendment was proposed by its author to a special committee of thirteen, created on motion of Senator Powell, of Kentucky, for the consideration of all questions pertaining to the pending national difficulties. This committee was composed of the most eminent and influential Senators, embracing five leading Republicans, five Southern Senators, and Messrs. Bright, Bigler, and Douglas, on behalf of the Northern Democracy. Mr. Davis, originally appointed, at first declined to serve, but finally consented, in compliance with the urgent requests of other Senators. At the first meeting of the committee, 21st December, it was “resolved that no proposition shall be reported as adopted, unless sustained by a majority of each of the classes of the committee; Senators of the Republican party to constitute one class, and Senators of the other parties to constitute the other class.”

This resolution was necessary, in consequence of the obvious futility of any settlement which did not meet the approval of a majority of the Republican Senators. In this Committee the Crittenden proposition was defeated. Not one of the Republican Senators voted for it, and Messrs. Davis and Toombs likewise voted against it when it was ascertained that it would not receive the sanction of a majority of the Republican Senators.

Despite its unfairness as a measure of settlement, and its great injustice to the South, Mr. Davis would have accepted it, as would a large majority of Southern Senators, as a finality, if the Republican Senators had tendered it. This, however, the latter were determined not to do, nor did a single Republican Senator, at any time during the session, express even a desire that any action, conciliatory to the South, should be adopted.[18] Insolent, dictatorial, and defiant, they proclaimed their purpose, at all hazards, to assert the authority of the Government, and their acts clearly indicated their stern purpose to refuse every proposition contemplating concession or compromise. In substitution of the Crittenden adjustment, they voted solidly for the amendment of Senator Clarke, of New Hampshire, which denied the necessity of amendments to the Constitution, which ought to be obeyed rather than amended, and declared that the remedy for present difficulties was to be sought in a stern enforcement of the laws, rather than in assurances to peculiar ideas and guarantees to peculiar interests. This palpable defiance, and emphatic avowal of a purpose to concede nothing to Southern demands, was indorsed by the action of Republican caucusses of both houses of Congress, by resolutions of State Legislatures, and by tenders of men and means to compel the submission of the South. The entire Republican party were clearly committed to the purpose, avowed by Mr. Salmon P. Chase, in a letter from the Peace Congress, to Portsmouth, Ohio, to “use the power while they had it, and prevent a settlement.”[19]

On the 31st December, 1860, the Committee of Thirteen reported to the Senate their inability to “agree upon any general plan of adjustment,” and thus, with the arrival of the new year, had vanished the last hope of preserving the peace of the country. The failure of the Crittenden proposition was decisive of the question of pacification; no other plan of adjustment, that was presented, having either its merits or its practical features.

Southern resistance came none too soon for Northern power, hate, and lust, but far too late for the precious goal of independence. Delay had been fatal, and the golden opportunity long since lost. But there was still time to emulate the glorious examples of the past. With marvelous calmness and dauntless intrepidity, a heroic race prepared an exhibition of noble devotion and willing sacrifice, the contemplation of which revives the memories of Thermopylæ.

Comparatively of little moment, now, is the question, whether the acceptance of this basis of adjustment by the South would have been consistent with discretion. In the end the result, in all likelihood, would have been the same. Had a settlement been reached in 1861, Southern liberties must eventually have perished, through the influences of corruption and the demoralization engendered by continued submission to wrong, no less effectually than by their overthrow in that gallant struggle of arms, which terminated with such fatal results. But there still remains the question of responsibility for those horrors of civil strife, which the failure of the Crittenden amendment soon precipitated upon the country. Those crimson spots which stain the subsequent history of the Republic, are traceable to no parricidal hand raised by the South. No historical question has received more satisfactory decision than this; and the South is acquitted even by the testimony of her enemies. It is unnecessary to give the evidence of Southern men, when there is such ample testimony from those who deprecated and condemned the subsequent course of the South.