This committee, instead of reporting on the day appointed, did not report until Friday, the 15th February,[[111]] and thus a precious week was lost......
The amendments reported by a majority of the committee, through Mr. Guthrie, their chairman, were substantially the same with the Crittenden Compromise; but on motion of Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, the general terms of the first and by far the most important section were restricted to the present Territories of the United States.[[112]] On motion of Mr. Franklin, of Pennsylvania, this section was further amended, but not materially changed, by the adoption of the substitute offered by him. Nearly in this form it was afterwards adopted by the Convention.[[113]] The following is a copy: “In all the present Territory of the United States north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes 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.”
Mr. Baldwin, of Connecticut, and Mr. Seddon, of Virginia, on opposite extremes, made minority reports, which they proposed to substitute for that of the majority. Mr. Baldwin’s report was a recommendation “to the several States to unite with Kentucky in her application to Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, to be submitted to the legislatures of the several States, or to conventions therein, for ratification, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress, in accordance with the provisions in the fifth article of the Constitution.”[[114]]
Of the two modes prescribed by the Constitution for its own amendment, this was the least eligible at the existing crisis, because by far the most dilatory. Instead of calling upon Congress, then in session and which could act immediately, to propose specific amendments to the legislatures of the several States, it adopted the circuitous mode of requesting these legislatures, in the first instance, to apply to Congress to call a convention. Even should two-thirds of them respond in the affirmative to this request, the process would necessarily occasion a delay of years in attaining the object, when days were all-important. This would entirely defeat the patriotic purpose of the Peace Convention. It was called to obtain, if possible, a direct vote of two-thirds of both Houses before the end of the session in favor of such amendments as it might recommend. Could such a vote be obtained, it was confidently expected by the friends of the Union that its moral influence would, for the present, satisfy the border States; would arrest the tide beginning to rise among their people in favor of secession, and might enable them to exercise an effective influence in reclaiming the States which had already seceded. Affairs were then so urgent that long before the State legislatures could possibly ask Congress to call a convention as required by Mr. Baldwin’s proposition, the cause of the Union might be hopeless. It was, therefore, rejected.
This proposition of Mr. Baldwin, evasive and dilatory as it was, nevertheless received the votes of eight of the twenty-one States.[[115]] These consisted of the whole of the New England States, except Rhode Island, and of Illinois, Iowa and New York, all being free States. This was an evil omen.
The first amendment reported by Mr. Seddon differed from that of the majority, inasmuch as it embraced not only the present but all future Territories.[[116]] This was rejected.[[117]] His second amendment, which, however, was never voted upon by the Convention, went so far as distinctly to recognize the right of secession.
It cannot be denied that there was in the convention an extreme Southern rights element, headed by Mr. Seddon. This manifested itself throughout its proceedings. These show how naturally extremes meet. On more than one important occasion, we find the vote of Virginia and North Carolina, though given in each case by a bare majority of their commissioners, side by side with the vote of Massachusetts and Vermont. It would be too tedious to trace the proceedings of the Convention from the report of the committee made by Mr. Guthrie until its final adjournment. It is sufficient to say that more than ten days were consumed in discussion and in voting upon various propositions offered by individual commissioners. The final vote was not reached until Tuesday, the 26th February, when it was taken on the first and vitally important section, as amended.[[118]]
This section, on which all the rest depended, was negatived by a vote of eight States to eleven. Those which voted in its favor were Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Tennessee. And those in the negative were Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Vermont and Virginia. It is but justice to say that Messrs. Ruffin and Morehead, of North Carolina, and Messrs. Rives and Summers, of Virginia, two of the five commissioners from each of these States, declared their dissent from the vote of their respective States. So, also, did Messrs. Bronson, Corning, Dodge, Wool and Granger, five of the eleven New York commissioners, dissent from the vote of their State. On the other hand, Messrs. Meredith and Wilmot, two of the seven commissioners from Pennsylvania, dissented from the majority in voting in favor of the section. Thus would the Convention have terminated but for the interposition of Illinois. Immediately after the section had been negatived, the commissioners from that State made a motion to reconsider the vote, and this prevailed. The Convention afterwards adjourned until the next morning. When they reassembled (February 27), the first section was adopted, but only by a majority of nine to eight States, nine being less than a majority of the States represented. This change was effected by a change of the vote of Illinois from the negative to the affirmative, by Missouri withholding her vote, and by a tie in the New York commissioners, on account of the absence of one of their number, rendering it impossible for the State to vote. Still, Virginia and North Carolina, in the one extreme, and Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, in the other, persisted in voting in the negative. From the nature of this vote, it was manifestly impossible that two-thirds of both Houses of Congress should act favorably on the amendment, even if the delay had not already rendered such action impracticable before the close of the session.
It would be useless to refer to the voting on the remaining sections of the amendment, which were carried by small majorities.[[119]] The Convention, on the same day, through Mr. Tyler, their president, communicated to the Senate and House of Representatives the amendment they had adopted, embracing all the sections, with a request that it might be submitted by Congress, under the Constitution, to the several State legislatures. In the Senate this was immediately referred to a select committee, on motion of Mr. Crittenden. The committee, on the next day (28th Feb.),[[120]] reported a joint resolution (No. 70) proposing it as an amendment to the Constitution, but he was never able to bring the Senate to a direct vote upon it.[[121]] Failing in this, he made a motion to substitute the amendment of the Peace Convention for his own.[[122]] This he prefaced by declaring that he looked upon the result of the deliberations of that body “as affording the best opportunity for a general concurrence among the States, and among the people.” He, therefore, “had determined to take it in preference to his own proposition, and had so stated to many of the members of the Convention.” He further said that he had “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.” He also had adopted this course “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.” Mr. Crittenden’s reasons failed to convince the Senate, and his motion was rejected by a large majority (28 to 7).[[123]] Then next in succession came the memorable vote on Mr. Crittenden’s own resolution, and it was in its turn defeated, as we have already stated, by a majority of 20 against 19.
We cannot take leave of this venerable patriot, who so wisely appreciated the existing danger, without paying a just tribute to the vigor and perseverance of his repeated efforts to ward off from his country the direful calamity of disunion and civil war. Well did he merit the almost unanimous vote of the Virginia Convention, on the 11th March, tendering him the thanks of the people of Virginia for “his recent able, zealous, and patriotic efforts in the Senate in the United States, to bring about a just and honorable adjustment of our national difficulties.”[[124]] This vote, we may remark, was far from being complimentary to the conduct of a majority of their own commissioners (Messrs. Tyler, Brockenbrough, and Seddon) in the Peace Convention.