Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

REPORT OF COMPROMISE COMMITTEE.

Various reports were submitted by members of the minority, of no special significance, differing often on immaterial points. The members from California and Oregon who represented the Breckinridge party of the North, united in a recommendation for a general convention to be called under the authority of the Constitution, to propose such amendments as would heal all existing differences, and afford sufficient guaranties to the growing interests of the government and people. The only bold words spoken were in the able report by Cadwallader C. Washburn of Wisconsin and Mason W. Tappan of New Hampshire. They made an exhaustive analysis of the situation in plain language. They reviewed ably and conclusively the report made by Mr. Corwin for the majority of the committee, and spoke as became men who represented the justice and the power of a great Republic. They vindicated the conduct of the General Government, and showed that the Union was not to be preserved by compromises nor by sacrifice of principle. They regarded the discontent and hostility in the South as without just cause, and intimated that those States might purchase at a high price some valuable information to be learned only in the school of experience. They embodied their entire recommendations in a single resolution in which they declared that the provisions of the Constitution were ample for the preservation of the Union; that it needed to be obeyed rather than amended; and that "our extrication from present difficulties is to be looked for in efforts to preserve and protect the public property and enforce the laws, rather than in new guaranties for particular interests, or in compromises, or concessions to unreasonable demands."

When the report of the committee of thirty-three came before the House for action, the series of resolution were first tested by a motion to lay upon the table, which was defeated by a vote of nearly two to one; and after angry debate running through several days, the resolutions, which were only directory in their character, were adopted by a large majority. When the constitutional amendment was reached, Mr. Corwin substituted for that which was originally draughted by Mr. Adams, an amendment declaring that "no amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish, or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." This was adopted by a vote of 133 to 65. It was numbered as the thirteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution, and would have made slavery perpetual in the United States, so far as any influence or power of the National Government could affect it. It intrenched slavery securely in the organic law of the land, and elevated the privilege of the slave-holder beyond that of the owner of any other species of property. It received the votes of a large number of Republicans who were then and afterwards prominent in the councils of the party. Among the most distinguished were Mr. Sherman of Ohio, Mr. Colfax, Mr. C. F. Adams, Mr. Howard of Michigan, Mr. Windom of Minnesota, and Messrs. Moorhead and McPherson of Pennsylvania. The sixty-five negative votes were all Republicans whom the excitement of the hour did not drag from their moorings, and many of whom have since done, as they had done before, signal service for their party and their country. Thaddeus Stevens was at their head, and he was sustained by the two Washburns, by Bingham of Ohio, by Roscoe Conkling, by Anson Burlingame, by Owen Lovejoy, by Marston and Tappan of New Hampshire, by Galusha A. Grow, by Reuben E. Fenton, and by others who, if less conspicuous, were not less deserving.

When the proposition reached the Senate, it was adopted by a vote of 24 to 12, precisely the requisite two-thirds. Among those who aided in carrying it were Hunter of Virginia, Nicholson of Tennessee, Sebastian of Arkansas, and Gwin of California, who soon after proceeded to join the Rebellion. Eight Republican senators, Anthony of Rhode Island, Baker of Oregon, Dixon and Foster of Connecticut, Grimes and Harlan of Iowa, Morrill of Maine, and Ten Eyck of New Jersey, voted in the affirmative. Only twelve out of twenty-five Republican senators voted in the negative. Mr. Seward, Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Collamer, and others among the weightiest Republican leaders are not recorded as voting. As pairs were not announced, it may be presumed that they consented to the passage of the amendment. Before the resolution could reach the States for concurrence, either by convention or Legislature, the evidences of Southern outbreak had so increased that all such efforts at conciliation were seen to be vain, and in the end they proved hurtful. Only two States, Maryland and Ohio, gave their assent to the amendment. In the New- England States it was rejected, and in many it was not acted upon. Whoever reads the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution as it now stands, and compares it with the one which was proposed by the Thirty-sixth Congress, will be struck with the rapid revolution of public sentiment, and will not be at a loss to draw some useful lessons as to the course of public opinion and the conduct of public men in times of high excitement.

THE CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE.

The propositions of the committee of thirty-three to admit New Mexico as a slave State, and to amend the Fugitive-slave Law, were both passed by the House, but were defeated or not acted upon in the Senate. In that body the efforts of the friends of conciliation were mainly confined to the Crittenden compromise which has already been outlined in the proceedings of the House. But for the eminent respectability of the venerable senator from Kentucky, his propositions would have had short consideration. They were of a character not to be entertained by a free people. They dealt wholly in the finding of new guaranties for slavery, without attempting to intimate the possible necessity of new guaranties for freedom. Perhaps the most vicious feature in this whole series of proposed amendments to the Constitution was the guaranty of slavery against the power of Congress in all territory of the United States south of 36° 30´. This offered a premium upon the acquisition of territory, and was an encouragement to schemes of aggression against friendly powers south of the United States, which would always have had the sympathy and support of one-half the Union, and could hardly have been resisted by any moral power of the General Government. It would have opened anew the old struggle for equality between free States and slave States, and would in all probability have led the country to war within three years from its adoption,—war with Mexico for the border States of that Republic, war with Spain for the acquisition of Cuba. This would have followed as matter of policy with Southern leaders, whether they intended to abide in the Union, or whether they intended, at some more advantageous and opportune moment, to secede from it. If they concluded to remain, their political power in the National Government would have been greatly increased from the acquisition of new States. If they desired to secede, they would have acquired a much more formidable strength and vastly larger area by the addition of Southern territory to which the Crittenden propositions would not only have invited but driven them.

While these propositions were under discussion, Mr. Clark of New Hampshire offered as a substitute the resolution with which Messrs. Washburn and Tappan had closed their report in the House,—a resolution of which Mr. Clark was the author, and which he had previously submitted to the consideration of the Senate. The test question in the Senate was whether Mr. Clark's resolution should be substituted for the Crittenden proposition, and this was carried by a vote of 25 to 23. The twenty-five were all Republicans; the twenty-three were all Democrats, except Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky and Mr. Kennedy of Maryland, who had been supporters of Mr. Bell in the Presidential election. It is a fact worthy of note that six senators from the extreme Southern States sat in their seats and refused to vote on the proposition. Had they chosen they could have defeated the action. But they believed, with a certain consistency and wisdom, that no measure could be of value to the South unless it had the concurrence of senators from the North; and with this motive they imposed upon the Republicans of the Senate the responsibility of deciding the Crittenden proposition. It was matter of congratulation with Republicans who did not lose their judgment in that trying season, that the Senate stood firmly against the fatal compromise which was urged by so many strong influences. Much was forgiven for other unwise concessions, so long as this was definitely rejected.

PROPOSITIONS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE.

Meanwhile a body of men had assembled in the National Capital upon the invitation of the State of Virginia, for the purpose of making an earnest effort to adjust the unhappy controversy. The Peace Congress, as it was termed, came together in the spirit in which the Constitution was originally formed. Its members professed, and no doubt felt, an earnest desire to afford to the slave-holding States, consistently with the principles of the Constitution, adequate guaranties for the security of their rights. Virginia's proposition was brought to the National Capital by Ex-President John Tyler, deputed by his State to that honorable duty. In response to the invitation twenty-one States, fourteen free and seven slave, had sent delegates, who assembled in Washington on the 4th of February, 1861. After remaining in session some three weeks, the Peace Congress submitted an article of amendment to the Constitution, contained in seven sections, making as many distinct propositions.

—The first section restored the line of the Missouri Compromise as it was before the repeal in 1854.