The Great Conspiracy, Volume 6 - John Alexander Logan

[This phrase slightly altered, in words, but not in meaning, to "The Union as it was, and the Constitution as it is," afterward became the Shibboleth under which the Democratic Party in the Presidential Campaign of 1864, marched to defeat.]

He endeavored to impute the blame for the War, to the northern Abolitionists, for, said he: "Had there been no Abolitionists, North, there never would have been a Fire-eater, South,"—apparently ignoring the palpable fact that had there been no Slavery in the South, there could have been no "Abolitionists, North."

He heatedly denounced the "fanatical gentlemen" who desired the passage of this measure; declared they intended by its passage "to destroy the Institution of Slavery or to destroy the Union," and exclaimed: "Pass this Amendment and you make an impassable chasm, as if you were to put a lake of burning fire, between the adhering States and those who are out. You will then have to make it a War of conquest and extermination before you can ever bring them back under the flag of the Government. There is no doubt about that proposition."

Mr. Sumner, at this point, withdrew his proposed amendment, at the suggestion of Mr. Howard, who expressed a preference "to dismiss all reference to French Constitutions and French Codes, and go back to the good old Anglo-Saxon language employed by our Fathers, in the Ordinance of 1787, (in) an expression adjudicated upon repeatedly, which is perfectly well understood both by the public and by Judicial Tribunals—a phrase, which is peculiarly near and dear to the people of the Northwestern Territory, from whose soil Slavery was excluded by it."

[The following is the language of "the Ordinance of 1787" thus referred to:

"ART. 6.—There shall be neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: * * *.">[

Mr. Davis thereupon made another opposition speech and, at its conclusion, Mr. Saulsbury offered, as a substitute, an Article, comprising no less than twenty sections—that, he said, "embodied in them some things" which "did not meet his personal approbation," but he had consented to offer them to the Senate as "a Compromise"—as "a Peace offering."

The Saulsbury substitute being voted down, the debate closed with a speech by Mr. McDougall—an eloquent protest from his standpoint, in which, after endorsing the wild statement of Mr. Hendricks that 250,000 of the people of African descent had been prematurely destroyed on the Mississippi, he continued.

"This policy will ingulf them. It is as simple a truth as has ever been taught by any history. The Slaves of ancient time were not the Slaves of a different Race. The Romans compelled the Gaul and the Celt, brought them to their own Country, and some of them became great poets, and some eloquent orators, and some accomplished wits, and they became citizens of the Republic of Greece, and of the Republic of Rome, and of the Empire.