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

The Conference has heard the ideas of political and professional men expressed upon the important questions now presented for its consideration. These ideas have been well expressed, and we have all been interested in hearing them. Will you now hear a few words from a body of men who have hitherto been silent here, but who have a deep and abiding interest in the happiness and prosperity of the country and in the preservation and perpetuity of the American Union?

Sir! I am here as a plain merchant, out of place, I very well know, in such a Conference as this; but accident has brought me here, and I will tell you how and why I came. Three weeks ago I left my business—which in times like these certainly deserves all my attention—to come to the city of Washington on business of a public character. I came at the suggestion and request of the Chamber of Commerce of New York, hoping, in my humble way, to serve the public interests in this crisis. Inconvenient though it was, and involving personal sacrifices of no ordinary character, when others thought my country had need of my poor services, I did not hesitate to respond to her call. And I hope I may never hesitate under such circumstances.

I came here to visit Congress, as a member of a committee, bearing a petition to that body signed by more than thirty-nine thousand of my fellow-citizens, all interested in the welfare and permanence of this Government. This number included more than twenty thousand business men and firms. This petition was earnest and emphatic. In it, we asked and prayed that Congress would adopt some plan that would settle our present sectional troubles; that would relieve the country from the anxiety and apprehension which pervaded it, and permit business and commerce to resume their accustomed channels, with assurances of safety in the future. We knew that the time had arrived when patriotic men must act; that commercial and financial ruin was impending. Our petition set forth, that in the opinion of the signers, the plan contained in what were called the "Border State Resolutions" was best calculated to secure the end desired. We thought those resolutions ought to be satisfactory to the reasonable and true Union men of the South, and that they ought not to be obnoxious to the prejudices or objections of the people of the free States. Still we were not strenuous—we were not committed to any particular plan. All we desired, was to secure such action on the part of Congress and the Executive, as would satisfy the country; such action as would give the country peace.

When we came to Washington we met seventy republican members of the Senate and House of Representatives. We had with them a most satisfactory and delightful interview. It gave me renewed hope for my country and her interests when I heard the expressions of conciliation and good will which these gentlemen used; I felt my confidence renewed.

Besides these gentlemen, who met and heartily coöperated with us, there were several members from the Border States whose expressions were not less friendly, although they did not think it expedient to act with us. Our committee made all the representations and explanations which were deemed necessary; and having performed my duty in that connection, in the earnest hope that we had influenced the action of Congress in the right direction, I was about to return home with my colleagues, when I received a telegraphic despatch requesting me to attend the meeting of this Conference. I obeyed the summons; and since I received it, I have been laboring with all the ability, strength, and power with which GOD has blessed me, to secure the adoption of some plan here, that would settle our difficulties and avert from our beloved country the evils with which she is now threatened.

Sir, there has not one moment passed since I came here, during which I have not felt a deep and overpowering sense of the grave responsibility which rests upon myself and the other members of this Conference. I am accustomed to the trials, vexations, cares, and responsibilities of business; I know how to meet and grapple with them calmly. But I do not feel so here. My days are anxious and excited—my nights are wakeful and sleepless. In all the weary watches of last night, I could not close my eyes in slumber. The reason was, because I saw from a point of view which you do not, the certain and inevitable ruin that is threatening the business, commercial interests of this country, and which is sure to fall with crushing force upon those interests, unless we come to some arrangement here.

I speak to you now as a business man—as a merchant of New York, the commercial metropolis of the nation. I am no politician, I have no interest except such as is common to the people. But let me assure you, that even I can scarcely realize, much less describe, the stagnation which has now settled upon the business and commerce of that great city, caused solely by the unsettled and uncertain condition of the questions which we are endeavoring to arrange and settle here.

I tell you what I do not get from second hands, but what I know myself, when I assure you that had not Divine Providence poured out its blessings upon the great West in an abundant harvest, and at the same time opened a new market for that harvest in foreign lands, bringing it through New York in its transit, our city would now present the silence and the quiet of the Sabbath day. Why is this? It is because we, who have lived together in harmony with each other, a powerful and a happy people, are breaking up—are preparing to separate and go out from one another!

The merchants of our great commercial cities of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, are not listless or unenterprising men. They are accustomed to the interests, the bustle, the excitement of business. They have heretofore seen their stores crowded with buyers. During the day the interiors of their places of business were like busy hives. Not unfrequently have their clerks been obliged to labor all through the night to secure and send off the goods which they had sold to reliable customers during the day. When business is good and driving throughout our commercial cities, wealth and comfort are secured to merchants and agents engaged in commerce in those cities, and it indicates general prosperity in the country to which the goods purchased are transmitted. It shows a healthy condition of affairs both in city and country.

How stands the matter in those cities to-day? Now, just when the spring trade should be commencing, go to the extensive and magnificent establishments for the sale of goods in any of the cities I have named, where goods are sold which in prosperous times found their way into almost every family to a greater or less amount in this great country. What will you see in those cities now? The heavy stocks of goods imported last autumn, or laid in from our own manufactories, remain undisturbed and untouched upon the shelves. The customers are not there—they have not made their appearance. The few who have come at all, come not as buyers, but as debtors who cannot pay, and whose business is not to make purchases but to arrange for extensions. The merchants, in despair, are poring over their ledgers; checking off the names of their insolvent debtors, a new list of whom comes by each day's mail. Their clerks sit around in idleness reading the newspapers, or thinking mournfully of the wives and children at home, who will go unclad and hungry if they are discharged from their places, as they know they must be, if this condition of things shall continue. All alike, employers and employed, with all dependent upon them, are looking anxiously, and I wish I could say hopefully, to the Congress of the United States, or to this Conference, as the only sources from which help may come.