Massachusetts, equally willing to unite with the other States in an earnest effort to further the same end, accepted the invitation of Virginia, and sent Commissioners here to represent her.
The honorable Chairman (Mr. Guthrie) of the committee to report a plan of adjustment, in his opening speech, advocated with earnestness and eloquence a restoration of the Constitution to the principles of the fathers. The distinguished gentleman (Mr. Rives) from Virginia demands a "restoration of the Constitution to the landmarks of our fathers," and his colleague (Mr. Seddon) urges a return to the "policy of our fathers in 1787."
This assumes that we have departed from the principles and landmarks of our fathers, and from the policy of 1787. The call of the Convention assumes this; the platform of the Republican party assumes it, and the gentlemen whose remarks I have quoted assume it, and it is true.
The particular object of a return to the principles and landmarks of the policy of 1787, as stated in the preamble and resolutions of the General Assembly of Virginia, is, "to afford to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights." This implies that such a return will afford these adequate guarantees. I agree that it will; and I am ready, and Massachusetts is ready, to adjust this unhappy controversy, and to give the guarantees demanded in exactly this way.
Stated in these general terms, there is a perfect agreement between us. But we find a wide difference when we go one step farther, and learn precisely what Virginia claims would be a restoration of the Constitution to the principles of the fathers, and a return to the policy of 1787. This she has told us in one of the resolutions sent out with the call for this Convention. That resolution is as follows:
"Resolved, That in the opinion of the General Assembly of Virginia, the propositions embraced in the resolutions presented to the Senate of the United States by Hon. John J. Crittenden, so modified as that the first article proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States shall apply to all the territory of the United States, now held or hereafter acquired south of latitude 36° 30´, and provide that slavery of the African race shall be effectually protected as property therein during the continuance of the territorial government, and the fourth article shall secure to the owners of slaves the right of transit with their slaves between and through the non-slaveholding States and territories, constitute the basis of such an adjustment of the unhappy controversy which now divides the States of this Confederacy, as would be accepted by the people of this Commonwealth."
It was in reference to these propositions that the gentleman (Mr. Seddon) from Virginia, has asked us the question, "Are we not entitled to these added guarantees according to the spirit of the compact of our fathers?"
The true answer to this question is the pivot on which this whole controversy must turn. If the slave States are not entitled to these added guarantees, "according to the spirit of the compact of our fathers," then Virginia, as I understand her Commissioners, and the resolutions of her General Assembly, does not claim them. She stands upon her rights according to that compact. And all such rights Massachusetts is ready to accord to her, fairly and fully.
By the spirit of the compact of our fathers is meant, the Constitution as they understood it, and as the people of that day understood it. And this is what is meant by the "landmarks of the fathers." All admit that the Federal Government should be administered now, as it was administered by its framers. This is what gentlemen from the slave States, in giving utterance to their intense devotion to the Union, say.
Then, what is the Constitution, as understood by those who framed it? What does it mean when interpreted by the light of the policy of 1787? and what is the spirit of the compact which they made? This is the question we are called to consider. In my remarks I do not mean to wander from it.