We ask first, additional guarantees for our rights—for Southern rights. They must be such as will satisfy our people, and bring back the States that have left the Union. Short of this they will amount to nothing. I know the public opinion of the South on these important questions. I have closely watched its growth. My own convictions as to what it will require are decided. Unless you use language and adopt terms in your proposals of amendment which will satisfy the seceded States—which will induce them to return to the Union—your labors will have been in vain.
What is our claim? It is this, in short: We claim that every Southern man has the right to go into the Territories with his property, wherever these Territories may be. The Territories belong to both; to the South as well as to the North. We want equality. We have no wish to propagate slavery, but every man at the South does wish to insist upon his right to enter the Territories upon terms of perfect equality with the North, if he chooses to do so. He may not exercise the right, but he will not give it up.
We want a division of the Territories. We want to set up landmarks so that neither we nor our posterity shall dispute hereafter about the line.
North Carolina has instructed us to say to this Conference, that if the Crittenden amendment can be adopted here, we can carry it almost with unanimity. There will be a struggle even with our own people, but we can induce them to adopt it.
We have three hundred miles of border in common with South Carolina. Our trade and our associations are in that direction. It is useless to deny that South Carolina has sympathizers among us in her recent movement. You must consider these things, and give us a chance. We must base our argument on principle; we must stand upon terms of perfect equality.
The proposition needs this amendment. As it stands it is ambiguous. It is worse than that, for its construction will depend on the opinion of a Territorial Judge.
Mr. CRISFIELD:—I come from a State that is deeply interested in the subject of slavery. Nevertheless, I shall vote against the amendment of the gentleman from North Carolina.
I belong to that class of politicians which believes that the people of every section of the Union have a right to go into all the Territories of the Union, and take with them their property and hold it in safety. But we ought not, in our proposals of amendment to the Constitution, to insist upon what will be repulsive to any section of the Union. I think the amendment is unnecessary—that the right we claim is sufficiently protected without it. As it stands, neither Congress nor the Territorial Government has the right to impair the status of the slave. What farther protection do we need? What other can we have? Why should we insist upon the adoption of a new style of language? We ought not to be unreasonable; we ought to content ourselves with the proposition as it stands, and not put expressions into it which will make the whole repulsive to a large section of the country, and which, in all probability, will defeat the whole amendment when it comes before the country. I am not even sure that we could get it there. I doubt whether it would pass Congress.
This is a very serious and important question. We wish to stay the hands of extremists on both sides. We wish to stand by the Union. If war comes, our soil is to be the battle ground. I wish to avoid war. I will insist upon this, and I will consent to no extreme opinions.
Mr. VANDEVER:—I do not see why Mr. Guthrie cannot accept the proposed amendment. He and the gentleman from North Carolina are both aiming at the same thing. The amendment is certainly the clearest. Do you suppose the people are not going to understand the subject thoroughly? Do you suppose that they will be deceived by any such transparent disguise of words? You do not pay them a very high compliment by such a supposition.