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

Upon the respective merits of the propositions of the committee, and the proposed amendments, I have not much to say. But what I do say will be said in all seriousness.

I do not approve the confident pledges made here of favorable action by the people of either section, or of any State, upon whatever propositions may receive the sanction of this Conference. The people of the free States, so far as my observation goes, do not commit their right of judgment to anybody. They generally exercise it themselves, and be assured they will exercise it freely upon any proposition coming from this body. Whatever our actions may be here, every proposition to amend the Constitution must come before the people. They will discuss it, and must adopt it before it can become a part of the fundamental law. Dismiss, then, the idea that all that is necessary to secure amendments acceptable to a particular interest or section is to secure for them the sanction of a majority in this hall.

The result of the national canvass which recently terminated in the election of Mr. Lincoln has been spoken of by some as the effect of a sudden impulse, or of some irregular excitement of the popular mind; and it has been somewhat confidently asserted that, upon reflection and consideration, the hastily-formed opinions which brought about that election will be changed. It has been said, also, that subordinate questions of local and temporary character have augmented the Republican vote, and secured a majority which could not have been obtained upon the national questions involved in the respective platforms of the parties which divide the country.

I cannot take this view of the result of the Presidential election. I believe, and the belief amounts to absolute conviction, that the election must be regarded as the triumph of principles cherished in the hearts of the people of the free States. These principles, it is true, were originally asserted by a small party only. But, after years of discussion, they have, by their own value, their own intrinsic soundness, obtained the deliberate and unalterable sanction of the people's judgment.

Chief among these principles is the restriction of slavery within State limits; not war upon slavery within those limits, but fixed opposition to its extension beyond them. Mr. Lincoln was the candidate of the people opposed to the extension of slavery. We have elected him. After many years of earnest advocacy and of severe trial, we have achieved the triumph of that principle. By a fair and unquestionable majority we have secured that triumph. Do you think we, who represent this majority, will throw it away? Do you think the people would sustain us if we undertook to throw it away? I must speak to you plainly, gentlemen of the South; it is not in my heart to deceive you. I therefore tell you explicitly that if we of the North and West would consent to throw away all that has been gained in the recent triumph of our principles, the people would not sustain us, and so the consent would avail you nothing. And I must tell you farther, that under no inducements whatever will we consent to surrender a principle which we believe to be so sound and so important as that of restricting slavery within State limits.

There are some things, however, which I think the people are willing to do. In all my relations with them, and these relations have been somewhat intimate, I have never discovered any desire or inclination on the part of any considerable number, to interfere with the institution of slavery within the States where it exists. I do not believe that any such desire anywhere prevails. All your rights have been respected and enforced by the people of the free States. More than this: even your claims have been enforced, under repulsive circumstances, and, in my judgment, beyond right and beyond constitutional obligation. When and where have the people of the free States, in their representatives, refused you any right? When and where have they refused to confer with you frankly and candidly when you imagined your rights to be in danger? They have been, and still are, patient and forbearing. They do not believe that you need any new constitutional guarantees. You have guarantees enough in their voluntary action. But, since you think differently, they send us hither to meet you, to confer with you, to consider the questions which threaten the Union, to discuss them freely and decide them fairly.

Now, gentlemen, what do we ask of you? Do we ask any thing unreasonable in the amendment which has been submitted? We simply ask that you say to your people that we of the free States have no purpose, and never had any purpose, to infringe the rights of the slave States, or of any citizen of the slave States. And that our devotion to the Government and the Constitution is not inferior to that of any portion of the American people. By uniting with us in the declaration we propose, you tell your people at home that no considerable party, that no considerable number of persons, in the free States, has any wish or purpose to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists, or with any of your rights under the Constitution. You can say this with absolute truth, and with entire confidence. In all the action of the delegates who favor this amendment, in all our private consultations, every heart has been animated by a most anxious desire to maintain the Union and preserve the harmony of the Republic. No word has been uttered indicating the slightest wish to avoid any obligation of the Constitution, or to deprive you of any right under it. All concur in desiring to give effect to the Constitution and the laws passed in pursuance of it. The same sentiments animate the people of the free States. Congress has declared, with the almost unanimous concurrence of the members from the free States, against national interference with slavery in the slave States. The Chicago Convention most emphatically asserted the same doctrine. It has been reiterated over and over again by the Legislatures of the free States, and by great and small conventions of their people. Is it, then, too much to ask you to unite with us in a declaration that all fears of aggression entertained by your people are groundless? Such a declaration will go far to insure peace; why not make it?

You profess to be satisfied with slavery, as it is and where it is. You think the institution just and beneficial. The very able gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Seddon), who commands the respect of all by the frankness and sincerity of his speech, has said that he believes slavery to be the condition in which the African is to be educated up to freedom. He does not believe in perpetual slavery. He believes the time will come when the slave, through the beneficent influences of the circumstances which surround him, will rise in intelligence, capacity, and character, to the dignity of a freeman, and will be free.

We cannot agree with you, and therefore do not propose to allow slavery where we are responsible for it, outside of your State limits, and under National jurisdiction. But we do not mean to interfere with it at all within State limits. So far as we are concerned, you can work out your experiment there in peace. We shall rejoice if no evil comes from it to you or yours. [Mr. Chase's time having expired, he was unanimously invited to proceed.]

Aside from the Territorial question—the question of slavery outside of the slave States—I know of but one serious difficulty. I refer to the question concerning fugitives from service. The clause in the Constitution concerning this class of persons is regarded by almost all men, North and South, as a stipulation for the surrender to their masters of slaves escaping into free States. The people of the free States, however, who believe that slaveholding is wrong, cannot and will not aid in the reclamation, and the stipulation becomes therefore a dead letter. You complain of bad faith, and the complaint is retorted by denunciations of the cruelty which would drag back to bondage the poor slave who has escaped from it. You, thinking slavery right, claim the fulfilment of the stipulation; we, thinking slavery wrong, cannot fulfil the stipulation without consciousness of participation in wrong. Here is a real difficulty, but it seems to me not insuperable. It will not do for us to say to you, in justification of non-performance, "the stipulation is immoral, and therefore we cannot execute it;" for you deny the immorality, and we cannot assume to judge for you.