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 resolutions of Virginia originated the call for the Conference.

Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and Oregon were not represented. South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas had passed ordinances of secession previous to the meeting of the Conference. Messrs. Benjamin and Slidell, the Senators from Louisiana, withdrew from the Senate of the United States before the proposed amendments to the Constitution were reported to the Conference.

The following resolutions of their respective States were presented by the delegates to the Committee on Credentials, and were ordered by the Conference to be printed, on the motion of Mr. Chase.[9]

TENNESSEE.

Resolutions proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That a Convention of delegates from all the slaveholding States should assemble at Nashville, Tennessee, or such other place as a majority of the States coöperating may designate, on the fourth day of February, 1861, to digest and define a basis upon which, if possible, the Federal Union and the constitutional rights of the slave States may be perpetuated and preserved.

Resolved, That the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee appoint a number of delegates to said Convention, of our ablest and wisest men, equal to our whole delegation in Congress; and that the Governor of Tennessee immediately furnish copies of these resolutions to the Governors of the slaveholding States, and urge the participation of such States in said Convention.

Resolved, That in the opinion of this General Assembly, such plan of adjustment should embrace the following propositions as amendments to the Constitution of the United States:

1. A declaratory amendment that African slaves, as held under the institutions of the slaveholding States, shall be recognized as property, and entitled to the status of other property, in the States where slavery exists, in all places within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress in the slave States, in all the Territories south of 36° 30´; in the District of Columbia; in transit; and whilst temporarily sojourning with the owner in the non-slaveholding States and Territories north of 36° 30´, and when fugitives from the owner, in the several places above named, as well as in all places in the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress in the non-slaveholding States.