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

Mr. BIGLER:—I did not understand the Senator as placing entire stress on the question of order. I have been endeavoring to take this question away from the rules, to set it above the rules, and I say that we ought to consider it without reference to the rules. If it be that this programme is not acceptable to the Senate, let it be rejected. What I supposed was intended from the beginning was, that whatever they sent here was to be considered as an entirety—accepted or rejected. I was about to remark, who supposes that twenty States would have sent commissioners to prepare a programme of peace for the consideration of Congress, if they had supposed that immediately the peculiar views of each member of Congress would be set up in opposition to them?

Mr. President, a single remark in relation to what fell from the Senator from New York, and I shall have done. The Senator from New York alludes to the terms of the preamble, that, for the reason that these commissioners agreed, therefore these propositions are submitted as amendments to the Constitution. I do not wish to be understood as regarding it in that light. I do not think it is the right of Congress to submit propositions of amendment of the Constitution because they come from any source. The spirit of the Constitution is, that Congress will submit amendments to the Constitution; because Congress approves those amendments, and it would be a reason why I should vote for or against them, whether I approved them or not. If, as a whole, I could vote for them, I would vote for them; if, as a whole, I could not, I would vote against them. That does not affect the question whether, under all the circumstances, and solemn surroundings, the labor which has been bestowed, and the character of the men that have presented this paper, we should consider it as an entirety, or attempt to cut it up by piecemeal, by which neither they, nor the public, will ever ascertain what the judgment of Congress was on the results of their labor. That is what I say.

Mr. SEWARD:—The honorable Senator may very naturally and very properly take the ground that he would not vote, and that Congress ought not to vote, for submitting this proposition to the people, for the reason assigned in the paper before us. I have not any disposition to quarrel with him about it. I might take the same view, and say that I would not submit to the people a proposition which was futile, which was frivolous. That is not what I was speaking to. What I was speaking to was, the character of this proposition; and this is a proposition just to this effect, logically and technically expressed: that whereas these commissioners appointed by the States have met, consulted, considered, and adopted that resolution, therefore, for that reason, independent of every thing else, Congress submits it to the States.

Mr. PUGH:—I want to make an appeal to the friends of some proposition of peace. This is the last day of the session but one, and we have not made the progress of one line. We have gone into an eternal discussion about questions of order, and that, too, in defiance of the rule of the Senate. I insist that the question shall be decided without further debate.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Fitch):—It is not for the Chair to decide any question of propriety, except as an individual Senator. As Presiding Officer, he does not deem the question of order, made by the Senator from Vermont, to be well taken. The joint resolution differs in no respect from other resolutions, and is open to amendment, and is before the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, for that purpose. The question is on agreeing to the amendment which has been offered by the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. HUNTER:—Mr. President, I have offered this amendment, as the first of a series which I shall offer, for the purpose of carrying out the will of my State, as it has been expressed through its Legislature; and I might say there are other Senators similarly situated, for there are other States which have declared a disposition to settle upon the basis of what are called the Crittenden resolutions. That is the first reason which prompts me; and to me it is imperative, because the Legislature of the State which I have the honor in part to represent, has declared that this is the basis upon which it would settle, and intimated that it would not take less than they propose by way of security for the South. I have also another reason. I have examined this proposition of the Peace Conference—

Mr. WADE:—Will the Senator let us hear it read? We do not understand what his proposition is.

Mr. HUNTER:—My proposition is the first article from the Crittenden amendments, in regard to the territorial adjustment.

Mr. WADE:—We understand that.

Mr. HUNTER:—After as careful an examination as I have been able to give this proposition from the Peace Conference since it was printed, that is to say, within the last day or two, I have come to the conclusion that it would not only make a great many more difficulties than it would remove, if it should be adopted as an amendment to the Constitution, but that it would place the South—the slaveholding States—in a far worse position than they now occupy under the present Constitution, with the Dred Scott decision as its exposition.