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

But what excuse can we find for the peculiar champions of popular rights in this Chamber; these zealous servants of the people, forever ringing in our ears, "Let the voice of the people be heard; respect the will of the people; vox populi vox Dei!" Sir, I say too, let the voice of the people be heard and respected. And I think, for the sake of consistency with all my past professions as a Democrat, I am bound to respect the declared will of the sovereign States which, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, have seceded from the Union and established a separate and independent Government. Whatever the causes may have been which impelled them to a separation from the other States, I am bound to respect the expression of their sovereign will; and I heartily reprobate the policy of attempting to thwart that will under the pretence of "punishing treason" and "enforcing the laws." We are told that the design is to attempt nothing more than to collect the revenue in the ports of the seceded States. To say nothing of the justice or injustice of the attempt so to do, I ask Senators from the North, and the Senator from Tennessee, will it pay? Will it not be a declaration of war against the seceding States, involving the people of all the States in a long and bloody conflict, ruinous to both sections? Are their ethics not the ethics of the school-boy pugilist, "Knock the chip off my shoulder"?

One of the framers of the Constitution [Mr. Madison], whose expositions of that instrument all classes, all parties, have heretofore received, and still receive, or pretend to receive, with profound deference and respect, has left on record his views of the injustice, impracticability, and inefficacy of force as a means of coercing States into obedience to Federal authority.

Among the statesmen of the Revolution—those who participated in the formation of our Government—there was no one who had such exalted notions of the power and dignity of the Federal Government, as the great Hamilton. He was a consolidationist. The advocates of coercion might naturally expect to obtain "aid and comfort" from the recorded declarations of one of his peculiar political faith. But an examination of his writings will show, that instead of favoring coercion, instead of being the advocate of force, he was the advocate of leniency and conciliation towards refractory States, and deprecated a resort to force as madness and folly.

If the great names of Madison and Hamilton have not sufficient weight to restrain the madness of those who urge a coercive policy against the seceding States, then, indeed, I see no escape from that most dreadful of all calamities which can befall a nation—civil war. If those in this Chamber who talk so flippantly of war, had seen, as it has been my lot to see, some of its actual horrors, they might, perhaps, heed the warnings and respect the counsels of the sages and patriots whose language I have quoted. They would at least refrain from ungenerous insinuations against the patriotism of those northern Democrats, who, like myself, reprobate the policy of coercion as destructive of the peace, the prosperity, and happiness of every part of the country, north as well as south.

But to return to the remarks of the Senator from Tennessee. In the pamphlet report of his speech, page 7, Jefferson is quoted; but the concluding part of the quotation is repeated in the Globe report and not in that of the pamphlet. That part is:

"When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it."

Jefferson is here quoted to show that the Confederation has a power to enforce its articles on delinquent States. But the citation is unfortunate for the Senator from Tennessee. He had just previously asserted that Vermont and other States had, by personal liberty bills, violated the Constitution. Well; can he tell us how Virginia and South Carolina could enforce the Constitution on Vermont in that respect? It cannot be done. What follows? Why, as Mr. Webster said at Capon Springs, "a compact broken by one party is broken as to all." Hence, according to the doctrines of Jefferson and Webster as to the actual case which, according to the Senator, has occurred, the compact having been broken, the Southern States have a right to retire—are absolved from further obligations under the constitutional compact.

The Senator complains that I replied at all, as I was a northern Senator, and a Democrat whom he had supported at the last election for a high office. Now, I was, as I stated at the time, surprised at the Senator's speech—because I understood it to be for coercion, as I think it was by almost everybody else, except, as we are now told, by the Senator himself; and I still think it amounted to a coercion speech, notwithstanding the soft and plausible phrases by which he describes it—a speech for the execution of the laws and the protection of the Federal property. Sir, if there is, as I contend, the right of secession, then, whenever a State exercises that right, this Government has no laws in that State to execute, nor has it any property in any such State that can be protected by the power of this Government. In attempting, however, to substitute the smooth phrases of "executing the laws" and "protecting public property" for coercion, for civil war, we have an important concession, i.e., that this Government dare not go before the people with a plain avowal of its real purposes, and of their consequences. No, sir; the policy is to inveigle the people of the North into civil war, by masking the design in smooth and ambiguous terms.

Now, sir, I want it distinctly understood, as I have already shown, that during the last session I stood firmly by the Davis resolutions. I voted against every amendment. I voted against an amendment that he voted for, because I believed it was partial, and did not do justice.

But the Senator from Tennessee proceeded with an air and tone of great triumph to bring forward my vote on the amendments proposed to the Davis resolutions. I think I have said all that it is necessary for me to say upon that subject. I have shown that I have voted for them under all circumstances, and against every amendment. Those resolutions assert the right of property in the Territories, and that when the courts fail to afford protection, then it is the duty of Congress to come forward and provide that protection. I wished to put slave property upon the same footing as other property. That is where I then stood, where I now stand, and where I intend to stand. The Senator asks, with a kind of triumphant air, what has happened since that day? Mr. President, I have said that I have done all in my power, by standing firm to the resolutions agreed to by the Democratic party, to afford protection. The Senator misrepresented my vote on those resolutions. I never voted against the Davis resolutions, nor did their substitute ever come up as a separate proposition. It was an amendment to one of that series of resolutions I voted against; and I would vote against any thing and every thing that would embarrass their passage, for they contained just what I thought was right.