On the twenty-third of February Mr. Vandever, of Iowa, offered the following resolution:
"Resolved, That whatever may be the ultimate determination upon the amendment to the Federal Constitution, or other propositions for the adjustment approved by this Convention, we, the members, recommend our respective States and constituencies to faithfully abide in the Union."
A motion to lay it upon the table prevailed by a vote of eleven to nine, a majority of your Commissioners voting in the negative.
On the twentieth of February, Mr. Field, one of your Commissioners, at the instance of a majority of them, offered, as an amendment to the Constitution to be adopted by the Convention, and proposed with any other amendments, that it should recommend the following:
"The Union of the States, under this Constitution, is indissoluble; and no State can secede from the Union, or nullify an act of Congress, or absolve its citizens from their paramount obligation of obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States."
On the twenty-sixth of February, after several ineffectual attempts to get rid of the proposition, on points of order, it was negatived by a vote of eleven States against ten, a majority of your Commissioners casting the vote of New York in its favor.
Mr. Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, moved the following as an amendment to the seventh article, on the twenty-first of February.
"And Congress shall further provide by law, that the United States shall make full compensation to a citizen of any State, who, in any other State, shall suffer by reason of violence or intimidation from mobs or riotous assemblies in his person or property, or in the deprivation by violence of his rights secured by this Constitution."
A motion was made to insert the word "white" before "citizen," but it failed by a vote of eleven to ten; and on the twenty-fifth of February the entire amendment was defeated by a vote of eleven to eight; your Commissioners, by a majority, casting the vote of New York in its favor.
Several other propositions upon other subjects were also submitted to the Convention, as will appear by the Journal; but it is not deemed necessary to refer to them more particularly, except, that on the eighteenth of February, Mr. Reid, of North Carolina, proposed to amend the first section of the committee's report by inserting after the word "line" in the seventh line thereof, the words "involuntary servitude is recognized; and property in those of the African race held to service or labor, in any of the States of the Union, when removed to such territory, shall be protected," and which was lost by a vote of seventeen States against to three for it. On the twenty-sixth of February, he also moved to insert in the same section, after the words "common law," the words, "and such rights shall be protected by all departments of the Territorial Government during its continuance," which the President ruled out of order, as the section had been previously gone through in detail, and was only before the Convention on its final passage.