Report of the Rhode Island Peace Commissioners.
To the Honorable General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island:
The undersigned Commissioners on the part of this State, appointed upon the request of the State of Virginia, to meet Commissioners from the other States to confer upon the best mode of adjusting the unhappy differences which now disturb the peace of the country, respectfully beg leave to report:
That on the 4th day of February last, at Washington, the day and place named for the opening of the Conference, they met Commissioners from other States, and remained with them in conference until the 27th day of February, at which time twenty-one States were represented, when having agreed by a majority of States to submit to Congress, to be by Congress submitted to conventions in the several States, the annexed article in amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Convention finally adjourned.
This article, it will be seen, applies the old line of 36° 30´ of North latitude to all the present Territory of the United States, prohibiting slavery north of that line, whilst it recognizes and secures its existence south of that line during the territorial government, and provides for the formation of new States out of such territory with or without slavery as their constitutions may direct.
As this partition of territory was not disadvantageous, at least to the free States, as it disposed of the agitation consequent upon a recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States upon a celebrated case, and followed a precedent which had given peace to the country upon this most dangerous subject of controversy for upwards of thirty years, your Commissioners gave their assent to it as the best practical solution of all difficulties growing out of the territorial question.
New territory is no further dealt with by this article than to require, except in certain specified cases, a majority of all the Senators from each side of said line, to concur in its acquisition, whether made by act of Congress or by treaty, thus giving to each class of States a check upon the cupidity of the others.
The other sections of the article were designed in general so to define and limit the rights, powers, and duties of both Congress and the States, with regard to the subject of slavery, as to prevent further controversy, and to enable and induce those most opposed in opinion and interest, by the practice of mutual forbearance, to live in peace and amity under the same Federal Government. It is believed that in no essential particular will this article change the present actual state of things; its value consisting in the security therein which it gives to all, and in the settlement made by it of present and probable subjects of controversy.
In a great practical matter of this sort, your Commissioners deem these results of far more importance than strict adhesion to any theory, however plausible in the abstract, and especially than to any party declaration of principles of a sectional cast, however vehemently argued, or numerously adopted on either side. To deal well and wisely with the actual and real, and whilst consulting the past and looking to the probable future for guidance, to base his action on what is, comprises the whole duty of a statesman; leaving to political philosophers to dream of what might have been, or in the abstract of what ought to be. Reform, it is true, in this way comes slowly, but it comes without the disturbance of material interests, without agitation of human passions, and without the violent outbreaks which these occasion—hindering and obstructing its progress in that grand and orderly procession of moral causes and effects which expresses and marks the providence and government of God.