It was apparent to all that, whatever may have been the motive and origin of the present alarming movement in the extreme Southern States, the instrument successfully used to promote it was the agitation of their people upon the safety of the institution of negro slavery in the States and Territories; and various conflicting opinions with regard to the best course to be pursued to allay this agitation were elicited in the course of this long conference. Extremists were not wanting on the one hand, who seemed inclined to construe the anomaly of slavery of the negro race, found in the Constitution of a free people, into a general rule; and who proposed or voted for propositions which they knew could not be accepted, that their assertion might aid in the remaining States the cause of secession. Extremists were not wanting, on the other hand, who were opposed to doing any thing upon the subject of slavery, especially at present, lest such action should compromise the incoming administration, and the Republican party, and even the character of the Government itself. Without suspecting the purity of the motives of either of these extremists, who beyond doubt represented the views of large and respectable bodies of men in their different sections, your Commissioners found themselves equally unable to agree with either.
They could not ignore the fact that seven States had separated themselves from the others and set up a federal government of their own; and that these were ceaselessly agitating the people of the remaining Southern States by inflammatory speeches, and writings skilfully addressed to their interests and sympathies, to induce them to join in this new movement. They could not doubt the assurances given to them by able and patriotic men from the States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, that these attempts upon the loyalty of the people of their States had met at least with partial success; nor, indeed, blind themselves to the evidences of this found in the speeches and votes of individual Commissioners from these very States. Above all, they could not be insensible to the touching appeals of men, venerable in years, distinguished in public service, and whose reputation for ability and patriotism was national, to give them something in the shape of a constitutional security with which to allay the startled fears of their constituents, beat back the attacks of their enemies and ours, and even bring again to their duty thousands of men in the States of the extreme South, who had been led astray by the popular fears and impulses of the hour, and who, with the loyal but overborne, might well look to them for support, since no other had been afforded them in the reign of terror under which they were suffering. In the circumstances in which the country was placed, it seemed to your Commissioners that true policy ran in the course of generous impulse; that in this matter we were dealing not with treason, but with the most devoted loyalty which invoked our aid against it; that the concessions we made, if concessions indeed they were, were made to our friends that they might be strong enough to triumph over their enemies and ours, because the enemies of the country.
If, as is true, in this view of their duty your Commissioners stood in the main alone amongst the Commissioners from the Northern States, and ranged themselves by the side of the Central States of the Union, upon whom the weight of the civil strife must come if come it must, they need not assure you that no dastardly fears, no feelings of base compliance, dictated the position thus taken by them. Such motives to action neither became them nor those whom they represented. It was because of generous faith and earnest sympathy, of ties which no distance of time or space, and no difference of institutions can weaken; which in our fathers' days and our own led our heroes to hazard all for all, and at Guilford Court House, and Eutaw, and at Erie, with desperate valor to snatch victory for our common country out of the very lap of defeat; it was because our little State, with a warm heart and a ready hand, has never failed in counsel or deed to stand with the whole country in all dangers and in extremest disasters, that your Commissioners conceived that they best represented her by averting danger from those with whom they knew she would hasten to share it. If it be true that the time has arrived when our sympathy for an alien and a subject race has extinguished all sympathy for our own, and has hidden from us the ties of a common origin, common interests, and of a common glory, then, indeed, are we separated from our brethren, and the curse of slavery has fallen upon us as well as upon them. Your Commissioners found nothing in themselves to justify them in attributing such sentiments to the people of the State; and unitedly recommend the adoption by you of the amendment to the Constitution proposed by the Conference of Commissioners, as best fitted to give security and ensure peace to the country.
Among the measures strenuously enforced by some of the Commissioners, in lieu of that adopted by a majority, was the calling of a General Convention. To this measure your Commissioners opposed their most earnest and determined resistance. As a measure of peace, if for no other reason, because of the long delay which it implied, it would be utterly fruitless. But the possible danger of exposing a Constitution, framed and adopted in the earlier and more conservative days of the Republic, to be torn in pieces in these times of lawless irreverence and change, is too great for any wise man willingly to encounter. The very equality of the States in the Senate, which was won by the revolutionary sacrifices and valor of the smaller States, now almost forgotten, would, in the judgment of your Commissioners, be thereby greatly endangered; and your Commissioners earnestly represent to your Honorable body that under no circumstances should this State consent to a measure which might lead to her own extinction. The Constitution of a great country, adopted, as this was, on account of diversity of interests and views, with great difficulty, should be sacred. It may and should from time to time be amended to suit a change of circumstances, but never exposed to the danger of being uptorn. It is the symbol of our strength, because the ligament of our Union. It has collected about it the reverence of three generations of our people. It is the only rallying point now for the loyalty of the remaining States; the only hope of the restoration of the States which have left us; and, in its main features, it should be, as it was designed to be, perpetual. At no time should a General Convention be invited to invade it; and, of all times, this, in the judgment of your Commissioners, would be the most dangerous.
Finally, it will be found upon an inspection of the Journal of the late Conference of Commissioners, that the undersigned voted against many propositions in themselves just and expressive of their sentiments and yours, because inopportune and useless; and against others, because introduced for the very purpose of sowing dissension among the Commissioners and to prevent an agreement by majority upon any thing. In this they must ask your candid construction of their conduct, looking to the crisis, the occasion, the purpose and effect of the matter upon which they were called to act; and their unwillingness to hazard an agreement upon that deemed by them necessary, by tacking to it that which, however true, was at least useless, and might in the result be dangerous.
All which is respectfully submitted by
SAMUEL AMES, for self, and
ALEXANDER DUNCAN,
G.H. BROWNE,
WILLIAM W. HOPPIN,
SAMUEL G. ARNOLD,
Commissioners.
Providence, March 4th, 1861.