The undersigned, being of opinion that no such stipulation ought to be made, and that if made, it would not be binding upon the country, did not hesitate to give the vote of the State against the proposition.
The seventh and last section of the proposed article of amendment is in the following words:
"Congress shall provide by law that the United States shall pay to the owner the full value of his fugitive from labor, in all cases where the marshal, or other officer, whose duty it was to arrest such fugitive, was prevented from so doing by violence or intimidation from mobs or riotous assemblies, or when, after arrest, such fugitive was rescued by like violence or intimidation, and the owner thereby deprived of the same; and the acceptance of such payment shall preclude the owner from further claim of such fugitive. Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States."
In a Convention duly called and assembled for the revision of the Constitution, the undersigned would have assented to this section; and in declining to vote thereon they intended to so declare to their associates from the slaveholding States.
The undersigned thus set forth the doings of the Convention, and some of the reasons by which their conduct was controlled. It was not their fortune to concur with the action of the Convention. The concessions demanded by the discontented States, seemed to be inconsistent with honor, justice, and freedom, and calculated to render permanent the existing causes of disturbance. A Union restored by unmanly concessions, would be productive of bitter criminations and lasting hostilities, and would contain within itself the seeds of a violent death.
But the undersigned are bound to say that the differences in the Convention were, in the main, differences of opinion, and not of purpose. Loyalty to the Constitution and the Union was general; and the undersigned do not doubt that the act of Virginia, in inviting a conference with her sister States, will be productive of beneficial results to the country.
The Commissioners from Massachusetts were much impressed by the fact, which their personal intercourse with gentlemen from all the slaveholding States brought to their knowledge, that the present difficulties of the country were not caused by the pressure of grievances supposed to be actually existing; but rather by the fear of future interference with Southern rights, caused by entire misapprehension of the purposes of the people of the free States. Misrepresentation of those purposes, proceeding from among ourselves, whether prompted by ignorance of Northern sentiment, or by sinister motives, are greatly to be deprecated.
The undersigned entertain no doubt that the intercourse between the different sections of the country, through their representatives in Convention, had a most salutary influence in correcting false views of Northern sentiment, and in assuring our brethren of the South that there is no purpose among the people of those States, who, upon principle, oppose the extension of slavery, to disturb or touch with an unfriendly hand the domestic relations of any other States of the Union.
In the present exigency of public affairs, each State should be careful to perform its whole duty freely and faithfully to its sister States and to the country; and then may it well and fearlessly demand, whether the Union contain many States or few, that the Government shall be administered according to the principles of equality and justice which characterize the Constitution formed by our fathers, and which will prove a sufficient security in all the trials and perils of our national existence.
JOHN Z. GOODRICH,
CHARLES ALLEN,
GEO. S. BOUTWELL,
T.P. CHANDLER,
F.B. CROWNINSHIELD,
J.M. FORBES,
RICHARD P. WATERS.