PROPOSITIONS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE.

421

pointed at an early period of the proceedings, to consider the general subject before the conference; and its report, after the adoption of certain amendments, was finally agreed to by a majority of the delegates. The amendments to the Constitution proposed by the committee were 'contained in seven different propositions, the vote on each of which was taken separately:

I. Slavery was prohibited in territory north of the parallel of 36° 30', and permitted south of that line. No law was to be passed by Congress or the local legislatures, to prevent the taking of slaves into the latter territory; and on either side of the line, territory, with inhabitants sufficient and with a republican form of government, was to be admitted either with or without involuntary servitude, as its constitution might provide.

II. No future acquisition of territory was to be made, except by discovery and for certain national purposes, without the concurrence of a majority of Senators from the free States and the slave States respectively.

III. Congress was to have no power, by construction of the Constitution, or by any amendment of it, to interfere with slavery in any State, or in the District of Columbia, or in places within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States; nor to prohibit the transportation of slaves from one slave State or territory to another; but they were not to be taken through States or territories in which the laws forbade such transit. Slaves were not to be brought into the District of Columbia for sale, or to be kept there on the way to sale.

IV. No such construction was to be placed on the article of the Constitution which provides for the delivery of fugitives from service or labor, as to prevent States from passing laws for the enforcement of that provision.

V. The foreign slave trade was to be forever prohibited, VI. The provisions of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitives from service or labor, and in relation to the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes, were not to

be amended or abolished without the consent of all the

States.

VII. Congress was to provide by law for the payment, by the United States to the owner, of the full value of any slave rescued by violence or intimidation, or whose recovery might be prevented by the same means.1

'It should be stated that Mr. Chase. at the period in question a Senator from Ohio, was also a member of the Peace Conference; and a brief letter written by him to a friend, at the time, expressing his apprehensions of an adjustment, came to light at a later period, and had extensive circulation in the newspapers of the day.

CHAPTER XIX.

Fair Basis of Settlement in the Propositions of the Peace Conference; but they were carried only by bare Majorities.-The Crittenden Resolutions.-The Committee of Thirteen. Mr. Toombs's Statement of its Spirit.-Mr. Douglas on the Resolutions.-Mr. Crittenden's Opinion of their Effect, had they been adopted.-Mr. Pugh and Mr. Douglas, as to the readiness of Mr. Davis and Mr. Toombs to accept them, if agreed to by the Republican Members.-Resolutions already rejected by the House, lost in the Senate, by a Majority of One, Mr. Seward not voting.-The two-thirds Vote necessary to give them Effect could not have been obtained, had all the Southern Senators been present.-Mr. Douglas's Statement that many of the Republican Leaders desired Dissolution aud War.-Mr. Everett's Letter, of February 2d, 1861, to the "Union" Meeting at Faneuil Hall, in Opposition to "Coercion," and stating the Party Obstacles to Adjustment.-Certain Anti-Abolition Resolutions pass the House.-The Faint-heartedness of the Class of Republican Leaders who were Union Men, but afraid of breaking up their Party, prevented the Settlement.

IN the foregoing propositions of the Peace Conference was evidently a sound basis for settlement of the controversy. These propositions came quite up to the resolutions introduced by Mr. Crittenden, and to the recommendations of the General Assembly of Virginia, except in regard to the comparatively immaterial point of the transportation of slaves through the non-slaveholding States; and they would, doubtless, have been gladly acceded to by the slave States at an earlier period. Even now, if adopted by the conference, with any thing approaching to general concurrence, or if accepted and recommended by Congress, the country might have been saved from its coming trials. But here was the difficulty in the way. No such general concurrence had existed, and there was no hope whatever of the favorable action of Congress. Though the majority of the delegations from several of the free States voted uniformly in favor of

the propositions in turn, the full vote of the delegates from others of the free States was given uniformly in opposition to each. Several of the propositions were not entirely satisfactory to some of the slave States; and Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont were sometimes found voting side by side with North Carolina and Virginia. In fact, the propositions were carried by majorities simply, and in some instances by bare majorities, instead of by any general consent; and so far as their effect was concerned, they might as well not have been carried at all. The same spirit prevailed in the conference, which had been already exhib ited by Congress, and which was still kept up to the close of the session. The Crittenden resolutions had been reported to the Senate at an early period, from the Committee of Thirteen. The members of the committee were Messrs. Powell and Crittenden of Kentucky, Mr. Hunter of Virginia, Mr. Seward of New York, Mr. Toombs of Georgia, Mr. Douglas of Illinois, Mr. Collamer of Vermont, Mr. Davis of Mississippi, Mr. Wade of Ohio, Mr. Bigler of Pennsylvania, Mr. Rice of Minnesota, Mr. Doolittle of Wisconsin, and Mr. Grimes of Iowa. Eight of the members were Democrats or conservatives; five were Republicans. Five were from the slave States, and eight from the free States. It is difficult to see how the committee could have been more appropriately constituted. But, as in the case of the Peace Conference, it is evident that the action of the conservative majority could be of no avail, without the assent of the Republican members. Within five days after the subject had been submitted to their consideration, on December 23d, Mr. Toombs informed his constituents in Georgia that—

"A vote was taken in the Committee of Thirteen on amendments to the Constitution, proposed by the Hon. John J. Crittenden, and each and all of them were voted against harmoniously by the Black-Republican members of the committee. In addition to these facts, a majority of the Black-Republican members of the committee declared distinctly that they had no guarantees to offer, which was silently acquiesced in by the other members."

1 Quoted in Carpenter's "Logic of History," p. 139.

STATEMENTS OF MR. DOUGLAS AND MR. CRITTENDEN. 425

Where the obstacle lay may be learned, also, from a speech of Mr. Douglas in the Senate, January 3d, in which, referring to a similar plan of compromise, introduced by himself, he said:

"I believe this to be a fair basis of amicable adjustment. If you, of the Republican side, are not willing to accept this, nor the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Crittenden, pray tell us what you are willing to do. I address the inquiry to the Republicans alone, for the reason that, in the Committee of Thirteen, a few days ago, every member from the South, including those from the cotton States (Messrs. Davis and Toombs), expressed their readiness to accept the proposition of my venerable friend from Kentucky, as a final settlement of the controversy, if tendered and sustained by the Republican members. Hence, the sole responsibility of our disagreement, and the only difficulty in the way of an amicable adjustment, is with the Republican party.” 1

1

Indeed, Mr. Toombs himself, in a speech to the Senate, January 7th, speaking of course for those with whom he was acting as well as for himself, after suggesting the conditions which he would prefer and would accept, "for the sake of peace-permanent peace "-proceeded:

"I am willing, however, to take the proposition of the Senator (from Kentucky), as it was understood in committee, putting the North and the South on the same ground, prohibiting. slavery on one side, acknowledging slavery and protecting it on the other; and applying that to all future acquisitions, so that the whole continent, to the north pole, shall be settled upon the one rule, and to the south pole, under the other." 2

This was in exact conformity with the propositions of the Peace Conference, and, moreover, the principle of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Crittenden, also, in a published letter to Mr. Anderson, of Cincinnati, dated March 27th, 1861, remarks, in reference to the resolutions which bear his

name:

"I believe, if those measures thus offered had been, at a suitable time, promptly adopted by the Congress of the United States, it would have checked the progress of the rebellion and revolution, and saved the Union.”

On the day of the final disposition of the question, March

1 "Congressional Globe," Appendix, 1860-'61, p. 41.

Ib., 1861, p. 270.