The signers of this address bore a conspicuous part in the later history of the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis became its President. He appointed Judah P. Benjamin Attorney General, Feb. 21, 1861; Secretary of State, Feb. 7, 1862. John H. Reagan, Postmaster General, March 6, 1861, and March 22, 1862. J. L. Pugh became a member of the first and second Congresses; David Clopton, Id.; J. L. M. Curry, of the Provisional, and of the first; L. J. Gartell, a member of the first; Martin J. Crawford, of the Provisional; A. G. Brown, a Senator, first and second Congresses; O. R. Singleton, a member of the House, first and second; Reuben Davis, a member of the House in the first; Burton Craige, a member of the Provisional Congress; Thomas Ruffin, Id.; John Slidell was appointed a commissioner to European powers and with James H. Mason was a party to the Trent affair; Louis T. Wigfall was a member of the Provisional Congress and a Senator in the first and second; J. H. Reagan was a member of the Provisional; M. L. Bonham, a member of the first; Wm. Porcher Miles, a member of the Provisional, the first and the second; John McQueen, a member of the first. This address was flatly at variance with the course Congress was taking, for in both Chambers measures for compromise were under way. In the House a committee, of one member from each State, had been appointed on the fifth, and to this Reuben Davis belonged. He knew that in this committee, the resolution offered by Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont, that "any reasonable, proper, and constitutional remedy necessary to preserve the peace of the country and the perpetuation should be promptly and cheerfully granted" had been voted down by twenty-two 1 M. L. Bonham was chosen by it a commissioner to Mississippi. 2 Member of the South Carolina Convention of 1861. 3 Chosen by it a commissioner to Texas. 618 JOHN J. CRITTENDEN. nays to nine yeas,1 and Davis had declared, on the floor, that he served on the committee for the purpose of keeping the South informed of the course of affairs.2 Testing the address at any point, save that of the fixed purpose of its authors, it was false to history, but it was true to slavocracy. When, on the eighteenth, the Senate agreed to the appointment of a Committee of Thirteen, and on the twentieth, the Vice-President named its members, no Senator had confidence that its recommendations would clear the political sky, and few believed that it could arrive at any unanimous conclusion other than to disagree. The VicePresident remarked that he had found great difficulty in making up the list and, naming Powell, the junior Senator from Kentucky, and the author of the motion, as chairman, he next named the senior Senator, Crittenden, an unusual procedure, but proper under the circumstances. The Senators from a State are rarely placed on the same committee. The Vice-President and the Senate knew that a Committee of Compromise, in 1860, without Mr. Crittenden would be as incomplete as one without Henry Clay, in 1850. The thirteen, now appointed, combined large experience in public affairs; represented the four parties into which the country was lately divided, and promised all that could be hoped for in the condition of things.3 1 H. R. Report No. 31, 36th Congress, 2d Session, Journal of the Committee, p. 7. 2 Globe, December 11, 1860, p. 59. The committee was as follows, the politics and senatorial service of each being also indicated: Lazarus W. Powell (D.), Kentucky, 1859-65. John J. Crittenden (D.), Kentucky, 1817-1821, 1841-1849, 18551861. R. M. T. Hunter (D.), Va., 1847-1863. JEFFERSON DAVIS DECLINES. 619 Jefferson Davis promptly requested to be excused from service, on account of the position he was known to occupy, and by a vote of the Senate his wish was granted. But on the following day, Yulee, of Florida, moved the reconsideration of the vote, and requested Davis to yield to the desire of his friends and remain on the committee in order to represent their section of the country. After some difficulty in getting a quorum, the Senate, surprised at the reconsideration, agreed to it; Davis himself gracefully surrendering to his friends. It was a coyish episode, at best, and has been explained as part of that plan which Reuben Davis, also of Mississippi, was carrying out in the House Committee of Thirty-three. On the day when the Senate committee was appointed, South Carolina passed her ordinance of secession. The movement was now afoot. By remaining on the committee, Jefferson Davis would know every step of conciliation, would be better able to help on if not to direct the scheme of a Southern Confederacy, and, at the same time, to appear to be earnestly engaged in the patriotic labor of attempting to save the Union.1 Thus the man foremost in attempting to dissolve the Union was restored to the committee which people, who saw only the surface of affairs, believed might report the Compromise of 1860. The committee agreed to be governed by a rule suggested by Mr. Davis, that no proposition should be reported as adopted unless sustained by a majority of each of the two Jacob Collamer (R.), Vt., 1855-1867. Jefferson Davis (D.), Miss., 1847-1853, 1857-1861. Benj. F. Wade (R.), O., 1851-1869. Wm. Bigler (D.), Pa., 1855-1861. Henry M. Rice (R.), Minn., 1857-1863. James R. Doolittle (R.), Wis., 1857-1869. James W. Grimes (R.), Ia., 1859-1871. Resigned in 1869. 1 See Speech of Senator Trumbull, January 10, 1861; Globe, 312. 620 VARIOUS AMENDMENTS. classes of Senators on the committee: the Republican members to constitute one class, and Senators of all other parties, the other. As the Republicans were only five1 and Senators of "other parties" eight, and the Democrats were of widely differing opinions, there was not much prospect of adopting any resolution, under the rule. The committee met six times, discussed propositions submitted by seven of its members and reported on the last day of the year. Senator Toombs would have the Constitution amended to give the people of the United States an equal right to emigrate and settle with slave property in the territories; there it should be protected; the territory should declare for itself, at the time of its admission, whether it would become a free or a slave State. The Federal Government should protect slave property like any other; but any State could regulate its own domestic institutions. Fugitive slaves should be given up like other criminals, the law of the State from which they fled determining the criminality. Persons disturbing the tranquillity of the people of any State should be punished by federal law. Fugitive slaves should be surrendered under the act of 1850 and not be entitled to either a writ of habeas corpus or to trial by jury, or to other obstructions of legislation in the States to which they might flee. No law in relation to slavery in the States or territories should ever be passed by Congress without the consent of a majority of the Senators and Representatives from slaveholding States. None of these new provisions, nor others relating to slavery in the Constitution (except that on the African slave trade) should ever be altered, except by the consent of each and all of the slaveholding States. Jefferson Davis was briefer. His amendment was the 1 See note, p. 618, supra. THE CRITTENDEN RESOLUTIONS. 621 slave clause of the Lecompton constitution nationalized. Property in slaves, recognized as such by the local law of any State in the Union, should stand on the same footing, in all constitutional and federal relations, as any other species of property, and, like other property, should not be subject to be divested, or impaired by the local law of any other State, either in escape, or during the transit or the sojourn of the owner; and in no case whatever should such property be subject to be divested or impaired by any legislative act of the United States, or of any territory. This, in new form, was the pro-slavery plank in the Breckinridge platform of 1860.1 Crittenden submitted three amendments: The Missouri Compromise line of 1820 should be restored, and extended across the country. Congress should not abolish slavery in places under its own jurisdiction, situated within slave States, nor in the District of Columbia, without the consent of its inhabitants, nor without compensation, nor so long as Maryland and Virginia were slave States. Transportation of slaves from one State to another or to a slave territory should not be prohibited; the fugitive slave law should be more strictly enforced, and the United States should pay for the slave if he escaped, but should have recourse to the county in which the escape was effected, which, in turn, should recover damages from the rescuers. But no future amendment should affect the slave clauses in the Constitution: they should be beyond amendment. The fugitive slave law of 1850 should be made more effective, and the African slave trade suppressed. Except in the territory of New Mexico, slavery north of 36° 30′ should be prohibited, but the territory might be divided 1 See pp. 557-558. |