gress or the Supreme Court? But as delegation after delegation withdrew from Congress, secession began to be looked upon as a fact. Where would it end? There were discontented sections in the North; would they secede? Was America on the verge of anarchy? And so speech after speech was made, the greater number in the House, on the constitutionality of secession; on its consequences; some members defending it, others, speaking with the directness of Wade and Trumbull. But the new members, fresh from the campaign that had resulted in the election of Lincoln and Hamlin, were not given to silence in the House as their party associates were in the Senate. The Senate was Democratic and speech there need not be wasted. The House was Republican and from the members of the new party in the House, the coming administration and the people would soon be choosing men for high office. It was the party with the forward look and not as yet troubled by a long history.

Though many propositions looking to a constitutional amendment were made, none were adopted by the House. Finally, on the twenty-seventh of February, Corwin moved as a substitute for the amendment which the Committee of Thirty-three had advised:

Article XIII-"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." 1

Doubtless the substitute was Corwin's own, for it agreed with his political opinions and was, in constitutional form, the plank in the Chicago platform, which he had quoted in the preface to his report on the 14th of January. Immediately a parliamentary struggle ensued. John Hick

1 Journal, H. R., 1860-61, p. 416.

668

LINCOLN AND HAMLIN NOTIFIED.

man, of Pennsylvania, a leading abolitionist, moved that the resolution be laid on the table, but the House decided against him, one hundred and twenty-two to sixty-seven. By a vote of one hundred and twenty to sixty-one it then agreed to the amendment. Being engrossed and accordingly read the third time, the vote was taken on its passage; one hundred and twenty responded yea, seventy-one nay, two-thirds not voting in the affirmative, so the resolution was defeated. On the following day David Kilgore, of Indiana, having given notice, when the resolution was defeated, that he should move for a reconsideration, the question of reconsideration was carried by one hundred and twenty-eight to sixty-five. The joint resolution being thus before the House again, it was put to a vote and passed by one hundred and thirtythree to sixty-five. This was one more than a two-thirds vote of the members present. It was then ordered that the concurrence of the Senate be requested, and the Clerk, John W. Forney, bore the message and the joint resolution to the other Chamber. It happened that on the day when the resolution passed the House, Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois, the member on the joint committee appointed to inform Lincoln and Hamlin of their election as President and Vice President, reported them as accepting the trust, "now rendered doubly difficult by existing perils," said Lincoln. But he accepted the Presidency "with a firm reliance on the strength of our free government, and the ultimate loyalty of the people to the just principles upon which it is founded, and, above all, an unshaken faith in the Supreme Ruler of nations." "It shall be my earnest effort," said he, "to discharge my

1 Id., p. 426. Globe, 1263, 1264, 1284, 1285.

THE RESOLUTION BEFORE THE SENATE.

669

duty in that manner which shall subserve the interests of the whole country." 1

But would the Senate pass the Corwin amendment, and would the President-elect, and his party execute it, if it was ratified by the requisite number of States?

The House resolution went to the Senate on the day when Crittenden, of the select committee to whom was referred the resolutions from the peace commissioners, reported an amendment, and Seward, by unanimous consent, brought in a joint resolution calling a national convention. The resolutions of the Peace Conference passed to a second reading. Hunter, of Virginia, and Collamer, of Vermont, offered amendments to the conference propositions, but they were rejected,2 the vote, nearly two to one, showing that the conference resolutions themselves had little weight with the Senate. At noon, on the second, the Corwin amendment was the order of the day. But before the Peace Conference report was displaced by the House resolution, Lane, of Oregon, in a long speech, made a categorical reply to "the oft-repeated question as to what the South complains of and what she fears." It was the danger that threatened $4,000,000,000 in property in slaves and as much more of real and personal property connected with it. It was the right of immigration with any of this property, safely, anywhere in the Union. It was the restitution of this property when stolen or escaped. It was the threatened exclusion of more slave States from the Union. It was the constant danger of insurrection, which fanatical hostility in the North towards slavery was constantly stirring up in

1 In the Senate Journal (p. 337) these words are attributed to Mr. Lincoln; in the House Journal they are attributed to Mr. Hamlin (p. 425).

2 Senate Journal, 337; Globe, 1269.

670

THE RESOLUTION BEFORE THE SENATE.

the South. Because of these fears and complaints he asked for the passage of the Peace Conference resolutions.1

Though the time for taking up the Corwin amendment had been agreed on, Sunday came, the Senate was still in session, and the amendment had not been reached. The remaining hours of the session were numbered and several Senators urged the suspension of personal hostilities that the main business might be pushed to a conclusion. Douglas called for the House amendment, which was read, when Pugh, of Ohio, quoting De Quincey on the duty of a man to preserve the purity of his mother tongue as next to the duty he owes his family, his country and his God, moved to amend Corwin's expression by striking out "authorize or" and make the resolution read: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will give to Congress the power to abolish, or interfere, within any State with the domestic institutions thereof," but Douglas objected, because the change would send the resolution back to the House and it would then fail for the lack of time. "I prefer bad English expressing a good thing to good English expressing a bad thing," remarked Crittenden. The vote was announced a tie,2 and the Vice President declared Pugh's amendment agreed to. Douglas quickly informed the Senate of the effect of this decision. The House had adjourned until 10 o'clock Monday morning, and it would be impossible for it to act on the resolution during the two hours that remained of its session. Some Senator should change his vote and save the amendment.

A long debate followed, not on De Quincey and good English, but on the resolution itself. Crittenden earn

1 Globe, March 2, 1861, p. 1346.

2 Globe, March 2, 1861, pp. 1364-1367.

VARIOUS OPINIONS.

671

estly supported it; Gwin, of California, pronounced it delusive. Johnson, of Arkansas, denounced it as "one of the most treacherous offerings ever made to the weakness and timidity of those who are now advocating and will continue to advocate to the last, submission on the part of the South on almost any terms that will keep them connected with the Northern States of the Union;" he believed that the resolution would hasten secession. Baker, of Oregon, declared that it was a mistake from beginning to end to suppose that the mere passage of the resolution would settle the complicated questions at issue between the two sections of the Confederacy; it was “one step towards it." But Baker was a Republican, in thorough accord with Lincoln, and defined the resolution as "a proposition upon our part to make that certain which we have always said could be rendered certain." There was no delusion about the amendment; the Republican party did not purpose to interfere with slavery in the States. Gwin was not satisfied. Let the Senate adopt the Crittenden resolutions; they would quiet the country. Pugh, whose love of good English had stirred up this sixth act, replied to Gwin and Johnson, that the proposed amendment added nothing to the Constitution and was not worth the paper on which it was written, except as a declaration of the good faith of the men who voted for it. Simmons, of Rhode Island, corrected Pugh; the amendment would add to the Constitution another provision which henceforth could not be amended, like the provision for the equality of the States in the Senate. So the vote was reconsidered, and Pugh's verbal amendment was rejected by twenty to seventeen.

Public interest in the proceedings had meanwhile been increasing. Preparations for the inauguration of Lincoln were in progress and the city was rapidly filling with