CH. XXVII. and denials, of charges and countercharges, of evasions and subterfuges which party discussion had worn threadbare. These twenty-three propositions, which were by subsequent additions increased to forty or fifty, exhibit such a variety of legislative plans that it is impossible to subject them to any classification. They give us an abstract of the divergent views which Members of Congress entertained concerning the cause of the crisis and its remedy. They range in purport from a mere assertion of the duty of preserving and administering the government as then existing, in its simple form and symmetrical structure, to proposals to destroy and change it to a complex machine, fantastic in proportion and impracticable in its workings. They afford us evidence of the bewilderment which beset Congress as well as the outside public, and not so much the absence of reasonable political principles as the absence of a simple and direct political will, which would resolutely insist that recognized principles and existing laws should be respected and obeyed. Among the propositions submitted then and afterwards were several wild and visionary projects of government. Thus Mr. Jenkins, a Virginia member, proposed an arrangement requiring separate sanction of the slave-holding interest to each and every operation of government; a dual executive; 21. By Thomas L. Anderson, of Missouri: Submit to the Supreme Court slave-holding States. Carry into effect by law the opinion of said Court as a final settlement. (Submitted Dec. 13.) -"Globe," Dec. 12 and 13, 1860, pp. 76-79, and 96. "Globe," Dec. 12, 1860, p. 77. a dual senate, or dual majority of the senate, or CH. XXVII. other advisory body or council. Mr. Noell, of Missouri, proposed to abolish the office of President, create an executive council of three members, from districts of contiguous States, give each member the veto power, and establish equilibrium between the free and the slave States in the Senate by voluntary division of some of the slave States. Stronger minds were not entirely free from the infection of this mania for innovation and experiment. On the 13th of December, 1860, Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, afterwards President of the United States, submitted to the Senate a proposal to amend the Constitution in substance as follows: That the Presidential election should take place in August; that a popular plurality in each district should count as one vote; that Congress should count the votes on the second Monday of October; that the President chosen in 1864 be from a slave-holding State, and the Vice-President from a free State; and in 1868 the President be from a free State and the Vice-President from a slave State, and so alternating every four years. Senators to be elected by vote of the people. Federal judges to be divided so that one-third of the number would be chosen every fourth year; the term of office to be twelve years; also all vacancies to be filled, half from free and half from slave States, the Territories to be divided, establishing slavery south and prohibiting it north of a fixed line, and providing that three-fifths representation and inter-State slave trade shall not be changed. Perhaps the most complicated project of government was that gravely suggested in the House on Ibid., p. 78. Ibid., Dec.13, 1860, pp. 82, 83. CH. XXVII. the 7th of February, 1861, by Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, who, not content with the clogs of a dual form, proposed the following absurd quadruple machinery: The Union to be divided into four sections: North, West, Pacific, and South. On demand of one-third of the Senators from any section, for any action to which the concurrence of the House of Representatives may be necessary,— except on adjournment,-a vote shall be by sections, and a majority of Senators from each section shall be necessary to the validity of such action. A majority of all the electors in each of the four sections to be necessary to choice of President and Vice-President; they should hold the office six years; not to be eligible to reëlection except by vote of two-thirds of the electors of each section; or of the States of each section whenever the choice devolved upon the Legislature; Congress to provide for the election of President and Vice-President when electors failed. No State might secede without consent of the Legislatures of all States of that section, the President to have power to adjust differences with seceding States, the terms of agreement to be submitted to Congress; neither Congress nor Territorial Legislatures should have power to interfere with citizens immigrating-on equal terms to the Territories, nor to interfere with the rights of person or property in the Territories. New States pp. 794, 795. to be admitted on an equal footing with old ones. The adoption of any or all of the legislative nostrums which were severally suggested, presupposed a willingness on the part of the South to carry them out and be governed thereby. The authors of these projects lost sight of the vital difficulty, "Globe," Feb. 7, 1861, that if the South refused obedience to laws in the CH. XXVII. past she would equally refuse obedience to any in the future when they became unpalatable. It was not temporary satisfaction, but perpetual domination which she demanded. She did not need an amendment of the fugitive-slave act, or a repeal of personal liberty bills, but a change in the public sentiment of the free States. Give her the simple affirmation that slaves are property, to be recognized and protected like other property, embody the proposition in the Constitution, and secure its popular acceptance, and she would snap her fingers at an enumeration of other details. Fugitive-slave laws, inter-State slave trade, a Congressional slave code, right of transit and sojourn in the free States, compensation for runaways, new slave States, and a majority in the United States Senate would follow, as inevitably as that the well planted acorn expands by the forces of nature into roots, trunk, limbs, twigs, and foliage. This was what Jefferson Davis formulated in discussing his Senate resolutions of February, 1860,1 and the doctrine for which Yancey rent the Charleston Convention in twain. This is what Jefferson Davis would again demand of the Senate Committee of Thirteen; and, knowing the North would never concede it, he would, even prior to the demand, join in instigating and proclaiming secession. 1 "We want nothing more than of the Federal Government to a simple declaration that negro protect that property like all slaves are property, and we want other." Senate Speech, "Globe," the recognition of the obligation May 17, 1860, p. 2155. CHAPTER XXVIII THE CONSPIRACY PROCLAIMED CH.XXVIII. T 10 a great majority of the people the hopes and chances of a successful compromise seemed still cheering and propitious. There was indeed a prevailing agitation in the Southern part of the Union, but it had taken a virulent form in less than half a dozen States. In most of these a decided majority still deprecated disunion. Three of the great political parties of the country were by the voice of their leaders pledged to peace and order; the fourth, apparently controlled as yet by the powerful influences of official subordination and patronage, must, so it seemed, yield to the now expressed and public advice of the President in favor of Union and the enforcement of the law; especially in view of the forbearance and kindness he was personally exercising towards the unruly elements of his faction. Throughout the Northern States the folly and evils of disunion appeared so palpable that it was not generally regarded as an imminent danger, but rather as merely a possible though not probable event. The hasty and seemingly earnest action of the people and authorities of South Carolina was looked upon as a historical repetition of the nullification crisis of 1831-32; and |