ture to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the states of this Union to said territory, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation, but the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts according to the course of the common law. Whenever any territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may subscribe, shall contain a population equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, with or without involuntary servitude, as the Constitution of such state may provide.

"Sec. 2. No territory shall be acquired by the United States, except by discovery and for naval and commercial stations, dépôts, and transit routes, without the concurrence of a majority of all the senators from states which allow involuntary servitude, and a majority of all the senators from states which prohibit that relation; nor shall territory be acquired by treaty unless the votes of a majority of the senators from each class of states herein before mentioned be cast as a part of the two thirds majority necessary to the ratification of such treaty.

"Sec. 3. Neither the Constitution, nor any amendment thereof, shall be construed to give Congress power to regulate, abolish, or control within any state the relation established or recognized by the laws thereof touching persons. held to labor or involuntary service therein, nor to interfere with or abolish involuntary service in the District of Columbia without the consent of Maryland and without the consent of the owners, or making the owners who do not consent just compensation; nor the power to interfere with or prohibit representatives and others from bringing with them to the District of Columbia, retaining and taking

away persons so held to labor or service; nor the power to interfere with or abolish involuntary service in places under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States within those states and territories where the same is established or recognized; nor the power to prohibit the removal or transportation of persons held to labor or involuntary service in any state or territory of the United States to any other state or territory thereof where it is established or recognized by law or usage, and the right, during transportation by sea or river, of touching at ports, shores, and landings, and of landing in case of distress, shall exist; but not the right of transit in or through any state or territory, or of sale or traffic, against the laws thereof. Nor shall Congress have power to authorize any higher rate of taxation on persons held to labor or service than on land. The bringing into the District of Columbia of persons held to service or labor for sale, or placing them in dépôts to be afterward transferred to other places for sale as merchandise, is prohibited.

"Sec. 4. The third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution shall not be construed to prevent any of the states, by appropriate legislation and through the action of their political and ministerial officers, from enforcing the delivery of fugitives from labor to the person to whom such service or labor is due.

"Sec. 5. The foreign slave-trade is hereby forever prohibited; and it shall be the duty of Congress to pass laws to prevent the importation of slaves, coolies, or persons held to service or labor, into the United States and territories from places beyond the limits thereof.

"Sec. 6. The first, third, and fifth sections, together with this section of these amendments, and the third paragraph of the second section of the first article of the Constitution, and the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth

article thereof, shall not be amended or abolished without the consent of all the states.

"Sec. 7. 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 assemblages, 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 farther claim to such fugitive. Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each state the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."

These were the resolutions or recommendations for amendments to the Constitution adopted by the Peace Congress, and that were recommended for adoption to the Virginia Convention by Messrs. Rives, Summers, and Brockenbrough, but which Mr. Tyler and Mr. Seddon in their report denounced as an insult to the South, and upon their recommendation they were defeated.

What there was of offense to be found in them I have been utterly unable to comprehend; and what more could have been expected by men who preferred peace without power to war with power I am unable to conjecture; and to impose upon the people the belief that the Peace Congress "refused all concessions to the South" was simply a delusion and a cheat, to call it by no harsher name.

Again, when the question was asked Mr. Hunter in the Senate of the United States, in January, 1861, whether, if the two houses of Congress would adopt by constitutional majorities such amendments to the Constitution as would be acceptable to the South, he would exert his individual in

fluence to maintain the Constitution and government as it was until the states would have time to act upon them, Mr. Hunter declined to give any such pledge. If Mr. Hunter was for peace and union, why would he not give such a pledge? and why profess to want amendments to the Constitution for the security of any Southern right, if they were not willing to afford time for their adoption according to the forms and requirements of the Constitution ?

THE CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE MEASURES.

But again, Mr. Crittenden had offered certain resolutions. of compromise to the House of Representatives, to which Mr. Bigler, a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, had offered an amendment, and those resolutions, that were proclaimed every where, at least by all but the extreme secessionists, as entirely satisfactory to the South, were referred to a committee of the Senate, of which Mr. Jefferson Davis and Mr. Robert Toombs were members. When the vote was taken, Mr. Davis and Mr. Toombs both voted against them, when their votes would have carried them, and have secured other Northern votes for them also, but which were not given, because Northern members said, naturally enough, it was not worth while for them to make concessions to the South which Southern members rejected; and yet, after they had been thus defeated, before the sun went down on the same day Mr. Toombs telegraphed to the Georgia Convention that the North had refused to give this boon to the South, and all that was left for the state to do was to go out of the Union. They took him at his word and went out.

Again, the whole subject of settling this difficulty was referred by the House of Representatives to a committee, of which Hon. Thomas Corwin was chairman; they adopted certain amendments to the Constitution which secured all

the rights of the South forever, and to which no Southern man could reasonably object; they were brought up for consideration in the House, and, as far as they were acted upon, passed that body by a vote of two thirds. Among those acted on and passed by two thirds was an amendment forever prohibiting Congress from legislating on the subject of slavery; but the impetuosity of the secessionists was such that they would not wait for the final result.

Again: here is the testimony of the Richmond Whig as to the true objects of this resolution; and it must not be overlooked that that paper and its editor had become thoroughly indoctrinated in the secession school, and claims now, I believe, to have been an original secessionist; but whether this is so or not, it is certain that no Democratic paper in the South, from the time the secessionists outbid the Union men for its support, has been more violent and extreme during the progress of the war, as well as in its efforts to carry the state out of the Union, than this once honored and honorable organ of the Whig and Union party.

THE RICHMOND WHIG ON RECONSTRUCTION.

This is what the Whig said:

"Reconstruction.-The plan of ex-Senator Bigler, of Pennsylvania, for ending the war consists of a suggestion that the Legislatures of the Yankee States shall petition Congress to call a convention for the purpose of 'reconstructing the Constitution,' with the view of making it satisfactory to the Confederate States and inducing their return to the Union. Mr. Bigler mistakes the point of the difficulty. The fault was not in the Constitution, nor did the Southern States withdraw on account of dissatisfaction with that instrument. No alteration of it, even if such alteration were left altogether to themselves, would begin to satisfy the South