Appendix

Appendix

No. I.

Before the final vote was taken upon the proposals of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, reported by the General Committee of which Mr. GUTHRIE was Chairman, and the votes upon the various substitutes offered for such proposals, there were twenty-one States represented in the Conference.

Maine and Iowa were represented by their respective Congressional delegations; Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Missouri, by delegates appointed by their respective Legislatures, under joint resolutions which are here inserted; New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, Indiana, and Kansas, by delegates appointed by their respective Governors.

The resolutions of Virginia originated the call for the Conference.

Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and Oregon were not represented. South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas had passed ordinances of secession previous to the meeting of the Conference. Messrs. BENJAMIN and SLIDELL, the Senators from Louisiana, withdrew from the Senate of the United States before the proposed amendments to the Constitution were reported to the Conference.

The following resolutions of their respective States were presented by the delegates to the Committee on Credentials, and were ordered by the Conference to be printed, on the motion of Mr. CHASE.[9]

[Footnote 9: See page 64, Proceedings of the Conference.]

TENNESSEE.

RESOLUTIONS proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That a Convention of delegates from all the slaveholding States should assemble at Nashville, Tennessee, or such other place as a majority of the States coöperating may designate, on the fourth day of February, 1861, to digest and define a basis upon which, if possible, the Federal Union and the constitutional rights of the slave States may be perpetuated and preserved.

Resolved, That the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee appoint a number of delegates to said Convention, of our ablest and wisest men, equal to our whole delegation in Congress; and that the Governor of Tennessee immediately furnish copies of these resolutions to the Governors of the slaveholding States, and urge the participation of such States in said Convention.

Resolved, That in the opinion of this General Assembly, such plan of adjustment should embrace the following propositions as amendments to the Constitution of the United States:

1. A declaratory amendment that African slaves, as held under the institutions of the slaveholding States, shall be recognized as property, and entitled to the status of other property, in the States where slavery exists, in all places within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress in the slave States, in all the Territories south of 36° 30´; in the District of Columbia; in transit; and whilst temporarily sojourning with the owner in the non-slaveholding States and Territories north of 36° 30´, and when fugitives from the owner, in the several places above named, as well as in all places in the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress in the non-slaveholding States.

2. That all the territory now owned, or which may be hereafter acquired by the United States south of the parallel of 36° 30´; African slavery shall be recognized as existing, and be protected by all the departments of the Federal and Territorial Governments, and in all north of that line, now owned, or to be acquired, it shall not be recognized as existing; and whenever States formed out of any of said territory south of said line, having a population equal to that of a congressional district, shall apply for admission into the Union, the same shall be admitted as slave States, whilst States north of the line, formed out of said territory, and having a population equal to a Congressional district, shall be admitted without slavery; but the States formed out of said territory north and south having been admitted as members of the Union, shall have all the powers over the institution of slavery possessed by the other States of the Union.

3. Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction, and situate within the limits of States that permit the holding of slaves.

4. Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery within the District of Columbia, as long as it exists in the adjoining States of Virginia and Maryland, or either, nor without the consent of the inhabitants, nor without just compensation made to such owners of slaves as do not consent to such abolishment. Nor shall Congress at any time prohibit the officers of the Federal Government or members of Congress whose duties require them to be in said District, from bringing with them their slaves, and holding them as such, during the time their duties may require them to remain there, and afterwards take them from the District.

5. Congress shall have no power to prohibit or hinder the transportation of slaves from one State to another, or the Territory in which slaves are by law permitted to be held, whether that transportation be by land, navigable rivers, or by seas.

6. In addition to the fugitive slave clause, provide that when a slave has been demanded of the Executive authority of the State to which he has fled, if he is not delivered, and the owner permitted to carry him out of the State in peace, the State so failing to deliver, shall pay to the owner the value of such slave, and such damages as he may have sustained in attempting to reclaim his slave, and secure his right of action in the Supreme Court of the United States, with execution against the property of such State and the individuals thereof.

7. No future amendment of the Constitution shall affect the six preceding articles, nor the third paragraph of the second section of the first article of the Constitution, nor the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution; and no amendments shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress any power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any of the States by whose laws it is, or may be allowed or permitted.

8. That slave property shall be rendered secure in transit through, or whilst temporarily sojourning in, non-slaveholding States or Territories, or in the District of Columbia.

9. An amendment to the effect that all fugitives are to be deemed those offending the laws within the jurisdiction of the State, and who escape therefrom to other States; and that it is the duty of each State to suppress armed invasion of another State.

Resolved, That said Convention of the slaveholding States having agreed upon a basis of adjustment satisfactory to themselves, should, in the opinion of this General Assembly, refer it to a Convention of all the States, slaveholding and non-slaveholding, in the manner following:

It should invite all States friendly to such plan of adjustment, to elect delegates in such manner as to reflect the popular will, to assemble in a Constitutional Convention of all the States North and South, to be held at Richmond, Virginia, on the ---- day of February, 1861, to revise and perfect such plan of adjustment, for its reference for final ratification and adoption by a Convention of the States respectively.

Resolved, That should a plan of adjustment, satisfactory to the South, not be acceded to by a requisite number of States to perfect amendments to the Constitution of the United States, it is the opinion of this General Assembly that the slaveholding States should adopt for themselves the Constitution of the United States, with such amendments as may be satisfactory to the slaveholding States, and that they should invite into the Union with them all States of the North which are willing to abide such amended Constitution and frame of Government, severing at once all connections with States refusing such reasonable guarantees to our future safety; such renewed conditions of Federal Union being first submitted for ratification to Convention of all the States respectively.

Resolved, That the Governor of the State of Tennessee furnish copies of these resolutions immediately to the Governors of the non-slaveholding States.

OHIO.

JOINT RESOLUTIONS of the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, relative to the appointment of Commissioners to the Convention to meet in Washington on the 4th of February, proximo. Passed, January 30, 1861.

WHEREAS, The Commonwealth of Virginia has appointed five Commissioners to meet in the City of Washington on the fourth day of February next, with similar Commissioners from other States, and after full and free conference to agree, if practicable, upon some adjustment of the unhappy difficulties now dividing our country, which may be alike satisfactory and honorable to the States concerned; therefore be it

Resolved, by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, That the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, be and he is hereby authorized and empowered to appoint five Commissioners to represent the State of Ohio in said Conference.

Resolved, That while we are not prepared to assent to the terms of settlement proposed by Virginia, and are fully satisfied that the Constitution of the United States as it is, if fairly interpreted and obeyed by all sections of our country, contains ample provisions within itself for the correction of all evils complained, yet a disposition to reciprocate the patriotic spirit of a sister State, and a sincere desire to have harmoniously adjusted all differences between us, induce us to favor the appointment of the Commission as requested.

Resolved, That the Governor be requested to transmit without delay a copy of these Resolutions to each of the Commissioners to be appointed as aforesaid, to the end that they may repair to the City of Washington, on the day hereinbefore named, to meet such Commissioners as may be appointed by any of the States in accordance with the aforesaid propositions of Virginia.

Resolved, That in the opinion of this General Assembly, it will be wise and expedient to adjourn the proposed Convention to a later day, and that the Commissioners to be appointed as aforesaid, are requested to use their influence in procuring an adjournment to the fourth day of April next.

KENTUCKY.

RESOLUTIONS appointing Commissioners to attend a Conference at Washington City, February 4th, in accordance with the invitation of the Virginia Legislature.

WHEREAS, The General Assembly of Virginia, with a view to make an effort to preserve the Union and the Constitution in the spirit in which they were established by the Fathers of the Republic, have, by resolution, invited all the States who are willing to unite with her in an earnest effort to adjust the present unhappy controversies, to appoint Commissioners to meet on the 4th of February next, to consider, and if practicable, agree upon some suitable adjustment--

Resolved, That we heartily accept the invitation of our Old Mother Virginia, and that the following six Commissioners, viz.: Wm. O. Butler, James B. Clay, Joshua F. Bell, C.S. Morehead, James Guthrie, and Chas. A. Wickliffe, be appointed to represent the State of Kentucky in the contemplated Convention, whose duty it shall be to repair to the City of Washington, on the day designated, to meet such Commissioners as may be appointed by any of the States in accordance with the foregoing invitation.

Resolved, That if said Commissioners shall agree upon any plan of adjustment requiring amendments to the Federal Constitution, they be requested to communicate the proposed amendments to Congress, for the purpose of having the same submitted by that body, according to the forms of the Constitution, to the several States for ratification.

Resolved, That if said Commissioners cannot agree on an adjustment, or if agreeing, Congress shall refuse to submit for ratification such amendments as they may propose, the Commissioners of this State shall immediately communicate the result to the Executive of this Commonwealth, to be by him laid before this General Assembly.

Resolved, That in the opinion of the General Assembly of Kentucky, the propositions embraced in the resolutions presented to the Senate of the United States by the Hon. JOHN J. CRITTENDEN, so construed, that the first article proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States shall apply to all the territory of the United States now held or hereafter acquired south of latitude 36° 30´, and provide that slavery of the African race shall be effectually protected as property therein during the continuance of the Territorial Government; and the fourth article shall secure to the owners of slaves the right of transit with their slaves between and through the non-slaveholding States and Territories, constitute the basis of such an adjustment of the unhappy controversy which now divides the States of this Confederacy, as would be acceptable to the people of this Commonwealth.

Resolved, That the Governor be, and he is hereby requested to communicate information of the foregoing appointment to the Commissioners above named, at as early a day as practicable, and that he also communicate copies of the foregoing resolutions to the Executive of the respective States.

INDIANA.

A JOINT RESOLUTION authorizing the Governor to appoint Commissioners to meet those sent by other States in Convention on the state of the Union.

WHEREAS, The State of Virginia has transmitted to this State resolutions adopted by her General Assembly, inviting all such States as are willing to unite with her in an earnest effort to adjust the unhappy controversies, in the spirit in which the Constitution was originally formed, to send Commissioners to meet those appointed by that State in Convention, to be held in the City of Washington, on the fourth day of February next, to consider, and if possible, to agree upon some suitable adjustment.

And whereas, some of the States to which invitations were extended by the State of Virginia have already responded and appointed their Commissioners; therefore,

Resolved, by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, That we accept the invitation of the State of Virginia, in the true spirit of fraternal feeling, and that the Governor of the State is hereby directed and empowered to appoint five Commissioners to meet the Commissioners appointed by our sister States, to consult upon the unhappy differences now dividing the country; but the said Commissioners shall take no action that will commit this State until nineteen of the States are represented, nor without first having communicated with this General Assembly in regard to such action, and having received the authority of the same so to commit the State.

Resolved, That while we are not prepared to assent to the terms of settlement proposed by the State of Virginia, and are fully satisfied that the Constitution, if fairly interpreted and obeyed, contains ample provisions within itself for the correction of the evils complained of; still, with a disposition to reciprocate the patriotic desire of the State of Virginia, and to have harmoniously adjusted all differences existing between the States of the Union, this General Assembly is induced to respond to the invitation of Virginia, by the appointment of the Commissioners herein provided for; but as the time fixed for the Convention to assemble is so near at hand that the States cannot all be represented, it is expected that the Commissioners on behalf of this State will insist that the Convention adjourn until such time as the States shall have an opportunity of being represented.

Resolved, That his Excellency, the Governor, be requested to transmit copies of these resolutions to the Executives of each of the States of the Union.

DELAWARE.

JOINT RESOLUTIONS appointing Commissioners.

WHEREAS, The State of Virginia has recommended the holding of a Convention of Delegates from all the States of the Union, at the City of Washington, on the fourth day of February next, for the purpose of taking into consideration and perfecting some plan of adjusting the matters in controversy now so unhappily subsisting in the family of States, and has appointed five Commissioners to represent the people of that Commonwealth in said Convention; and

Whereas, the people of the State of Delaware regard the preservation of the Union as paramount to any political consideration, and are fixed in their determination that Delaware, the first to adopt the Federal Constitution, will be the last to do any act tending to destroy the integrity of the Union; therefore,

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met, That the Hon. George B. Rodney, Daniel M. Bates, Esq., Dr. Henry Ridgely, Hon. John W. Houston, and William Cannon, Esq., be, and they are hereby appointed Commissioners, on behalf of the State of Delaware, to represent the people of said State in the Convention to be held at Washington, on the fourth day of February next.

Resolved, That in the opinion of this General Assembly, the people of Delaware are thoroughly devoted to the perpetuity of the Union, and that the Commissioners appointed by the foregoing resolution are expected to emulate the example set by the immortal patriots who framed the Federal Constitution, by sacrificing all minor considerations upon the altar of the Union.

Resolved, further, That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to furnish a copy of the above preamble and resolutions to each of the Commissioners herein and hereby appointed, duly attested under the great seal of the State.

Resolved, further, That immediately upon the adoption of the foregoing preamble and resolutions, it shall be the duty of the Clerk of the House to transmit to the Secretary of State a copy thereof, certified by him; and when the Secretary of State shall have received said copy so certified, it shall be evidence that said preamble and resolutions were duly adopted by this General Assembly.

ILLINOIS.

WHEREAS, resolutions of the State of Virginia have been communicated to the General Assembly of this State, proposing the appointment of Commissioners by the several States to meet in Convention, on the fourth day of February, A.D. 1861, at Washington.

Resolved by the Senate, the House of Representatives concurring herein, That with the earnest desire for the return of harmony and kind relations among all our sister States, and out of respect to the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Governor of this State be requested to appoint five Commissioners on the part of the State of Illinois, to confer and consult with the Commissioners of other States who shall meet at Washington: Provided, That said Commissioners shall at all times be subject to the control of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois.

Resolved, That the appointment of Commissioners by the State of Illinois, in response to the invitation of the State of Virginia, is not an expression of opinion on the part of this State that any amendment of the Federal Constitution is requisite to secure to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights, nor an approval of the basis of settlement of our difficulties proposed by the State of Virginia, but it is an expression of our willingness to unite with the State of Virginia in an earnest effort to adjust the present unhappy controversies in the spirit in which the Constitution was originally formed, and consistently with its principles.

Resolved, That while we are willing to appoint Commissioners to meet in convention with those of other States for consultation upon matters which at present distract our harmony as a nation, we also insist that the appropriate and constitutional method of considering and acting upon the grievances complained of by our sister States, would be by the call of a Convention for the amendment of the Constitution in the manner contemplated by the fifth article of that instrument; and if the States deeming themselves aggrieved, shall request Congress to call such Convention, the Legislature of Illinois will and does concur in such call.

NEW JERSEY.

JOINT RESOLUTIONS in relation to the Union of the States.

WHEREAS, the people of New Jersey, conforming to the opinion of "the Father of his Country," consider the unity of the Government, which constitutes the people of the United States one people, a main pillar in the edifice of their independence, the support of their tranquillity at home and peace abroad, of their prosperity, and of that liberty which they so highly prize; and properly estimating the immense value of their National Union to their individual happiness, they cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it as the palladium of their political safety and prosperity; therefore,

1. Be it resolved by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey, That it is the duty of every good citizen, in all suitable and proper ways, to stand by and sustain the Union of the States as transmitted to us by our fathers.

2. And be it resolved, That the Government of the United States is a National Government, and the Union it was designed to perfect is not a mere compact or league; and that the Constitution was adopted in a spirit of mutual compromise and concession by the people of the United States, and can only be preserved by the constant recognition of that spirit.

3. And be it resolved, That however undoubted may be the right of the General Government to maintain its authority and enforce its laws over all parts of the country, it is equally certain that forbearance and compromise are indispensable at this crisis to the perpetuity of the Union, and that it is the dictate of reason, wisdom, and patriotism, peacefully to adjust whatever differences exist between the different sections of the country.

4. And be it resolved, That the resolutions and propositions submitted to the Senate of the United States by the Honorable John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, for the compromise of the questions in dispute between the people of the northern and of the southern States, or any other constitutional method that will permanently settle the question of slavery, will be acceptable to the people of the State of New Jersey, and the Senators and Representatives in Congress from New Jersey be requested and earnestly urged to support those resolutions and propositions.

5. And be it resolved, That as the Union of the States is in imminent danger unless the remedies before suggested be speedily adopted, then, as a last resort, the State of New Jersey hereby makes application, according to the terms of the Constitution, of the Congress of the United States, to call a Convention (of the United States) to propose amendments to said Constitution.

6. And be it resolved, That such of the States as have in force laws which interfere with the constitutional rights of citizens of the other States, either in regard to their persons or property, or which militate against the just construction of that part of the Constitution that provides that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States," are earnestly urged and requested, for the sake of peace and the Union, to repeal all such laws.

7. And be it resolved, That his Excellency Charles S. Olden, Peter D. Vroom, Robert F. Stockton, Benjamin Williamson, Joseph F. Randolph, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Rodman M. Price, William O. Alexander, and Thomas J. Stryker, be appointed Commissioners to confer with Congress and our sister States, and urge upon them the importance of carrying into effect the principles and objects of the foregoing resolutions.

8. And be it resolved, That the Commissioners above named, in addition to their other powers, be authorized to meet with those now or hereafter to be appointed by our sister State of Virginia, and such Commissioners of other States as have been, or may be hereafter appointed, to meet at Washington on the fourth day of February next.

9. And be it resolved, That copies of the foregoing resolutions be sent to the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, and to the Senators and Representatives in Congress from New Jersey, and to the Governors of the several States.

NEW YORK.

CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS appointing Commissioners from this State to meet Commissioners from other States at Washington, on invitation of Virginia.

WHEREAS, the State of Virginia, by resolutions of her General Assembly, passed the 19th instant, has invited such of the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States as are willing to unite with her, to meet at Washington, on the fourth of February next, to consider, and, if practicable, agree on some suitable adjustment of our national difficulties; and whereas, the people of New York, while they hold the opinion that the Constitution of the United States, as it is, contains all needful guarantees for the rights of the States, are nevertheless ready, at all times, to confer with their brethren upon all alleged grievances; and to do all that can justly be required of them to allay discontent; therefore

Resolved, That David Dudley Field, William Curtis Noyes, James S. Wadsworth, James O. Smith, Amaziah B. James, Erastus Corning, Addison Gardiner, Greene O. Bronson, William E. Dodge, Ex-Governor John A. King, and Major-General John E. Wool, be and are hereby appointed Commissioners, on the part of this State, to meet Commissioners from other States, in the City of Washington, on the fourth day of February next, or so soon thereafter as Commissioners shall be appointed by a majority of the States of the Union, to confer with them upon the complaints of any part of the country, and to suggest such remedies therefor as to them shall seem fit and proper; but the said Commissioners shall at all times be subject to the control of this Legislature, and shall cast five votes to be determined by a majority of their number.

Resolved, That in thus acceding to the request of Virginia, it is not to be understood that this Legislature approves of the propositions submitted by the General Assembly of that State, or concedes the propriety of their adoption by the proposed Convention. But while adhering to the position she has heretofore occupied, New York will not reject an invitation to a conference, which, by bringing together the men of both sections, holds out the possibility of an honorable settlement of our national difficulties, and the restoration of peace and harmony to the country.

Resolved, That the Governor be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing resolutions to the Executive of the several States, and also to the President of the United States, and to inform the Commissioners without delay of their appointment.

Resolved, That the foregoing resolutions be transmitted to the honorable the Senate, with a request that they concur therein.

PENNSYLVANIA.

RESOLUTIONS to appoint Commissioners to a Convention of the States.

WHEREAS, the Legislature of the State of Virginia has invited a meeting of Commissioners from the several States of this Union, to be held in the City of Washington, on the fourth day of February next, to consider, and if practicable, agree upon some suitable adjustment of the unhappy differences which now disturb the business of the country and threaten the dissolution of this Union:

And whereas, in the opinion of this Legislature, no reasonable cause exists for this extraordinary excitement which now pervades some of the States, in relation to their domestic institutions, and while Pennsylvania still adheres to, and cannot surrender the principles which she has always entertained on the subject of slavery, this Legislature is willing to accept the invitation of Virginia, and unite with her in an earnest effort to restore the peace of the country, by such means as may be consistent with the principles upon which the Constitution is founded; therefore,

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in General Assembly met, That the invitation of the Legislature of Virginia to her sister States, for the appointment of Commissioners to meet in the City of Washington, on the fourth of February next, be and the same is hereby accepted; and that the Governor be, and he is hereby authorized to appoint seven Commissioners for the State of Pennsylvania, whose duty it shall be to repair to the City of Washington on the day designated, to meet such Commissioners as may be appointed by any other States which have not authorized or sanctioned the seizure of the forts, arsenals, or other property of the United States, to consider, and if possible, to agree upon suitable measures for the prompt and final settlement of the difficulties which now exist: Provided, That the said Commissioners shall be subject, in all their proceedings, to the instructions of this Legislature.

Resolved, That in the opinion of this Legislature, the people of Pennsylvania do not desire any alteration or amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and any recommendation from this body to that effect, while it does not come within its appropriate and legitimate duties, would not meet with their approval; that Pennsylvania will cordially unite with the other States of the Union in the adoption of any proper constitutional measures adequate to guarantee and secure a more strict and faithful observance of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, which provides, among other things, that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States," and that no person held to service or labor in one State under the law thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

MASSACHUSETTS.

RESOLVE for the appointment of Commissioners to attend a Convention to be held in the City of Washington.

WHEREAS, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is desirous of a full and free conference with the General Government, and with any or all of the other States of the Union, at any time and on every occasion when such conference may promote the welfare of the country; and whereas, questions of grave moment have arisen touching the powers of the Government and the relations between the different States of the Union; and whereas, the State of Virginia has expressed a desire to meet her sister States in Convention at Washington; therefore,

Resolved, That the Governor of this Commonwealth, by and with the advice and consent of the Council, be and he hereby is authorized to appoint seven persons as Commissioners, to proceed to Washington to confer with the General Government, or with the separate States, or with any association of delegates from such States, and to report their doings to the Legislature at its present session; it being expressly declared that their acts shall be at all times under the control, and subject to the approval or rejection of the Legislature.

RHODE ISLAND.

WHEREAS, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, on the 19th day of January inst., adopted resolutions inviting the sister States of this Union to appoint Commissioners to meet on the fourth day of February next, in the City of Washington, to consider the practicability of agreeing on terms of adjustment of our present national troubles:

Resolved, That the Governor be, and he is hereby authorized to appoint five Commissioners, on the part of this State, to meet such Commissioners as may be appointed by other States, in the City of Washington, on the fourth day of February next, to consider and, if practicable, agree upon some amicable adjustment of the present unhappy national difficulties, upon the basis and in the spirit of the Constitution of the United States.

MISSOURI.

JOINT RESOLUTION to appoint Commissioners.

Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring therein, That Waldo P. Johnson, John D. Coalter, A.W. Doniphan, Harrison Hough, and A.H. Buckner be appointed Commissioners on the part of the State of Missouri, to meet Commissioners from Virginia, and other States, in Convention at Washington City, on the 4th of February, 1861, to endeavor to agree upon some plan of adjustment of existing difficulties, so as to preserve or to reconstruct the Union of these States, and to secure the honor and equal rights of the slaveholding States. Said Commissioners shall always be under the control of the General Assembly, except when the State Convention shall be in session, during which time they shall be under the control of the Convention.

No. II.

The following is a corrected list of the Delegates to the Conference, with their respective post office address.

MAINE.--William P. Fessenden, Biddeford; Lot M. Morrill; Daniel E. Somes, Biddeford; John J. Perry, Oxford; Ezra B. French, Damariscotta; Freeman H. Morse, Bath; Stephen Coburn; Stephen C. Foster, Pembroke.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.--Amos Tuck, Exeter; Levi Chamberlain; Asa Fowler, Concord.

VERMONT.--Hiland Hall, North Bennington; Levi Underwood, Burlington; H. Henry Baxter, Rutland; L.E. Chittenden, Burlington; B.D. Harris, Brattleboro'.

MASSACHUSETTS.--John Z. Goodrich, Stockbridge; Charles Allen, Worcester; George S. Boutwell, Groton; Theophilus P. Chandler, Boston; Francis B. Crowninshield, Boston; John M. Forbes, Salem; Richard P. Waters, Salem.

RHODE ISLAND.--Samuel Ames, Providence; Alexander Duncan, Providence; William W. Hoppin, Providence; George H. Browne, Providence; Samuel G. Arnold, Providence.

CONNECTICUT.--Roger S. Baldwin, Windham; Chauncey F. Cleveland; Charles J. McCurdy, Lyme; James T. Pratt; Robbins Battell; Amos S. Treat, Bridgeport.

NEW YORK.--David Dudley Field, New York; William Curtis Noyes, New York; James S. Wadsworth, Geneseo; James C. Smith, Canandaigua; Amaziah B. James, Ogdensburg; Erastus Corning, Albany; Francis Granger, Canandaigua; Greene C. Bronson, New York; William E. Dodge, New York; John A. King, Jamaica; John E. Wool, Troy.

NEW JERSEY.--Charles S. Olden, Princeton; Peter D. Vroom, Trenton; Robert F. Stockton, Princeton; Benjamin Williamson, Elizabeth; Joseph F. Randolph, Trenton; Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Newark; Rodman M. Price, Harrison, Hudson Co.; William C. Alexander, _P.O., 92 Broadway, N.Y._; Thomas J. Stryker, Trenton.

PENNSYLVANIA.--James Pollock, Milton; William M. Meredith, Philadelphia; David Wilmot, Towanda; A.W. Loomis, Pittsburg; Thomas E. Franklin, Lancaster; William McKennan, Washington; Thomas White, Indiana.

DELAWARE.--George B. Rodney, Newcastle; Daniel M. Bates, Wilmington; Henry Ridgely, Dover; John W. Houston, Milford; William Cannon, Bridgeville.

MARYLAND.--John F. Dent, Milestown; Reverdy Johnson, Baltimore; John W. Crisfield, Princess Ann; Augustus W. Bradford, Govanstown; William T. Goldsborough, Cambridge; J. Dixon Roman, Hagerstown; Benjamin C. Howard, Catonsville.

VIRGINIA.--John Tyler, Sherwood Forest; William C. Rives; John W. Brockenbrough, Lexington; George W. Summers, Kanawha C.H.; James A. Seddon, Goochland.

NORTH CAROLINA.--George Davis, Wilmington; Thomas Ruffin, Graham; David S. Reid, Pleasantville; D.M. Barringer, Raleigh; J.M. Morehead, Greenboro'.

TENNESSEE.--Samuel Milligan, Greenville; Josiah M. Anderson, _Walnut Valley_; Robert L. Carruthers, Lebanon; Thomas Martin, Pulaski; Isaac R. Hawkins, Huntington; A.W.O. Totten, Jackson; R.J. McKinney, Knoxville; Alvin Cullom, Livingston; William P. Hickerson, Manchester; George W. Jones, Fayetteville; F.K. Zollicoffer, Nashville; William H. Stephens, Jackson.

KENTUCKY.--William O. Butler, Carrollton; James B. Clay, Ashland; Joshua F. Bell, Danville; Charles S. Morehead, Louisville; James Guthrie, Louisville; Charles A. Wickliffe, Bardstown.

MISSOURI.--John D. Coalter, St. Louis; Alexander W. Doniphan, Liberty; Waldo P. Johnson, Osceola; Aylett H. Buckner, Bowling Green; Harrison Hough, Charleston.

OHIO.--Salmon P. Chase, Columbus; William S. Groesbeck, Cincinnati; Franklin T. Backus, Cleveland; Reuben Hitchcock, Cleveland; Thomas Ewing, Lancaster; V.B. Horton, Pomeroy; C.P. Wolcott, Akron.

INDIANA.--Caleb B. Smith, Indianapolis; Pleasant A. Hackleman, Rushville; Godlove S. Orth, Lafayette; E.W.H. Ellis, Goshen; Thomas C. Slaughter, Corydon.

ILLINOIS.--John Wood, Quincy; Stephen T. Logan, Springfield; John M. Palmer, Carlinville; Burton C. Cook, Ottowa; Thomas J. Turner, Freeport.

IOWA.--James Harlan, Mt. Pleasant; James W. Grimes, Burlington; Samuel H. Curtis, Keokuk; William Vandever, Dubuque.

KANSAS.--Thomas Ewing, jr., Leavenworth; J.C. Stone, Leavenworth; H.J. Adams, Leavenworth; M.F. Conway, Lawrence.

No. III.

In the United States Senate, February 27th, 1861, while the Army Appropriation bill was under consideration, proceedings relating to the Peace Conference were opened as follows:

Mr. POWELL:--Is it in order to move to postpone this bill and take up another?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Chair believes it is in order.

Mr. POWELL:--I move to postpone the Army bill for the purpose of taking up the resolutions to amend the Constitution proposed by my colleague. For several weeks Senators have declined to make an effort to call up the propositions of my colleague, for the reason that certain Peace Commissioners were in session in this capital, convened at the call of the State of Virginia. I am confident now that that Commission, or Peace Congress, or Conference, or whatever you may call it, will not accomplish any thing. Indeed, certain facts have fallen under my notice, that cause me to believe that it has been the fixed purpose of certain Republicans that that Conference should not accomplish any thing. I believe, sir, that certain commissioners from States of this Union have been brought into that Conference for the purpose of preventing them from agreeing on any thing. I have thought that for some time past. A friend sent to me yesterday the Detroit Free Press, containing two letters from the distinguished Senators from the State of Michigan to their Governor, which, I think, clearly and fully establish the fact that the Republicans, a portion of them at least, instead of sending commissioners to that Conference with a view to inaugurate something that would compromise the difficulties by which we are surrounded, and save this country from ruin, have absolutely been engaged in the work of sending delegates there to prevent that commission from doing any thing. I send this paper to the desk, and ask the Secretary to read these letters.

The Secretary read as follows:

WASHINGTON, February 15th, 1861.

DEAR SIR: When Virginia proposed a Convention in Washington, in reference to the disturbed condition of the country, I regarded it as another effort to debauch the public mind, and a step toward obtaining that concession which the imperious slave power so insolently demands. I have no doubt at present but that was the design. I was therefore pleased that the Legislature of Michigan was not disposed to put herself in a position to be controlled by such influences.

The Convention has met here, and within a few days the aspect of things has materially changed. Every free State, I think, except Michigan and Wisconsin, is represented; and we have been assured by friends upon whom we can rely, that if those two States should send delegations of true, unflinching men, there would probably be a majority in favor of the Constitution as it is, who would frown down rebellion by the enforcement of laws. These friends have urged us to recommend the appointment of delegates from our State; and, in compliance with their request, Mr. CHANDLER and myself telegraphed to you last night. It cannot be doubted that the recommendations of this Convention will have a very considerable influence upon the public mind, and upon the action of Congress.

I have a great disinclination to any interference with what should properly be submitted to the wisdom and discretion of the Legislature, in which I place great reliance; but I hope I shall be pardoned for suggesting that it may be justifiable and proper, by any honorable means, to avert the lasting disgrace which will attach to a free people who, by the peaceful exercise of the ballot, have just released themselves from the tyranny of slavery, if they should now succumb to treasonable threats, and again submit to a degrading thraldom. If it should be deemed proper to send delegates, I think, if they could be here by the 20th, it would be in time.

I have the honor, with much respect, to be truly yours,

K.S. BINGHAM.

To his Excellency Governor BLAIR.

Mr. FESSENDEN:--I submit whether it is in order to go into a discussion on this motion. If so, I suppose this must be regarded as a part of the speech.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Chair understood the discussion to be in order. It was certainly not objected to at the time the Senator commenced.

Mr. FESSENDEN:--It is not too late to raise the point.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The motion is to lay aside one bill and take up other business; and the Chair understood the Senator from Kentucky to be giving his reasons why he wished that to be done.

Mr. FESSENDEN:--If it is in order, of course I cannot object to it; but I raise that question.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Senator from Maine raises the question whether this debate is in order.

Mr. POWELL:--There was no objection to my proceeding, and I suppose I have a right to go on. I wish the letters read as part of my speech.

Mr. FESSENDEN:--There is no objection to reading them.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Chair has decided that the Senator from Kentucky is in order.

Mr. POWELL:--I have not yielded, except for the purpose of reading these letters.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--Is an appeal taken from the decision of the Chair?

Mr. FESSENDEN:--I take no appeal.

The Secretary read as follows:

WASHINGTON, February 11th, 1861.

MY DEAR GOVERNOR: Governor BINGHAM and myself telegraphed you on Saturday, at the request of Massachusetts and New York, to send delegates to the Peace or Compromise Congress. They admit that we were right and that they were wrong; that no Republican State should have sent delegates; but they are here and cannot get away. Ohio, Indiana, and Rhode Island are caving in, and there is danger of Illinois; and now they beg us, for God's sake, to come to their rescue, and save the Republican party from rupture. I hope you will send stiff-backed men, or none. The whole thing was gotten up against my judgment and advice, and will end in thin smoke. Still, I hope as a matter of courtesy to some of our erring brethren, that you will send the delegates.

Truly your friend,

Z. CHANDLER.

His Excellency AUSTIN BLAIR.

P.S.--Some of the manufacturing States think that a fight would be awful. Without a little blood-letting this Union will not, in my estimation, be worth a rush.

Mr. POWELL:--I think it evident from these letters, that there is, and has been, a fixed purpose in certain quarters, that the Peace Conference should do nothing. Indeed, it seems, from the letter of the Senator from Michigan [Mr. CHANDLER], that while he opposed any Republican State going into this Conference, yet, as some of them were there, and Indiana, and Illinois, and Ohio, and Rhode Island were about to cave in, on the advice of Massachusetts and New York he asked Michigan to come in and relieve them, and save the Republican party from rupture. Is it possible that the Republican party is to be saved, even if the Union be destroyed? It is very evident that those "stiff-backed" gentlemen were to be sent here in order to prevent any compromise being presented. The object, then, as I stated, on the part of certain members on the other side of the Chamber, has been to send delegates to the Conference for the purpose of preventing any compromise measures being proposed by that body. They desire, in the language of these letters, to save their party from destruction. They say that if the Conference should agree on any thing, it would have a demoralizing effect upon the people, and upon the two Houses of Congress. In one word, it will have the effect to make a rupture in the Republican party, which, in the estimation of the Senators, is higher, holier, and better, it seems, than the Union.

In consequence of this fact being apparent, that it is not the design or the intention that the Peace Conference should do any thing, I think we should not wait for it any longer, but the Senate should proceed at once to the consideration of the amendments to the Constitution proposed by my colleague. I think we had better be engaged in that work--one that is calculated, if the propositions of my colleague should pass, in my opinion, to save the country from further disintegration. I think we had better be at that, than be appropriating money to support an Army that is to be engaged, it seems, in the work of blood-letting. The Senator from Michigan thinks the Government is not worth a rush until it shall have drawn a little blood. I hope my motion will prevail, and that we shall lay this bill aside and proceed to the consideration of the measures proposed by my colleague.

Mr. CHANDLER:--The Senator from Kentucky has read what purports to be a short note that I sent the other day to the Governor of Michigan. Whether it is a correct copy or not, I cannot say; I kept no copy of it, nor do I care.

Mr. POWELL:--If the Senator will allow me one word, I will state to the Senate that, when I received this paper, yesterday--

Mr. CHANDLER:--I was about to state that.

Mr. POWELL:--I asked both the Senators if the letters were right. They told me they kept no copies, but they believed they were substantially so.

Mr. CHANDLER:--I was going to say that. Now, sir, I desire to answer the Senator from Kentucky, and to set myself right on this question--(my position from the first has been well known upon this question, and upon most others)--but, at the earnest solicitation of the Senator from Maine, who has charge of this bill, I will forego the response which I intended to make, and which I shall make to the Senator from Kentucky, for the present, for the purpose of going on and disposing of the Army appropriation bill. At another day I propose to give my views more at large upon these compromise measures, that the Senator from Kentucky seems so anxious to take up at this time. I am as anxious as he is to go into that discussion. I am anxious to go into it. It is a question that ought to be discussed. It is a question in which the people of Michigan take a deep interest. They are opposed to all compromises; they do not believe that any compromise is necessary; nor do I. They are prepared to stand by the Constitution of the United States as it is; to stand by the Government as it is; ay, sir, to stand by it to blood, if necessary.

Mr. POWELL:--I ask for the yeas and nays on my motion.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. MASON:--I ask the general permission of the Senate to give notice that at three o'clock I shall move to go into executive session; and if it is not agreed to, I shall then ask that the galleries may be cleared, for the purpose of disclosing what I consider ought to be passed on in executive session.

Mr. JOHNSON, of Tennessee:--If I can obtain the attention of the Senator from Kentucky, I wish to make a suggestion. Those resolutions, as I understood, went over until last Monday at one o'clock, and were then to be taken up and considered. I do not know whether the motion was made in that way, or whether it was an informal understanding that they should be taken up last Monday for consideration; but as the Army bill is now under consideration, and the time is growing short, would it not be better to have a night session, and postpone the subject until seven o'clock this evening, and let it be taken up at that time; and then let this other bill go on to-day? Those who want to make speeches on those resolutions could do it to-night; we should thus save time and expedite business.

Mr. FESSENDEN:--I think the Senator from Virginia has given an additional very good reason for taking up the Army bill, and going through with it; and not postponing it for speeches at the present time.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted--yeas 17, nays 27; as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Bayard, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, Clingman, Douglas, Fitch, Gwin, Hunter, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, Lane, Latham, Mason, Polk, Powell, and Rice--17.

NAYS.--Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bingham, Cameron, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Dixon, Doolittle, Durkee, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, King, Morrill, Pearce, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson, and Wilson--27.

So the motion to postpone the Army bill, in order to take up the resolutions of Mr. CRITTENDEN, was not agreed to.

Subsequently the following action, by the Senate, was taken on the report of the Peace Conference.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--The Chair has received a communication from Ex-President TYLER, as President of the Conference which has been recently sitting in this city, which he will lay before the Senate; and also the proceedings of that body.

The Secretary read the communication, as follows:

To the Senate of the United States:

I am instructed, as the presiding officer of the Convention, composed of Commissioners appointed by twenty-one States, now in session in this city to deliberate upon the present unhappy condition of the country, to present to your honorable body the accompanying request and proposed amendment.

JOHN TYLER, President of the Convention.

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 27, 1861.

* * * * *

To the Congress of the United States:

The Convention assembled, upon the invitation of the State of Virginia, to adjust the unhappy differences which now disturb the peace of the Union, and threaten its continuance, make known to the Congress of the United States that their body convened in the City of Washington on the fourth instant, and continued in session until the twenty-seventh.

There were in the body, when action was taken upon that which is here submitted, one hundred and thirty-three Commissioners, representing the following States: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kansas. They have approved what is herewith submitted, and respectfully request that your honorable body will submit it to conventions in the States as article thirteen of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Attest: J. HENRY PULESTON, Secretary.

* * * * *

ARTICLE XIII.

SEC. 1. In all the present territory of the United States north of the parallel of 36° 30´ of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature 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. When any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, 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, depots, 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 hereinbefore 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 labor or service, for sale, or placing them in depots to be afterwards 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 judicial 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 the Territories from places beyond the limits thereof.

SEC. 6. The first, third, and fifth sections, together with this section of those 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 further 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.

Mr. MASON:--I suppose the proper disposition is to have it printed.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--There is nothing to print.

Mr. GREEN:--And refer it to the Committee for the District of Columbia. I think that is about right.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I move that it be referred to a select committee, with instructions to report to-morrow morning.

Mr. MASON:--We ought certainly to have it printed.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--It can be printed in the mean time.

Mr. FESSENDEN:--We should have time to look at it.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--It is moved that the communication be printed and referred to a select committee, with instructions to report to-morrow morning.

Mr. BIGLER:--I would be glad to make a suggestion to the Senator from Kentucky, that he name in addition an hour to-morrow at which the consideration of the report shall be in order, or else a single objection will throw it over to the next day.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Well, to-morrow at twelve o'clock, I would say. ["One."] I move one o'clock.

Mr. BIGLER:--With instructions to the committee to report to-morrow morning, and that the report be the special order at one o'clock?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Yes, sir.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--Does the Senator indicate the number of the committee?

Mr. GREEN:--Seventeen.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--Five is enough.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--A committee of five; no more.

Mr. COLLAMER:--I would suggest to gentlemen not only that it be made the order of the day for twelve o'clock to-morrow, but that it be adopted by three-fourths of the States the next day. [Laughter.]

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--It is moved and seconded that the communication be printed and referred to a select committee of five members, to report to-morrow at one o'clock.

Mr. HALE:--I ask for a division of the question.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--The first question will be on printing.

The motion to print was agreed to.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--The next question is that the communication be referred to a select committee of five, with instructions to report to-morrow at one o'clock.

Mr. HALE:--I ask for a division of that.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--How would it be divided?

Mr. HALE:--The motion to refer to a select committee is one proposition, and the instructions are another.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--That is the form in which the Senator wants it divided?

Mr. HALE:--Yes, sir.

Mr. BIGLER:--As the Chair states the proposition, it does not reach the object which the Senator from Kentucky had in view. The instructions should be that the committee report to-morrow morning, and that the report shall be the special order at one o'clock. Unless that is done, one objection will put it over.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--The Senator from New Hampshire asks for a division of the question, and it is susceptible of division. The first question is on referring the communication to a special committee of five.

The motion was agreed to.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--The next branch of the proposition is that that committee be instructed to report to-morrow morning, and that their report be made the special order for to-morrow at one o'clock.

Mr. HALE:--On that, I should like to have the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The VICE-PRESIDENT:--The question is upon directing the committee to report to-morrow morning, and that the report be made the special order for to-morrow at one o'clock.

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. CLINGMAN:--Though I am utterly opposed to the proposition, I am willing to give it the direction its friends desire, and I vote "yea."

Mr. LATHAM:--I desire to change my vote. I have no confidence in this thing, and I fear it will be an unnecessary consumption of time; but I yield to the judgment of my political associates and I vote "yea."

The result was announced--yeas 26, nays 21; as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bayard, Bigler, Bragg, Bright, Clingman, Crittenden, Dixon, Douglas, Fitch, Foster, Gwin, Hunter, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, Lane, Latham, Mason, Nicholson, Pearce, Polk, Powell, Rice, Sebastian, and Thomson--26.

NAYS.--Messrs. Bingham, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Doolittle, Durkee, Fessenden, Foot, Green, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, King, Morrill, Seward, Simmons, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, and Wilson--21.

So the motion was agreed to.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I move that the committee be appointed by the Chair.

The motion was agreed to; and Mr. CRITTENDEN, Mr. BIGLER, Mr. THOMSON, Mr. SEWARD, and Mr. TRUMBULL, were appointed the committee.

On the 28th of February the committee so appointed, presented to the Senate the following report, and the following action was taken thereon:

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--The select committee, to whom was referred the communication received yesterday from the Convention assembled in this place, commonly called the Peace Convention, with instructions to report by twelve o'clock to-day, have had the subject under consideration, and have directed me to make the following report--

Mr. HALE:--I object to its consideration to-day.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. FITCH in the chair):--Objection being made, it cannot be considered until one o'clock, but it will be read.

The Secretary read the joint resolution reported by Mr. CRITTENDEN (S. No. 70), proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as follows:

JOINT RESOLUTION proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

WHEREAS Commissioners, appointed on the invitation of the State of Virginia, by the following States, respectively: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kansas, have met in Convention at the City of Washington, for the purpose of considering the distracted and perilous condition of the country, and proposing measures for the preservation of the peace, the safety of the people, and the security of the Union, and having performed that duty, and communicated to Congress the result of their deliberations, with a request and recommendation on the part and in the name of said States, that the following be proposed to the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, according to the fifth article of said instrument, namely: [See article preceding.]

Mr. SEWARD:--Mr. President--

Mr. GWIN:--I think I am on the floor.

Mr. SEWARD:--I desire to speak a word from the committee touching the present report.

Mr. GWIN:--Certainly.

Mr. HALE:--I object to its present consideration.

Mr. SEWARD:--I am not proposing to consider it.

Mr. BIGLER:--The Senator from New Hampshire has no right to make the objection.

Mr. SEWARD:--I am not proposing to consider it at the present moment; but I am desirous of making an explanation from the committee, touching the report made by the Senator from Kentucky. The honorable Senator from Illinois [Mr. TRUMBULL], and myself, constituted a minority of the committee. We dissent from the report, and we proposed in committee to submit a substitute. The majority held that, for some reason, sufficient in their estimation, we were not entitled to submit a minority report. I therefore ask leave of the Senate to introduce a joint resolution in my own name, and in which the honorable Senator from Illinois authorized me to say that he concurs with me, and which I ask unanimous consent to have read and printed; and it will be the subject of consideration at such time hereafter as the Senate shall choose to hear it, either in connection with the other or not.

Mr. MASON:--Is it in the form of a report?

Mr. SEWARD:--No; it is not insisted on in that form; it is submitted on my own behalf. I desire that it may be read for information and printed, subject to the future action of the Senate.

The proposition of Mr. SEWARD was read, as follows:

A joint resolution concerning a National Convention to propose amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

WHEREAS, The Legislatures of the States of Kentucky, New Jersey, and Illinois, have applied to Congress to call a Convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States: Therefore,

Be it Resolved, &c., That the Legislatures of the other States be invited to take the subject into consideration, and to express their will on that subject to Congress, in pursuance of the fifth article of the Constitution.

Mr. BIGLER:--I desire to make--

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Senator from California was on the floor. No action is now requested on the paper just offered, only a motion to print. Shall the paper be printed?

Mr. HALE:--Was it read for information?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--For information only.

Mr. SEWARD:--I move that it be printed.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Chair hears no objection.

Mr. BIGLER:--I desire to make a remark in reference to the question of order made by the Senator from New Hampshire. The Senator objects to the consideration of the report to-day. Yesterday, when the Senator from Kentucky made the motion, I insisted on further moving that the report of the committee should be the special order at one o'clock to-day.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--That is the record.

Mr. BIGLER:--That instruction was offered, and therefore the Senator's objection will not apply.

Mr. HALE:--Therefore it will.

Mr. SEWARD:--I insist on the motion to print.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Senator from California is on the floor. The Senator from New Hampshire having objected to the present consideration of the resolution reported by the Senator from Kentucky, for the time being it cannot be considered.

Mr. SEWARD:--Will the Senator from California allow the question to be put on my motion to print?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:-The Chair heard no objection to that; and it was ordered.

Mr. DOOLITTLE:--The Senator from California will allow me to say a single word. I observe that, in this report, the State of Wisconsin is mentioned as having sent delegates to this Convention, commonly denominated the Peace Convention. That is a mistake. I desire, also, to give notice that when this subject shall come up for consideration, I shall offer as an amendment to the first section of article thirteen, as proposed, the following proviso:

Provided, however (and this section shall take effect upon the express condition), That no State, or any part thereof, heretofore admitted, or hereafter to be admitted, into the Union, shall have power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and that this Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land therein, any thing contained in any constitution, act, or ordinance of any State Legislature or Convention to the contrary notwithstanding.

The section will then read as follows:

SEC. 1. In all the present territory of the United States north of the parallel of 36° 30´ of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of the Union to said territory, nor to impair the rights arising from the said relation; but the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law. When any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, 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; Provided, however (and this section shall take effect upon the express condition), That no State, nor any part thereof, heretofore admitted, or hereafter to be admitted into the Union, shall have power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and that the Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land therein, any thing contained in any constitution, act, or ordinance, of any State Legislature or Convention to the contrary notwithstanding.

And I desire that that amendment, which I now send to the Chair, may be printed.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--Is there any objection to printing the paper which the Senator has just read? The Chair hears no objection.

The same day the Report of the Peace Conference was called up for consideration, when Senator HALE objected to the consideration of the report. Considerable discussion then ensued, in which Messrs. HALE, BIGLER, TRUMBULL, CRITTENDEN, and DIXON participated. This discussion related merely to the question, whether under the rules of the Senate the Report of the Peace Conference could at this time be taken up. The merits of the report were not considered, and for that reason it is not deemed necessary to report the proceedings of the Senate in this respect. The joint rules of the two Houses were suspended in order that another subject might be taken up, and no decision was had upon the question, whether the Report of the Peace Conference at this time should be considered.

The allotted time having been consumed in this discussion, the Senate proceeded to the consideration and disposal of several orders of the day. On the first of March it resumed action on the Report of the Peace Conference.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. FITCH):--It is the duty of the Chair to announce the special order of the day, being the joint resolution (S. No. 70) proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--I ask that the resolutions from the House of Representatives, in regard to amendments of the Constitution, be laid before the Senate, in order that they may be considered at the same time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Chair will lay before the Senate a joint resolution from the House of Representatives.

The joint resolution (H.R. No. 80) to amend the Constitution of the United States, was read the first time by its title.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--I ask that that be made the special order at the same time, in connection with the joint resolution reported by the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. MASON:--I have looked at that joint resolution, and it certainly ought to be committed to a committee to correct its English. It is unintelligible.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--My object is merely to have it considered at the same time with the other.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The joint resolution will have its second reading.

The joint resolution (H.R. No. 80) was read a second time by its title.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--It is now the subject of any motion that may be made in regard to it.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--I move that it be made the special order in connection with the joint resolution reported by the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. CLARK:--How does that happen to be in order here when there is a special order called up?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--It is not in order to consider it, except by unanimous consent.

Mr. CLARK, Mr. BINGHAM, and Mr. SUMNER:--I object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The special order is before the Senate.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--I ask that the other resolutions which have come from the House of Representatives, be read. There are two of them, I believe.

The House joint resolutions (No. 64) declaratory of the opinion of Congress in regard to certain, questions now agitating the country, and of measures calculated to reconcile existing differences, were read the first time by the title.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The second reading--

Mr. CHANDLER and others:--I object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--Is objection made?

Mr. CHANDLER:--I withdraw my objection.

Mr. SUMNER:--I object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--Objection being made, it cannot be read the second time.

Mr. SIMMONS:--It passed the other House unanimously. There can be no objection, I think.

Mr. CLARK:--We have another subject up.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The special order is before the Senate. The question is on the second reading.

The joint resolution (S. No. 70) proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States, was read the second time, and considered as in Committee of the Whole.

Mr. PUGH:--Let the resolution be read, not the proposition itself, but the formal part, the introduction.

Mr. HUNTER:--Is that open to amendment now?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--It is in Committee of the Whole, and open to amendment. The reading of the formal part of the joint resolution is called for.

The Secretary read it.

Mr. SEWARD:--I offer the following as a substitute:

Strike out all after the word "whereas," in the preamble, to the end of the resolution, and insert:

The Legislatures of the States of Kentucky, New Jersey, and Illinois, have applied to Congress to call a Convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States; Therefore,

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Legislatures of the other States be invited to take the subject of such a Convention into consideration, and to express their will on that subject to Congress, in pursuance of the fifth article of the Constitution.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Chair understands that a proviso was offered to the matter that the Senator from New York proposes to strike out. The vote will first be taken on the proviso offered by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DOOLITTLE], to insert at the end of section one of article thirteen:

Provided, however (and this section shall take effect upon the express condition), That no State, nor any part thereof, heretofore admitted, or hereafter to be admitted into the Union, shall have power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and that this Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, any thing contained in any constitution, act, or ordinance of any State Legislature or Convention to the contrary notwithstanding.

Mr. HUNTER:--I believe that the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin is not pending.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Senator from Wisconsin proposes that as a proviso to the matter which the Senator from New York moves to strike out; and the question must first be taken on that.

Mr. HUNTER:--I did not know that that was before the Senate.

Mr. BIGLER:--He only gave notice of it.

Mr. HUNTER:--I thought the Senator from Wisconsin only gave notice that he would offer it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Chair may have misunderstood the Senator's motion at the time. He called for the printing of it; but if that is the understanding of the Senate--

Mr. SEWARD:--What does the record say?

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Chair understands that the record presents it as "intended to be offered."

Mr. SEWARD:--Then the question is on the substitute. I ask that the question be taken.

Mr. HUNTER:--I have an amendment to submit. I propose to amend the first section of the proposition before us, by inserting in lieu of it the first article of what are called the CRITTENDEN resolutions. I move to strike out the first article of the peace propositions, and to insert:

That in all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter acquired, situate north of latitude 36° 30´, slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is prohibited while such territory shall remain under territorial government. In all the territory south of said line of latitude, slavery of the African race is hereby recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Congress; but shall be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance; and when any Territory, north or south of said line, within such boundaries as Congress may prescribe, shall contain the population requisite for a member of Congress, according to the then Federal ratio of representation of the people of the United States, 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 slavery, as the constitution of such new State may provide.

Mr. COLLAMER:--I rise to a question of order. It will be observed that this paper is before us under a recital that, whereas these propositions of amendment have been presented by the Commissioners, as they are called, from the several States--naming them--who have asked Congress to submit them, therefore we propose to submit them to the States. The whole proceeding is based and predicated on this recital. I say that it cannot be amended. If it were amended, it would cease to be the application of that body which the recital States. I therefore object to any amendments, except a substitute; perhaps a substitute may be offered striking out the recital and all; but an amendment to it is out of order, in my view.

Mr. HUNTER:--In regard to the question of order, I understand that the recital is the recital of the committee, and that the question before us is on these propositions for amending the Constitution of the United States, which are to be treated as a bill. If so, each section is subject to amendment as a bill would be subject to amendment. It was my purpose to offer the entire series of what are called the CRITTENDEN resolutions, as an amendment to these, and I still intend to offer them, section by section; but I was prevented from offering them in that form, because the Senator from New York got the floor first, and offered his proposition as a substitute. I therefore could not raise the question which I desired to raise, except by offering the amendments, section by section, in order to perfect the original proposition. I submit that it is in order.

Mr. COLLAMER:--I submit, still, my question of order, suggesting to gentlemen that if we make any amendment, we must strike out the recital.

Mr. BIGLER:--I do not see that any ordinary question of order can be raised in this case; but I do think there is a consideration much more grave, and that is the question whether we will treat the series of resolutions presented here by this Peace Congress as a proposition which we ought either to accept or reject. I was one of those in the select committee who took that position. It was manifestly intended that we should accept the entire programme, or reject it. Therefore I was unwilling; and we decided to consider no question of amendment--

Mr. HUNTER:--That is not a question of order, but of propriety. It would be an argument against any amendment.

Mr. BIGLER:--I have said it was no ordinary question of rules; but that there was a far graver question of propriety. I agree with the Senator in that view; and I rose for the purpose of alluding to the view taken of this subject by the select committee. The Senator from New York desired the leave of the committee to report his proposition as a substitute; but the majority of the committee held that the resolutions had not been committed to us for the purpose of considering them and changing them, or substituting something else, but simply to attach to them the formal resolution to present them as amendments to the Constitution for the ratification of the States. For that reason we proposed no amendment; and the Senator from New York yesterday offered his substitute on his own responsibility, because, as I understood him, of the view taken by the committee. Now, sir, I still entertain the view that, while the Senate have a clear right unquestionably to change these resolutions, and to change the resolution of submission to make it conform to any thing we may do, we ought to consider these resolutions sent here by this Peace Conference as a whole, and accept them or reject them; but there can be no question of ordinary rule raised as to the right to offer an amendment; there is a greater, a graver question of propriety as to how they shall be treated.

Mr. SEWARD:--It is not merely a question of form or order, but the proposition of the Senator from Virginia would change the whole character of the transaction. This joint resolution is one single, complete proposition. It is one act. It begins with a declaration by Congress, that "whereas Commissioners, appointed on the invitation of the State of Virginia," have performed a certain duty confided to them, "and communicated to Congress the result of their deliberations, with a request and recommendation on the part and in the name of said States"--of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the rest of the States represented in the Convention--"the following"--nothing different, nothing originating in Congress, nothing originating anywhere else, but--"the following be proposed to the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, according to the fifth article of said instrument." Now, if we should adopt this whole transaction, we should simply do this: we should submit these amendments to the people of the United States for their acceptance, for the reason that the Peace Convention, as it is called, has considered upon the subject, and thought it grave enough to solicit us to invest it with the legislative or congressional sanction, and so submit it to the Legislatures and conventions of the States; but whenever you have made a single alteration in it, such as is proposed now by the Senator from Virginia, it is not, then, the proposition of the States "of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts," or any other States; but it is a recommendation of the Congress of the United States. The whole character is changed. The Convention is swept out of existence in the history of Congress. The resolutions then adopted become the deliberate conviction of the majority of the Congress of the United States, who substitute their own judgment, and their own wisdom, and their own will, for the wishes, the opinions, respectfully submitted to them by the representatives of those States, and take the responsibility of saying that this is what the Peace Convention should have submitted, instead of the proposition which they have sent here.

Mr. HUNTER:--I wish to make a suggestion in regard to the real position of this question, as it now appears before us. The arguments that have been urged by the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from New York might very well be brought up against the propriety of adopting the amendment; but, so far as the question itself stands, it is only brought before us by a report of our committee. The Peace Conference had no power to present questions or make communications to us; but they having made a communication, and we, having respect for that body, agreed to take it up, and we referred their proposition to a committee. The only authority which we have now for considering it in the Senate, is on the recommendation of our committee. This proposition stands here as a recommendation of that committee to alter the Constitution, as proposed by this Conference. It being their recommendation in regard to the alteration of the Constitution, under our rules it stands like a bill; and I have a right to move to amend it, section by section; and in doing so, I should be pursuing the method taken by the Peace Conference, as I understand, for I am told they never took a vote on it as a whole, but voted on it proposition by proposition; and in fact, the majority who passed the propositions were composed of different States, and they never did take a vote on the articles as a whole.

Now, I am proposing to amend this as it comes up, proposition by proposition; and if it would be in order for me to make such a motion, supposing that this proposition had originated with a committee of this body, who had made a report proposing such amendments to the Constitution, I should have a right to make it now, for it is only in that way that it appears legally before us. I say, then, so far as the question of order is concerned, it seems to me that I have clearly a right to do it. I would be willing, in order to get rid of the question of order, to move to strike out the preamble too; but in my opinion it stands before us as a bill would stand. I may amend the particular sections. I am not proposing by this amendment to perfect the whole proposition, but a part of it; and if I should succeed in that, I can then go back, and move to amend the preamble.

So far as the question of order is concerned, I cannot see how it is that I am out of order. There may be a question of propriety. Those who believe that this proposition is one that ought to be accepted as a whole, and ought to be accepted because it comes from this body, eminently respectable, as we all acknowledge it to be, may say that we ought not to amend it; not that we have not the power, but that we ought not to amend it. Those of us, however, who think as I do, that it is a proposition not to be accepted; that it is a proposition highly dangerous, and one which will give rise to great difficulties, on the other hand, may think it eminently proper to amend it. I, thinking in that way, avail myself of what I suppose my parliamentary right, to offer an amendment; and it is upon that question of parliamentary right alone, as I understand, that the Chair is to determine.

Mr. TRUMBULL:--Mr. President, it seems to me very clear that, as a question of order, this proposition does not stand in any respect different from any other. Suppose an individual Senator had thought proper to propose amendments to the Constitution; that they had been referred to a committee; and the committee had approved them: what would it have done? Precisely what this committee has done. It would have reported back the proposition, with a resolution in conformity with that clause of the Constitution which points out the mode of its amendment. The fact that this proposition was adopted by gentlemen from various States does not alter it at all. It comes here as a mere petition. However respectable and dignified the Convention may have been which arrived at these conclusions; however much weight their conclusions may be entitled to in the country, they come here simply as petitioners--in that light, and none other--asking Congress to submit certain resolutions to the States of the Union to be adopted or not as portions of the fundamental law, and, unquestionably, any Senator has a right to propose an amendment in the same way as if they were introduced by an individual Senator. Can it be possible that if I draw up a series of propositions as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and a select committee thinks proper to recommend them to this body, the hands of the body are tied up, and it must take them, word for word, and letter for letter, as I have drawn them? The question is, whether it is proper to do this; whether the respect due the Peace Convention should not deter gentlemen from offering amendments, is a question we are not discussing. The point is one of order; and as a question of order, I was astonished when the Senator from Pennsylvania first suggested it.

Mr. BIGLER:--I suggested no question of order.

Mr. TRUMBULL:--I did understand the Senator from Pennsylvania to say, that that was the view he took in committee in response to what was said by the Senator from Vermont, and it was to that I alluded when I said I was astonished at the ground he took, that the committee could not amend these propositions, or that any other person could not move to amend them.

Mr. BIGLER:--The Senator from Vermont made a distinct point of order; but I did not sustain the Senator's views on the point of order. On the other hand, so far from that, I stated distinctly, that there could be no ordinary question of order under the rule; but a question of propriety, a question as to the consideration that was to be attached to this proposition of the Peace Convention; that the select committee, or a majority, at least, were under the impression that it was expected we would treat it as a whole, and accept it or reject it. That is what I said. I have no doubt whatever of the right of a Senator on this floor to move to amend this resolution. But, sir, I cannot agree with the Senator from Illinois by any means, that this proposition should be treated as the mere report of a committee or the proposition of an individual Senator. Who supposes that twenty States would have sent commissioners here to consider this great question and suggest to Congress--

Mr. TRUMBULL:--The Senator from Pennsylvania, I see, is misunderstanding me. I said, as a question of order, it was to be treated the same as if offered by an individual Senator; that however much respect we might have for it, as coming from the source it did, yet, as a question of order, there was no difference in the rules.

Mr. BIGLER:--I did not understand the Senator as placing entire stress on the question of order. I have been endeavoring to take this question away from the rules, to set it above the rules, and I say that we ought to consider it without reference to the rules. If it be that this programme is not acceptable to the Senate, let it be rejected. What I supposed was intended from the beginning was, that whatever they sent here was to be considered as an entirety--accepted or rejected. I was about to remark, who supposes that twenty States would have sent commissioners to prepare a programme of peace for the consideration of Congress, if they had supposed that immediately the peculiar views of each member of Congress would be set up in opposition to them?

Mr. President, a single remark in relation to what fell from the Senator from New York, and I shall have done. The Senator from New York alludes to the terms of the preamble, that, for the reason that these commissioners agreed, therefore these propositions are submitted as amendments to the Constitution. I do not wish to be understood as regarding it in that light. I do not think it is the right of Congress to submit propositions of amendment of the Constitution because they come from any source. The spirit of the Constitution is, that Congress will submit amendments to the Constitution; because Congress approves those amendments, and it would be a reason why I should vote for or against them, whether I approved them or not. If, as a whole, I could vote for them, I would vote for them; if, as a whole, I could not, I would vote against them. That does not affect the question whether, under all the circumstances, and solemn surroundings, the labor which has been bestowed, and the character of the men that have presented this paper, we should consider it as an entirety, or attempt to cut it up by piecemeal, by which neither they, nor the public, will ever ascertain what the judgment of Congress was on the results of their labor. That is what I say.

Mr. SEWARD:--The honorable Senator may very naturally and very properly take the ground that he would not vote, and that Congress ought not to vote, for submitting this proposition to the people, for the reason assigned in the paper before us. I have not any disposition to quarrel with him about it. I might take the same view, and say that I would not submit to the people a proposition which was futile, which was frivolous. That is not what I was speaking to. What I was speaking to was, the character of this proposition; and this is a proposition just to this effect, logically and technically expressed: that whereas these commissioners appointed by the States have met, consulted, considered, and adopted that resolution, therefore, for that reason, independent of every thing else, Congress submits it to the States.

Mr. PUGH:--I want to make an appeal to the friends of some proposition of peace. This is the last day of the session but one, and we have not made the progress of one line. We have gone into an eternal discussion about questions of order, and that, too, in defiance of the rule of the Senate. I insist that the question shall be decided without further debate.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. FITCH):--It is not for the Chair to decide any question of propriety, except as an individual Senator. As Presiding Officer, he does not deem the question of order, made by the Senator from Vermont, to be well taken. The joint resolution differs in no respect from other resolutions, and is open to amendment, and is before the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, for that purpose. The question is on agreeing to the amendment which has been offered by the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. HUNTER:--Mr. President, I have offered this amendment, as the first of a series which I shall offer, for the purpose of carrying out the will of my State, as it has been expressed through its Legislature; and I might say there are other Senators similarly situated, for there are other States which have declared a disposition to settle upon the basis of what are called the CRITTENDEN resolutions. That is the first reason which prompts me; and to me it is imperative, because the Legislature of the State which I have the honor in part to represent, has declared that this is the basis upon which it would settle, and intimated that it would not take less than they propose by way of security for the South. I have also another reason. I have examined this proposition of the Peace Conference--

Mr. WADE:--Will the Senator let us hear it read? We do not understand what his proposition is.

Mr. HUNTER:--My proposition is the first article from the CRITTENDEN amendments, in regard to the territorial adjustment.

Mr. WADE:--We understand that.

Mr. HUNTER:--After as careful an examination as I have been able to give this proposition from the Peace Conference since it was printed, that is to say, within the last day or two, I have come to the conclusion that it would not only make a great many more difficulties than it would remove, if it should be adopted as an amendment to the Constitution, but that it would place the South--the slaveholding States--in a far worse position than they now occupy under the present Constitution, with the Dred Scott decision as its exposition.

Mr. CLARK:--Will the Senator from Virginia allow me to make a suggestion?

Mr. HUNTER:--Certainly.

Mr. CLARK:--I understand him to say he proposes to offer the several propositions of the CRITTENDEN amendment one after the other.

Mr. HUNTER:--Yes, sir.

Mr. CLARK:--Then I suggest, as that is the intention of the Senator, that unanimous consent be given to move them as one amendment, so that we may have them all up for discussion, if any one chooses to discuss them, at the same time.

Mr. HUNTER:--I have no objection to that, if it is the general wish. I was saying, Mr. President, when I was interrupted, that after as careful an examination as I was able to give this peace proposition, since it was printed, I came to the conclusion that it would put the southern States in a far worse position than they now occupy under the present Constitution, and with the Dred Scott decision. Under that Constitution, and with the Dred Scott decision, they had a right, as the court has decided, to carry their slaves into any Territory of the United States. That is a right which has been adjudicated to them by a solemn decision of the Supreme Court; and it is to be remembered that this right has not only been accorded to them by the decision of the court, but by the action of the several branches of the Federal Government. That is their present state of things under the present Constitution of the United States with regard to the territorial question. In what position, then, does this proposed territorial adjustment place them? Why, sir, it excludes them; it puts the WILMOT proviso on all territory north of 36° 30´; and south of 36° 30´ it gives them the privilege of another lawsuit, in order to try their right and title to enter the territory with their slaves. What are the words of this proposed amendment of the Constitution?

"In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons hold to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature 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."

"In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary servitude or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed." What is the meaning of that word "status"? What is the status? The word status may be applied to different things; there may be a local status or a political status. In some countries a slave may hold property, and, in a certain form, sue; in others, he cannot. Or it may be the social and legal relation, that of the slave to his master, which constitutes the status that is referred to; and I presume it is that which it is declared shall not be changed. But, sir, shall not be changed by whom? By Congress? It does not say so. By the Territorial Legislature? It does not say so in terms. Does it mean that it shall not be changed by Congress or by the government of the Territory? Does it mean that it shall not be changed at all by anybody? Does it mean the master shall not emancipate him if he chooses? Is it an absolute prohibition of any change of the status of the slave, of any sort or description?

These are the terms which we are obliged to resort to in order to escape from the manly declaration of the CRITTENDEN resolution, that south of that line slavery shall be recognized and protected. It was eminently proper, as we excluded them north of it, that our institutions should be recognized and protected south of that line. That, sir, was plain English; that everybody could understand; but here we are interpolating law Latin into the Constitution; this word "status" is introduced; and who is to determine what the status was? I thought it had been considered a march forward, a step of progress, an evidence of improvement in English legislation, when it abandoned Norman French and law Latin, and resorted to the mother tongue; and especially it should be so, when we are making constitutions for American people of English descent, and who speak the English tongue. A constitution is for the millions, and the millions should be able to understand it.

But, Mr. President, let us proceed a little further. This whole matter is to be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of common law. That embraces the right of the master to his slave as a matter of cognizance under the common law before the courts; because what do they mean by the status of all persons held to involuntary servitude or labor? They mean rightfully held. They do not mean if a man is kidnapped and held illegally to involuntary service or labor that he is always to be so held. It means that the status of persons who are rightfully and legally held shall not be changed; and who is to determine that? The courts are to determine it according to the common law. That is to be determined by judges who are to be appointed from a party, and by a party who believe that there cannot be property in man; by a party who believe that, in the Somerset case, Lord MANSFIELD has laid down the common law properly; by a party who will probably believe that the decision of the English courts, in regard to the slave ANDERSON, that it was no murder for a slave when escaping to kill his master, was a correct exposition of the common law.

How, then, do we stand? Why, sir, in relation to our right to slaves, we have to try that right before judges who are thus appointed, and appointed from a party who we know entertain these opinions. Why, sir, you might poll that party through the whole United States, and I would venture any thing upon the assertion that you cannot get one in a hundred thousand who would not deny that there could be property in man, especially under the common law. We thus lose the advantage of the Dred Scott decision. According to the Dred Scott decision, we can carry them into the territory of the United States and hold them, and it is decided that there is property in slaves--decided under the Constitution. The court maintain that the Constitution recognizes it. It is upon constitutional ground that we have made our claims, and so far, it is upon this that we have fought and won the battle, not upon common law; and now we are to abandon the advantages that we have got from that ground of title under the Dred Scott decision, and go into court and try a case that has been already decided in our favor; and under the common law, try it before judges who are to be selected by a party entertaining such opinions as I have just described; and I am sorry to say, without appeal to the Supreme Court; because, in the territorial bills which have been lately passed, that right has been taken from us. My friend from North Carolina will be kind enough to read an article in the Chicago platform, showing what is held on that subject by those who wield the power of this Government.

Mr. CLINGMAN read, as follows:

Eighth. "That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that 'no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,' it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States."

Mr. HUNTER:--Thus much, Mr. President, in regard to the status; and it is to be observed that the same word is used in reference to persons who are now held to involuntary servitude in the Territories and to those whom we are to have the right to take into the Territories from the States recognizing slavery. So that we submit this question of our right to slaves, when it reaches the Territories, to be tried under the common law, by courts appointed by the party entertaining the opinions I have described, and that without appeal. This is in regard to the Territories which we now own. What is the settlement provided for in regard to territory hereafter to be acquired? Here it is, in the third section:

SECTION 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.

That is, they shall not prohibit it as to future acquired territory, where it is established or recognized. Will not the inference be claimed from such an expression, that where it is not established and not recognized, they may prohibit it? Will it not be said that the expression of one exception to the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories excludes the idea of an exception to that power when slavery is not recognized in the Territories?

Mr. COLLAMER:--If the gentleman will indulge me a moment, I desire to say that is a section declaring that Congress shall not abolish slavery in the dock-yards, &c., in the States where it is recognized. There is nothing in it about future acquired territory.

Mr. HUNTER:--This third section applies not only to present but to future acquired territory. It is not confined, like the first section, to the territory at present acquired. It is not confined to dock-yards and arsenals in the Territories and States. If the Senator will examine it, he will find that it is applied to all places where the United States have exclusive jurisdiction. "Exclusive jurisdiction" is the word. Will it not be claimed that they have exclusive jurisdiction in the Territories of the United States? Will not those who have the power to construe, and carry out their construction, so construe it? Will they not say it is a prohibition to Congress to prohibit slavery where it is recognized in the Territories or States, but not a denial of the right to prohibit slavery in Territories where it is not recognized by law, although that Territory may be vacant and uninhabited?

Mr. COLLAMER:--That clause of the section is, that Congress shall not have 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."

That, so far as I have read, is confined only to where they have local jurisdiction in the States holding slaves.

Mr. HUNTER:--I thought so at first myself; but the Senator will find, on a further examination, I think, that he is mistaken. They shall not prohibit it wherever they have exclusive jurisdiction in places where slavery "is established or recognized." It is not confined to dock-yards, forts, and arsenals. Why should it be in the Territories? They have exclusive jurisdiction over the whole. There is reason for confining it to dock-yards in the States; but there is no reason for confining it to dock-yards, &c., in the Territories. But that is not the construction which will be given; the construction given to it will be, that they shall not prohibit it where they have exclusive jurisdiction, if it is recognized in such places; but if it be not recognized in such places, where they have exclusive jurisdiction, I say the inference will be drawn, plausibly, if not justly, that they shall have power to prohibit; and I say if this be so, then it is a power (so far as Mexican territories are concerned, if there should be any acquisition there) by which the South will be forever estopped; because there the Mexicans have abolished slavery, and there, under this clause giving in that territory exclusive jurisdiction, the party now controlling the Government would claim the right to prohibit it. And what a difference between our position then and our position now under the decision of the Supreme Court! Under the decision of that court, all the people of all the States have a right to go into the common territory with their institutions. It belongs to all in common, and Congress cannot prohibit them from taking their property there.

I say that those who have the power to carry out any construction they choose to give, would be interested in putting upon it the construction which I fear; and it would be difficult to raise an argument which they would deem conclusive against it. But take it the other way; suppose that the Senator from Vermont is right in his first supposition, that it was only meant to be applied to forts, arsenals, and dock-yards, then I ask what settlement does this proposition give us in regard to future acquired territories; what earthly settlement is it? We have all the old difficulties to encounter that we have to meet now, every one of them. We not only have all the old difficulties to encounter, but the slaveholder would have an additional obstacle which this first clause would put in his way. It requires that the right to slaves in the present territory shall be tried by the common law, and it might be said in court that the inferences drawn heretofore from those provisions of the Constitution recognizing slavery were to be overruled by the fact that the people in their latest action--by way of constitutional amendment--had introduced another rule in order to determine the status of those held to involuntary service or labor, and the consequence of that would be that the South never could acquire another foot of territory; that is, the few southern States who are left in the Union.

I am told that here is a provision that you cannot acquire territory except by the assent of a majority of the Senators from both sections. Does any man believe that the North, with its eighteen, soon to be twenty, or thirty, non-slaveholding States, would allow a majority of six, or seven, or eight slave States, that are now attached to them, to prevent them from acquiring any territory hereafter? Would they agree to such an amendment, in the first instance; and if they did, how long before they would change this restriction in the Constitution? Indeed, it is hardly to be supposed that they will agree to it in the first instance, so far as it regards the acquisition of territory; but of what avail would it be to the South? There is but one conceivable acquisition--I speak of possible things, and I hope gentlemen will not understand me as coveting my neighbor's goods, or desiring to lay violent hands on the property of any other States or nations--but, if things should so happen that we could rightfully acquire Cuba, under my view of the probable construction to be given to this clause, and because slavery there is recognized, Congress might be prevented from prohibiting it; but, everywhere else, the South would be shut out and excluded.

Then, sir, what would be its position? It would be prevented from acquiring any territory under this Government as an outlet for its slaves; and the only chance of securing that necessity of its condition would be to quit this Union and join the Southern Confederacy, which can acquire territory. It would be an inducement to disunion so strong as would almost force them to it.

Let us go a little further. Here is another clause holding out the same temptation:

"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 the Territories from places beyond the limits thereof."

This is to be the duty of Congress. As it now stands, it is in the power of Congress. When it was merely given as a power to Congress, was there a failure to execute that power? Do we not know that every State in the present Confederation has desired to suppress the African slave-trade? Some do it from sentiment and principle; some from interest; but there is a controlling motive with each and all of them. It is safe enough to leave it where it stood, giving Congress the power merely. Here you make it their duty. Suppose this case: the States that have left us have set up another Government, another Confederation; under this clause you forbid us to buy their slaves, to interchange and trade in slaves with them: what will be the consequence? They will exclude us from selling our slaves in their territory, and where then do we stand? If you should think it prudent, if you should think it politic, you would have no means, under this proposed amendment, of allowing that to be done between these two coterminous countries. Though it would be to the advantage of both Confederacies that there should be this interchange, you preclude Congress from allowing it; and then where would that place the border slave States? They would not be able to sell their slaves in the States further South; and if they carried them there, they would have to emigrate with them. You would thus prevent Congress from adopting a regulation which would make it possible for them to remain in this Union with safety, with advantage, to themselves. Why was this put in? Why not have left it where it stood, giving Congress the power, when we all know that there is no State in the present Confederation that would not exercise that power for the purpose of suppressing the slave-trade from Africa? This probably would constitute the only exception. Why shut ourselves out from allowing the exception?

But, Mr. President, my desire is to be brief; I do not want to consume the time of the Senate; I am merely endeavoring to state the points of objection as briefly as I can. Here is, at the close of it, another provision which, it seems to me, contains the seeds of civil war; and that is this: "Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States;" that is to say, Congress shall have power to pass laws to force the States to receive those persons whom they have excluded from police considerations--considerations of domestic safety. Yes, sir, to force the States to receive persons who would be dangerous to their peace; to force upon them, if you will, abolition lecturers; to force upon them persons whom they regard as the most dangerous emissaries that could be sent among them; to enable Congress to obtrude, in fact, into all the business of the States. That was not intended when the Constitution was framed, and never ought to have been. The present provision in regard to the rights of citizens in the several States, I regard as in the nature of an inter-treaty stipulation. It is a duty imposed on each State, for the violation of which there is no remedy; no remedy, unless the State aggrieved may resort sometimes to retaliation.

There are various things of that sort in the Constitution. Duties imposed upon the States, but without a remedy for the failure to execute them. No State shall keep a standing army; but suppose it does: what are you to do? Congress cannot remedy it; and it would not be right to give Congress the power to remedy it. You have to trust something to the sense of right and duty of the States themselves; and so it should be in regard to this matter of citizens. Suppose one State should say that the citizens of another should not sue in its courts; how is Congress to enforce their right? Is Congress to say they shall be allowed to sue, and that the Sheriffs and officers of the State shall execute the process? Is it proposed to allow Congress, by law, to interpose in all these delicate matters? Is it not far better to leave it to the sense of justice of the States--to their sense of duty and of honor? Have we not got along very well while we left it there? If there be any instances in which there have been exceptions, they are instances in which persons have been excluded on account of police considerations, deemed to be dangerous to the safety of the people who excluded them. Is it proposed so to amend the Constitution as to take from the people of the States this right of self-defence?

If we once introduced this as an amendment to the Constitution, what would become of the feeble southern States, six or seven (for Delaware can hardly be considered as a slave State), that would be left? Arkansas may conclude to secede when she shall determine finally upon her position in the Union. What would become of us in the hands of this powerful majority, who would pass what laws they pleased in regard to the introduction of their citizens among us, and the rights of those citizens to do as they pleased after they got there? Is it not obvious that these various changes would lead to endless discontents, to irreparable breaches between these States? Would you not certainly drive out the Border States? They would say, "If we go south, we ally ourselves to a homogeneous people; we shall have none of these difficulties; we have no reason to fear their citizens; we can grant all these privileges without the least difficulty or danger; we can send our slaves south from a country where they are not profitable, to one where they are; but if we stay here, we are forbidden to do any of these things; if we stay here, we are prevented from ever obtaining any outlet for our slave property." Will you not offer them the highest inducements, nay, will you not make it almost necessary for them to leave you, if you should adopt such a proposition as this?

Nor is that all, Mr. President. Our present Constitution--for I am comparing our position under it with that in which this would place us--in most of its difficult provisions has been expounded--expounded by the action of the State Governments, by the action of all the departments of the Federal Government. We have had legal interpretations in the decisions of the State and Federal courts. We have come almost to a point--indeed, I, who believe that the Dred Scott decision is law, think we have come to a point--where we have a legal exposition on the whole of these matters. Are we to be turned aside from that, to wander into a new sea of doubt and difficulty and ambiguity? No candid man can take this up and say it is not full of double constructions, full of ambiguities, giving ground for new quarrels between the sections, to new constructions of courts, to new lawsuits.

Mr. COLLAMER:--And to be perpetual.

Mr. HUNTER:--Yes, sir; and to be made perpetual. We cannot change them afterwards, if we want to do it. I can conceive nothing that would endanger what is left of this Union so much as the adoption of this proposition, although it has been produced by persons so eminent and so respectable as those who composed the Peace Congress.

I know that this measure does emanate from a body eminently patriotic and wise, entitled to the public deference and affection; and for their work I feel all possible respect. Against that work I will pronounce nothing except what the necessities of the occasion may require. But when the peace, the safety, the rights of the State which I seek to represent--when the peace of the whole country, as it seems to me, would be so seriously imperilled as it would be if this were adopted, I feel bound by a sense of what I owe to those who sent me here, bound by a sense of what I owe to those who have some respect for my opinions, to express them here on this occasion, and to give briefly the points and the heads upon which I differ from the conclusions of that Congress. Indeed, sir, before taking my seat, I may suggest a doubt whether I am in truth acting against any thing which they have really done. I was informed by a member of that Congress that they never did take a vote upon this proposed article, as a whole.

Mr. DOOLITTLE:--If the Senator will allow me, I beg leave to state that I was informed of the same fact by a distinguished member of the Convention; and I was further informed that the person who claims to be the secretary of the Convention was never elected as such. And there is another fact stated in the preamble that I know is not correctly stated: that the State of Wisconsin was in that Convention, or took any part in it. How many more mistakes there are in the preamble, I am unable to say.

Mr. HUNTER:--I believe it is certain that they never did take a vote on this article as a whole, but upon its separate sections. I think it equally probable that it could not have passed as a whole. That opinion was expressed to me by a member. As it did pass, I think there were three or four States not voting; and the States not voting were supposed to be against it. Under such circumstances, I do not know that this is to be taken as an expression of the will of that Congress. Further: I will say, in regard to myself, that a majority of the members from my own State voted against it, and were very decided in their opposition to it. They believed it was not such a proposition as the South could safely accept; and that majority, I believe, have returned home to express that opinion to the State Convention, and to give their reasons for it. Under all these circumstances, I have thought that I ought to present, as a counter proposition (believing that the people whom I represent cannot and ought not to accept these), resolutions upon which they have said they were willing to settle this controversy. I believe the State of Kentucky has declared the same thing. I understand the State of California has done likewise. I believe, though I may be mistaken, that Tennessee has said the same. The State of North Carolina has made the same declaration unanimously. To the last, I believe I may add Missouri.

Now, I am making a proposition to amend, by inserting the resolutions of the honorable Senator from Kentucky; upon which so many of the border slaveholding States have said they would settle the difference. Why not send them out to the States and the people? We know that some of them would settle on that. Why should we send out such a proposition as this, which there is every reason to believe they will not accept, and which will have the effect of dividing the conservative men of the North? Those northern men who are willing to settle on some proposition that would give satisfaction to the Border States, would just as soon vote for the CRITTENDEN resolutions as for these, and some probably would prefer to do so. They will waste all their strength, and efforts, and energies, in going for a proposition which the South in the end will not accept, or at least which I do not believe they will accept, as there is every reason to suppose they will not accept it. Then, when we know there are propositions upon which so many of the Border States have said they would be willing to settle existing difficulties, why not submit them? I think, under such circumstances, notwithstanding the respect which I feel for the members composing the Peace Congress, my duty to my own State, whose Legislature has spoken in regard to it, and my sympathy with so many of the Southern States who have declared the same opinion, should induce me to present the proposition which they desire instead of one to which none of them have as yet given their adhesion, and to which I have no idea they will ever agree.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I suppose, Mr. President, not only out of deference to the Presiding Officer of this body, but because it seems to me to be entirely reasonable, that the decision of the Chair on the question of order which was made as to the admissibility of these amendments, was correct. The question which these amendments present, I think, is a question of consistency or inconsistency with the proceeding in which we are engaged, with the resolutions offered by the Peace Conference; and each member, in deciding ultimately upon the question for or against the proposed amendment, will consider that question of consistency or inconsistency, and regulate his vote accordingly. It is not, perhaps, strictly a question of order, to be decided on the consistency or inconsistency of amendments. So I take it. I am willing it should be decided by this body. Now, what is it? The proposed amendment contravenes the whole nature of the transaction, and changes its character. The representatives of twenty-one or twenty-two States--we will not make any question about Kansas; whether it be in or not, is not material--the representatives and delegates of over twenty States of the Union have recommended to us the adoption of certain amendments to the Constitution, which they say will arrest the troubles of the country and adjust those great differences which now so much threaten us; and they ask Congress to propose these amendments to the several States, according to the fifth article of the Constitution, for their adoption. These amendments have been submitted to us, and the question is, whether we will submit them to the States or not? That I take to be the specific and solitary question. This imposes no obligation on us to sanction these constitutional amendments by proposing them to the people. We can do as we please upon that point; but what is the question and the only question? It is not whether we ourselves will propose amendments to the Constitution, but whether we will propose to the people the amendments which this Convention has proposed to us. Now, that whole character is effaced, and a new character is given to the transaction, if any one of the amendments proposed by Senators be adopted.

Suppose these same States, by their Legislatures, had respectively recommended to us these particular and specific constitutional amendments, asking us to propose them according to the Constitution: would it have been proper for us then to undertake to amend their resolutions? It would be a different transaction altogether. In the one instance, out of respect to the States, we are proposing their resolutions; in the other case, we are proposing our own to the States. Now, the question here is, whether the resolutions have come to us with a sufficient sanction to constitute in our minds a reason for referring to the States the amendments which the States themselves have asked. That is all. It seems to my mind to be a clear question. They have asked us, they have requested us, to submit their resolutions, and not any others, to the States; and the question is, will we comply with their request, not whether we will fabricate amendments of our own and refer them to the people. They have asked of us to submit their proposals; and the question is, whether we will do it.

This amendment implies, in the first instance, that we will not do that, because the moment we adopt the amendment of the Senator from Virginia, that moment we say in effect, "We will not propose your recommendations to the people; while proposing our own, which we will substitute for yours." That is passing by this Convention altogether; it is negativing the States represented in it.

If gentlemen take this view it will be a sufficient reason, I trust, in itself, for voting against the proposed amendment. These propositions which the Convention has recommended may be such as we may refuse; it is in our power to refuse; but the question is, whether a recommendation, coming so sanctioned to us, is not, in itself, a sufficient reason why Congress, if disposed to satisfy the people, shall do the small act of presenting this to the people themselves, for their adoption. We may reject it, if we please. The people, when it is sent to them, will, of course, have the power to reject or adopt it. The only question now is, whether we will give the States an opportunity of saying whether this proposition is satisfactory or not.

Sir, I do not wish to occupy time; but I cannot perceive the justice of the criticisms made upon these resolutions of the Convention. They seem to me to be perspicuous and intelligible in every part and in every sentence. I do not see where the difficulty is to arise. Gentlemen need not tell us here, in respect to these resolutions, that a member of the Convention told them thus and so. No matter what a member of the Convention told this one or that one about the votes that were given, it is certified to us, in a formal manner, by the President of the Convention--himself a Virginian, and once a President of the United States--that this is the result of the proceedings of the Convention.

Mr. HUNTER:--If the Senator will allow me, I will state to him how that occurred. It was decided, as it will be seen when we get the Journal, that, according to some rules of the old Convention, they should not vote upon a proposition as a whole, but upon each particular provision. That was the rule of the Convention; and therefore he certified it as the Convention had instructed. The vote was taken only section by section, and the vote was never taken on it as a whole. There is no inconsistency between what I have said, and the certificate of the President of the Convention, because, according to the rules adopted by them, he had to certify it if it was adopted by sections, though it was not voted upon as a whole.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I suppose this remark is intended to annul the Convention, and discredit all their proceedings, though the Senate have received the letter of the President and Secretary as authentic evidence that this does contain the result of the deliberations and the proceedings of the body. I take it so, whatever a discontented member here and there may have said to the contrary notwithstanding. He may have said it all truly, for aught I know, but we must regard this as the authentic act of the Convention; otherwise it was nothing; and it is certified to us by the proper authority as its act, by the President of the Convention, with the request that we shall adopt it. It must have had, in some form or shape, the sanction of a majority of the Convention, or it could not have been so certified to us. How they voted, whether upon parts or the whole, they gave such votes as, they thought were necessary to ascertain the meaning of the body, and the expression of their will and opinion upon the subject. This is what they have done.

I do not stop to inquire whether I like these resolutions better than I do those proposed by myself, or the amendments now offered by the Senator from Virginia. We are near the close of our session. I have looked upon the proceedings of this great and eminent body of men as the best evidence of public opinion outside of this body, and of the wish and will of the States they represent. I am for peace. I am for compromise. I have not an opinion on the subject of what would be best that I would not be perfectly willing to sacrifice to obtain any reasonable measure of pacification that would satisfy the majority. I want to save the country and adjust our present difficulties. [Applause in the galleries.]

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BRIGHT in the chair) called to order.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--That is what I want to do. That is the object I am aiming at. I attach no particular importance--I feel, at least, no selfish attachment--to any opinions I may have proclaimed on the subject heretofore. I proclaimed those opinions because I thought them right; but I am ready to sacrifice them, any and every one of them, to any more satisfactory proposition that can be offered. I look upon the resolutions proposed by this Convention as furnishing us, if not the last, the best hope of an adjustment; the best hope for the safety of the people and the preservation of the Government. I will not stop to cavil about the construction of these words; but I see none of the difficulties that suggest themselves to the mind of my friend from Virginia. Look at that third section, which has been the subject of his particular criticism. Every part and portion of it is a negation of power to Congress, and nothing else; and yet he has argued as if it gave Congress power; as if it conferred more power upon Congress. It leaves to the States all the rights they now have; all the remedies which they now have; and consists merely in a negation of power to Congress. How can that take away the rights of the people? How can that make our condition worse? I cannot possibly see. It is nothing but a negative from beginning to end, and therefore it cannot take away any thing from the people. It may take from Congress, but cannot take away from the States, or the people, any thing. It is a negative in its form and in its language, from beginning to end, that Congress shall have no power to do this, that, or the other. If they have that power under the present Constitution, it is taken away. That is all. It takes away no power from the States. It takes away no rights from individuals. Its simple office is the negation of power to Congress. That is all there is in it; and how, under that, can the gentleman find constructions which are to increase our difficulties and diminish our rights? He says the language will need construction. So does all language need construction. I do not see that this is particularly so.

Now, sir, the Senator offers my own proposition as an amendment to this. I shall vote against my own proposition here; I shall vote for this. [Applause in the galleries.]

Mr. MASON:--I shall be constrained to require that the galleries be cleared, if there be any further demonstrations in that quarter.

Mr. BAKER:--I hope the galleries will not be cleared. The admiration of a noble sentiment is never out of place.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--There is no motion to clear the galleries.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I shall vote for the amendments proposed by the Convention, and there I shall stand. That is the weapon offered now, and placed in my hand, by which, as I suppose, the Union of these States may be preserved; and I will not, out of any selfish preference for my own original opinions on this subject, sacrifice one idea or one particle of that hope. I go for the country; not for this resolution or that resolution, but any resolution, any proposition, that will pacify the country. Therefore, I vote against my own, to give place to a proposition which comes from an authority much higher than mine--from one hundred and thirty of the most eminent men of this country, out of which number a Senate might be selected that might well compare in point of talent and intellect and ability even with this honorable body. They have recommended this on arduous, laborious consultation with one another; through many difficulties, through many diversities of opinion, they have at last arrived at these conclusions, and sent them to us. Shall any Senator stand upon the little consideration, "this changes my resolution," and shall he compare that little atom of his production with the great end and object proposed to be attained for a whole nation? No, sir; not a moment. I believe our best hope of preservation is in adopting the resolutions proposed by this Convention, and I adhere to them against all amendments.

Mr. President, the only material or substantial change in respect to the first section of this proposed amendment from my first proposition is, that it omits all reference to territory hereafter acquired, limiting our consideration and our settlement to territory which we now have. When I first offered my resolutions, I explained somewhat in reference to that particular provision which related to future territory. I said that I wanted no more territory. Our great trouble now is from the magnitude of the territory which we have already acquired. New Mexico is one of our acquisitions, and what a subject of dispute it has been! I want no more acquisitions. My country is big enough, and great enough. I say that further acquisitions are dangerous. We have found them to be so. Our experience and our reason, then, unite in teaching us "to beware of that sin, ambition." National aggrandizement! I want no more. I proposed that, however, as the idea then was, that we wanted a settlement that was to last forever; to be eternal; to embrace the present and to embrace the future, with all its acquisitions, all its changes. Reflection since, and the arguments of others, I will say, have changed my opinion on that point. If they had not changed it, however, I should be ready here to sacrifice it and give it up, if thereby I could obtain the assent of any respectable portion of my countrymen to the propositions for peace. If we can settle in respect to what we have, in GOD'S name let us do it; and if we are to have future acquisitions, let us leave the troubles they may bring upon us to a future day. We have enough for to-day. I do not object, therefore, to the first section of the proposition of the Convention, that it is confined to the territory which we now have. The adjustment which they have made varies but little in substance in regard to the territorial question, and the question of slavery as connected with it, from my original proposition. South of the line which we propose to establish, 36° 30´, you have no foot of territory left, but what is embraced in the Territory of New Mexico. In New Mexico, by law of the Territory--a constitutional law, a valid law of the Territory--slavery exists as fully and completely as the law can establish it, or has established it.

Now, this proposition is, that the status of things shall continue as it is until that Territory becomes a State; and when it becomes a State, let it dispose of the question of slavery as it chooses. There is no ambiguity about this. In substance, though in a different form of words, the same is expressed in my proposition. The proposition of the Convention is the same in substance, only omitting the words--a very proper and a very timely omission--supposed to be offensive in certain parts of the country, and substituting others that are equally well understood in all parts of the country, and which were less offensive to some.

Sir, now is the time for mediation; now is the time for pacification; now is the time to omit every word that can give offence or add to the irritation under which the country is. I desire, by the most moderate terms, by the most unoffending language, to reach some mode of adjustment that can give satisfaction to the whole country and reunite us all.

My friend from Virginia seems to apprehend that under these amendments we shall be worse off in respect to territory hereafter acquired. That is supposed to be sufficiently provided for and secured in the provision, that no future acquisition shall be made, by purchase or by treaty, except that treaty or that purchase be ratified by a majority of the Senators from the slaveholding States, as well as a majority of Senators from the non-slaveholding States. Does not this give the South a safe assurance, an assurance to be relied upon? My friend from Virginia says, however, do we believe the North, with its superior number, would submit to this provision of the Constitution? Why, sir, the Convention have had the caution to make this provision, if I understand them, irrepealable by any future amendment of the Constitution. There it stands, then, in the most solemn form that men can enter into any compact, in the most formal language by any terms that Government can establish, that all are bound by that provision of the Constitution which requires a majority from each section. When the gentleman asks whether we can believe for a moment that this law will be acquiesced in and adhered to, I say we must to some extent have confidence in one another, or all human society must lose its basis, not merely of government, but its foundation, and all society would be torn up at once by the roots. That confidence is the root of society; it is the root of all the associations of men in public or private life; it is the root and foundation of all government. What more can you have, what better security can you have than written, solemn terms upon any subject which is to regulate government? There is nothing more solemn among men, unless you would require angels to come down and make responses for them. Here you have the very highest security that can be given; and when any gentleman shall say these are not to be relied upon, he says there is no Government that stands upon any foundation that can be relied upon. Such an assertion strikes not at this provision; it strikes at the root of all government. What further security can be had? If our brethren of the other section were willing to give the highest possible security they could, what can they give more? Nothing. This argument, then, can avail nothing.

Mr. President, I have gone perhaps a little further than I ought to have done. It is not now necessary that I should enter into a vindication of every provision of these amendments offered by the Convention. It is sufficient to speak to the amendment which the gentleman has offered. Excluding territory hereafter to be acquired, I think, in substance, we ought to be satisfied with that; I believe that will make peace; I believe that will give substantial security to our rights, and to the rights which the Southern States claim. With that I am satisfied. It is enough for the dreadful occasion. It is the dreadful occasion that I want to get rid of. Rid me of this, rid the nation of this, and I am willing to take my chance for the future and meet the perils of every day that may come. Now is the appointed time upon which our destiny depends. Now is the emergency and exigency upon us. Let us provide for them. Save ourselves now, and trust to posterity and that Providence which has so long and so benignly guided this nation, to keep us from the further difficulties which in our national career may be in our way.

I prefer the propositions which the Convention have made to my own propositions, because I have no hope for my propositions. They have not been so fortunate as to receive the favor of my colleagues of the Senate from the North, the men whose sanction of them was necessary to give them effect. I transfer all my hopes of peace to these propositions and terms proposed by the Convention representing twenty-odd of the States of this Union--a large majority of all the States. I will not go into particulars about it; but since gentlemen have made some allusion to the out-of-door rumors and reports and sayings in respect to this Convention, I believe that perhaps a majority of those who voted for these amendments were men representing non-slaveholding States. I do not know the fact, and I will not state it, but I am under that impression now, and that impression encourages my hopes that the Senate, rather than see the country fall into ruin, fall into dismemberment, limb from limb, and blood flowing at the plucking out of every limb, will supply the remedy which is proposed. It seems to me proper and just. But little is asked, and great is the reward, and mighty are the consequences that are to flow from it.

Sir, I have occupied more of the time of the Senate on this particular question than I ought to have done.

Mr. MASON:--Mr. President, there is a very grave duty devolving upon the Senate on the proposition which is now before us. We are called upon, pursuant to the Constitution, to propose amendments to the Constitution. The fifth article of the Constitution says this:

"The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution."

Now, sir, I cannot agree, for one, to propose an amendment to this Constitution unless it has the sanction and the approbation of my judgment; and I suppose no other Senator will. I am bound, therefore, by every obligation of faith and honor to my State, when a proposition is submitted to the Senate as one that should be proposed to the States as an amendment to the Constitution, to examine it and understand it, and see it in all its bearings and effects, as far as my intellect will enable me, and to propose it or to withhold it by my vote, as I shall be guided by my judgment. I can see no other position of a Senator.

Now, sir, what are the facts? The country was convulsed by the success in the late presidential election of one of the political parties of the country. The tremor was evinced at once in all the Southern States, in a belief that their existence and their safety was imperilled by that election. Congress met. As was proper and necessary, the very first act in each House was to appoint a committee to take the condition of the country into consideration, and see if, by any mode of amendment to the Constitution, those perils could be avoided. A committee was raised in the collateral branch. A committee was raised in this Senate, I think upon the motion of the honorable Senator from Kentucky, actuated as he always is by principles of the highest patriotism. Those committees met. They remained in anxious deliberation for weeks. What was the result? They were unable to agree. I think the committee came before the Senate and admitted the fact. They could agree upon no form of amendment which they believed would remedy the evils and avert the perils under which the country suffered.

In that state of things, the Legislature of Virginia--my own honored State--having been called into special session on the 19th of January, passed a series of resolutions, one of which recites this:

"That on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia, an invitation is hereby extended to all such States, whether slaveholding or non-slaveholding, as are willing to unite with Virginia in an earnest effort to adjust the present unhappy controversies in the spirit in which the Constitution was originally formed, and consistently with its principles, so as to afford to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights."

That is the recital of the resolution of the Legislature of Virginia: "to afford to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights;" and there was a further provision, that, if those States should meet and agree upon any form of adjustment, it should be submitted to Congress. A number of the States--some twenty or twenty-one, it seems--some by their Legislatures, some by their Executives--met the invitation of Virginia, and deputed their commissioners to the conference in Washington, to see if they could agree upon a mode of adjustment. We have the report of that Conference before us now, presented through a committee of this body; and they propose an additional article to the Constitution. Mr. President, the honorable Senator from Kentucky, who has pronounced so deserved a eulogium upon that body, does not exceed me in the respect which I bear to it. If there be one more than another Senator upon whom it would devolve to treat the work of that Convention with peculiar respect, it would devolve upon me and my colleague, because they met at the invitation of my State. I yield to none in the respect which I bear to those gentlemen or to the purity of their motives in the results which they have attained in that Conference; but, sir, I am bound by my obligations to the Constitution, by my honor as a man, by my faith to my own State, to understand what they have done, and to exhibit it either in recommendation or disapproval, as my judgment may dictate. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri.

I admit no authority to bind my judgment as a representative of one of the States of the Union. I yield my respect to what they have done; but I will scan it, and if, in my honest, unbiased judgment, I cannot recommend it as an amendment to the Constitution, I am bound to withhold that recommendation, and to give the reasons for it.

As I have said, sir, the State of Virginia, finding that Congress was at a loss for a mode of adjustment, invited the States to send commissioners here for this purpose:

"To agree upon something which would afford to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights."

Virginia knew that, under the Constitution as it was interpreted under the constituted authorities of the country as they have been elected, there was no security for their rights; and it was in the hope of obtaining such a security--Congress failing to agree upon it--that, at her invitation, these gentlemen from the different States met here in conference. I am to look, therefore, to their work, and to see if it affords that security for their rights; and if I am satisfied in my own judgment, as I honestly am--and the reasons for which I am now to announce to the world--that it not only affords no security for the rights of the South, but takes away what little they have, I should be a traitor if I would recommend it as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Now, sir, let us look at it. It is presented as an entire article, to be the thirteenth article, if adopted, of the Constitution. The first section of it relates to the Territories--the great and difficult point of division between the two sections. If that could be overcome--if these rights that are spoken of in the resolutions of Virginia in the Territories could be guaranteed by adequate securities to the slaveholding States--I believe the rest of the path would be smooth. It embraces almost the whole controversy. What securities are provided in the Territories to the slaveholding States by this first section of the thirteenth article? It proposes to divide the present Territories--for it is confined to them--by an east and west line, a parallel of latitude. North of that line, there is a clear cut entirely, unsusceptible of misinterpretation. None can doubt what the condition of servitude is north of that line. It is a clear cut; it is prohibited, and prohibited forever. No interpretation can mistake it; no casuist can doubt upon it; it is a work well done. North of that line involuntary servitude, except for crime, is prohibited. How is it south? My honorable colleague, I think, has well said that, south of that line, for our rights, at best we are remitted to a lawsuit. I will read the language:

"Nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to hinder or prevent the taking of such persons--"

That is, persons held to service--

"from any of the States of this Union to said Territories, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation."

Neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature has power to interfere with the rights arising from the relation of master and servant, or master and slave. That is the meaning; that is clear. What next?

"But the same--"

The rights resulting from the relation of master and slave--

"shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law."

There is the security for the rights of the South. South of that line they are remitted to the courts under the common law. Now, sir, let us examine that. By this section, if it is adopted as an article of the Constitution, the common law, eo nomine, is made a part of the Constitution, so far as it affects the relations of master and slave. Now, what is the common law? Who is there upon this floor that will tell me what common law is meant by this section? With all my respect for the thorough knowledge and the legal acquirements of the honorable Senator from Kentucky, I know he cannot tell me what common law is meant by that first section. We know, as jurists, what is meant by the term common law, for it is a technical term. The common law is the law of England, the unwritten law of England, the lex non scripta. That is the common law in its legal acceptation. Is it, then, the law of England that is made a part of the Constitution, and to which the master is remitted for the security of his rights between him and his servant? Will any gentleman tell me that it is the common law of England that is to be made a part of the Constitution to which we are to be remitted? If it is the common law of England, is it the common law of England as it stands at this day, on the first of March, 1861?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--If my friend will allow me, I take it that that term applies only to the remedies known to the common law. The laws of the Territories are to be enforced, and the remedies under them are to be administered according to common law. The master is to have his rights according to the law of the Territory, and to secure those rights according to the common law.

Mr. MASON:--The language of the section is, that neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature shall interfere to impair the rights arising from this relation of master and slave; "but the same"--that is, this relation between master and slave--"shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law."

Now, the honorable Senator says that means only the remedy of the common law; that you are to take the law of the Territory, whatever it may be, and administer that, by confining it to the remedies known to the common law. I deny the interpretation. The Senator may be right, or I may be right. I say the text does not warrant the interpretation. The text refers to the rights in the relation of master and slave, and says they (those rights) shall be the subject of judicial cognizance, according to the course of common law. Now, I ask, what is the common law that is thus made a part of the Constitution for the subject to which it refers? Is it the law of England? There is no common law, that I am aware of, known to jurists as the law of England. There is no law in the State of Virginia, and, I presume, none in the State of Kentucky, known as common law. The State of Virginia, when it became independent as a colony of Great Britain, adopted and made its own that which before had been the common law of England, and therefore the common law of the colony. The State of Virginia (and I instance that only because I am familiar with it), when it became independent, adopted as its law the common law of England, as that common law stood at the commencement of the fourth year of James I.; and thereby, by statute, made that which had been the common law, the law of Virginia. Now, it is the law of Virginia, not because it is the common law, but because statutes made it the law of Virginia. But is the common law of Virginia, if you will call it by that name, the common law of Kentucky; or is the common law of Kentucky the common law of Missouri; or is the law of those three States, or any other State, now the common law of England? I demand to know, therefore, when we make the common law a part of the Constitution, if this enactment should prevail, what is meant by the common law? To that vague, grand residuum of judicial legislation we are to be remitted for our rights between master and slave, if this is enacted.

Now, sir, suppose it were so: my colleague has well said (and I will not repeat it after him, for I should only weaken it), that there is not one judicial interpreter or expounder of the common law, in any one of the free States, in reference to the relation of master and slave, that does not deny that the master has any property in his slave, at this day and this hour. Why, sir, what is the pending controversy between the State of Ohio, one of the free States, and the State of Kentucky, one of the slave States--a controversy depending here recently in the Supreme Court? The Governor of Kentucky demanded, under the Constitution, the rendition of a fugitive from justice, who had abducted a slave from Kentucky, and carried him into Ohio. The Governor of Ohio refused the demand, upon the ground that there could be no stealing of a man; that there could be no property in man; and that the slave, being a man, was not a subject of theft, of larceny; and he refused, and refuses up to this day, under the common law, to recognize the existence of property in man.

Now, take the common law of England at this day: here, within the last three or four weeks, the Queen's Bench, in England, has declared as the common law, that if a slave murders his master, or murders the agent of his master, in the attempt to recapture him, he is justified. That is the common law to which we are to be remitted for the rights resulting from the relations of master and slave. Sir, I have looked back a little to see what the common law was in England in this famous Somerset case, I find this in the argument of the counsel there, expounding the common law, which was afterwards sustained by Lord MANSFIELD in his decision:

"But it has been said by great authorities, though slavery, in its full extent, be incompatible with the natural rights of mankind, and the principles of good government, yet a moderate servitude may be tolerated, nay, sometimes must be maintained."

And again:

"There is now, at last, an attempt, and the first yet known, to introduce it [slavery] into England. Long and uninterrupted usage, from the origin of the common law, stands to oppose its revival."

And again:

"A new species has never arisen till now; for had it, remedies and powers there, would have been at law; therefore, the most violent presumption against it, is the silence of the laws, were there nothing more. It is very doubtful whether the laws of England will permit a man to bind himself by contract to serve for life; certainly will not suffer him to invest another man with despotism, nor prevent his own right to dispose of property."

And again:

"There are very few instances, few, indeed, of decisions as to slaves in this country. Two in Charles II., where it was adjudged trover would lie. Chamberlayne and Perrin, William III., trover brought for taking a negro slave; adjudged it would not lie. 4th Ann., action of trover; judgment by default. On arrest of judgment, resolved that trover would not lie. Such the determinations in all but two cases; and those the earliest, and disallowed by the subsequent decisions. Lord HOLT: 'As soon as a slave enters England he becomes free.'"

In the opinion of the court, of Lord MANSFIELD, as to these principles of common law, that very distinguished and able judge, who made the law, as I understand, for the occasion, but certainly ruled it as the common law, says this:

"The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced for any reasons, moral or political; but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It's so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England."

I need not go back to authority. We have it abundantly in our own country, in all the free States, so far as I know, without exception. They deny what the amendment of my honorable friend from Kentucky affirms. They deny that there is property in a slave. The amendment of the Senator affirms there is property in a slave. This section is silent, ominously silent, portentously and potentially silent. It is not only silent, Mr. President, but when it refers you to that code of law which is to protect the right of the master to the slave, it refers you to the common law, and the common law to be expounded by the Federal courts, and the common law, which is judicially and historically known to the whole country, to be expounded in all the free States as one that denies that very property which we say must be secured. That is our position under this section. Sir, the State of Virginia has said that we must have adequate guarantees; and I am asked here to vote away what little guarantees we have. I am asked, almost in the high ethics or morals of revealed religion, when my adversary takes away my cloak, that I shall give him my coat also. I am required to do that by this section. We believe that our rights are secured under the present Constitution; we know that they have been withheld by the political party which has now come into power; we believe that they are insecure unless there are further and adequate guarantees; but, so far from their being proposed by the section before us, in my judgment, what little we have is taken away. Sir, I cannot vote for these propositions. I regret it. I was prepared, whether it had the approval of my judgment or not, to follow the instructions of my State, and to vote for the amendment offered by the honorable Senator from Kentucky after it had been modified, as was required by the resolutions of my State.

The amendment of the Senator from Kentucky was so modified, I do not know whether at the instance of Virginia or not; but it was modified by a vote of this Senate, so as to embrace what was required in the resolutions of Virginia. I am not at liberty to recommend, or, in the language of the Constitution, to propose to the States this section of the thirteenth article; because it not only withholds, but denies by withholding, any security, far less that security which the State of Virginia requires.

There are further provisions in this proposition that are objectionable, one of which was pointed out by my colleague: that which calls upon Congress to legislate on that clause of the Constitution which secures to the citizens of one State all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States. I need not say that any legislation on that subject by Congress would be any thing but the messenger of peace to which the honorable Senator from Kentucky looks. Why, sir, it has been found indispensable in slaveholding States, as a part of their police regulations, to punish all persons who were either of the State or otherwise, who tamper with the slaves, who have intercourse with them that is forbidden by law, far more those who preach to them sedition, or insurrection, or revolt; and yet, if we were to be controlled within the body of the State by Federal relations in our interior police, we should be completely at the mercy of the free States.

Mr. President, I should have been certainly gratified, if my honored State of Virginia had been successful in the mediation which she invited of all the States, with a view to agree upon an adjustment which would guaranty the rights of the South. I deeply deplore, and I doubt not my State will deplore, that that mediation has not been effected. So far from impugning any motives or purpose of that honorable and distinguished body, I doubt not that, in the short time that was allowed to them, they got together the best mode of adjustment which would satisfy their judgment, but which I am sure will not satisfy the judgment of the Southern States, but would place them in still greater peril, if they were to admit that to become a part of the Constitution. I did not intend to do more than state my objections to it as briefly as I could. I have done so temperately and without heat, I regret that I cannot, as one Senator, propose this as an amendment to the Constitution.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I wish only to reply for a single moment to the material objection urged by the Senator from Virginia. The portion of the article to which the Senator from Virginia objects, declares that the status of persons bound to service and labor shall remain unchanged; that neither Congress nor the Territorial Legislature shall pass any law affecting the relation, or the rights growing out of the relation between master and servant--I do not pretend to recite the exact words; but that is the exact idea--well knowing that, according to the laws of the Territory, the status of slavery was fully established, and all the rights of the master in and to his servant established, as they exist in the State of Missouri, or the State of Virginia, by positive law of the Territory. It is therefore equivalent to saying that that law shall stand, when it says that the status shall continue unchanged. It then goes on to say (which I admit was altogether unnecessary) that the remedy for the violation of the rights of the master, whatever they might be, shall be had in the Federal courts, and according to the course of the common law. Now, sir, what right does this take away from any slaveholder? That law which secured and gave him a right, is declared to be unchangeable. That law acknowledges his property in any sense in which you please to take it, or in any sense in which it is applicable. It acknowledges it, and gives legal remedies for the violation of it; and in addition to all that, and, as I admit, by a sort of pleonasm of expression, it says that he shall have his remedy in the Federal court, according to the course of the common law.

Mr. MASON:--Will the Senator allow me a moment?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Certainly.

Mr. MASON:--With the permission of the Senator I will put this proposition to him: He says that the meaning of the language, "according to the course of the common law," is confined to the remedy. Now, admitting that to be the case, for the sake of the argument, suppose, in one of these Territories, a slave is purloined, seduced, got away; the slave of A gets into the possession of B, and he is there at work for him upon his farm, or in his house, and A brings an action of trover to recover him; that is an action known to the common law; and the decision of the Federal court is, that trover lies only to recover property, and a slave is not property: what is the remedy? That is the decision in England; and I presume it would be the decision in the free States, if the suit were brought.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--It was to avoid going into definitions of that sort that this language was employed in the amendments of the Convention. They saw and had before them the law of New Mexico, which did acknowledge the existence of this right as fully as it is acknowledged by the law of Virginia. However it may be disputed here, however legal opinions may differ about it, the law of New Mexico established property in slaves; and there the law stands; and the Convention now comes and says that status shall remain unchanged.

Mr. BRAGG:--Oh, no.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--That is the resolution.

Mr. BRAGG:--Will the honorable Senator allow me a word, for I am very anxious to understand it?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Certainly.

Mr. BRAGG:--The Senator says it provides that that law, the law of New Mexico, whatever it may be, shall remain unchanged, if I understand him, and that that fixes the status of slavery in the Territory. I call the attention of the Senator to the language. I think that only fixes the status of persons now in the Territory, and not those to be carried there hereafter--not the status of slavery, but the status of persons who are there now, held to service or labor, and not the status of those who are to be carried there in future. That is provided for in the language which it follows in another part.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Here it is, sir:

"In all the present territory south of that line"--

Which I have explained, and which gentlemen admit to be embraced in the Territory of New Mexico--

"the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists."

It is not as to such slaves as are now there, but such slavery as now exists.

Mr. BRAGG:--If it said that, I admit that it would cover the status of slavery.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--It does say that. It seems to me that is the only construction that can be given to the language. It could not be intended to confine it to the twenty-six slaves that are now held there, especially when they provided, in a subsequent article, that it shall be lawful for any one to carry slaves there.

Mr. BRAGG:--Will the honorable Senator again allow me to interrupt him?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Certainly.

Mr. BRAGG:--I have not the slightest doubt that a great many who voted for the proposition consider it as the Senator does. I have equally as little doubt that others intended it to mean precisely what I have stated. I cannot see, for my life, while they were framing a constitutional provision, why they did not place this matter beyond any sort of doubt. If they intended to recognize slavery, they could have said so in one word. If they intended not to recognize it, they could have said it in another word. If they intended to mystify and leave in doubt, then they have been very successful in accomplishing their purpose.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--"In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists;" not as they now exist; not in respect to those that are there now; but part of the same sort of slavery which now exists, shall continue to exist unchanged until the Territory becomes a State; and in the mean time persons shall be admitted to go into that Territory and carry their slaves with them. Now, I submit it to my honorable friend if it is not entirely improbable that any such construction as he suggests can prevail before any court that seeks to attain the real intention of the parties who made this proposition? It is such slavery as now exists. Persons held to that service--you may carry as many there as you please. Put them both together, and they would read so; and they being in the same instrument, can there be a doubt that ought to alarm us here, that the construction will be given to it which I place upon it, that it was intended not to be confined merely to persons now there and held to servitude, but as well to those who might be carried there hereafter? This is all I will say in reference to that; and I submit it to the candor and the judgment of my honorable friend from North Carolina, in which I have entire confidence, whatever result he may come to, that if we put the two propositions together, all doubt would seem to be removed.

Now, sir, my friend from Virginia will argue this question as if the question of slavery was to be decided according to the course of the common law, and then refers us to the express declarations and decisions as though the common law decided that slavery could not exist. What sort of construction would that make of this provision? Here they have provided that the law establishing slavery shall exist, that the property of the master in him shall be recognized as it is there established by law; and then the gentleman supposes that to be exactly contradictory, to refer to the common law as furnishing the rule of decision, which common law says there can be no property, as he interprets it, in man, and that when trover was brought for a slave--

Mr. MASON:--Not as I interpret it, but as interpreted in England.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I know that. He says it may be so interpreted; that when trover was brought for a slave in England, the judges decided there was no property in man. Could the same judges, sitting in a court in New Mexico, have given that decision when the law there established such property? In such a case, their decision must be different. They are referring, according to him, to two contradictory rules: one establishing slavery and acknowledging property in the master, and the other the common law denouncing and deciding against the right of property in man. This could not have been their intention, nor can this be the construction. We cannot consider these gentlemen to have changed their opinion from one sentence to another, to have left an incongruity and a contradiction expressed upon the face of the same section.

Nor, sir, do they refer--and that is my answer to my friend from Virginia--to the common law as furnishing the rule of decision at all. The proceedings shall be according to the course of the common law; that is all. If any violation is done to the rights of the master, he may sue; and, for his greater security, he may sue in the Federal courts; and, for greater security still, the law shall be administered according to the course of the common law. The common law is referred to as determining the mode of trial. We say according to the course of the civil law, and we say according to the course of the common law. What do we mean? We mean this marked and characteristic and essential difference: the course of the civil law is for the judge, without the intervention of a jury, to decide facts as well as the law. The common law takes away from the judge the power of deciding the facts, and demands a trial by jury. What this convention mean, therefore, by this provision is, that trial shall be by jury, according to the course of the common law. That is the explanation of the difficulty, and thus all doubt is removed. By these plain provisions--plain in themselves, and made plainer still by being taken with the context--they say you shall have your rule of right, according to the law of the Territory, which is in your favor as to the right to hold persons as property; that law shall be your security; you shall have a remedy for any violation of that right in the Federal courts, and you shall have that remedy, not according to the course of the civil law, in which the judge is to decide, who might be against you, but in which a jury shall be called to decide the fact according to the course of the common law. That is the whole of it.

Mr. MASON:--Mr. President--

Mr. POLK:--If the Senator will allow me, before the Senator from Kentucky sits down, I will ask him if the Mexican law establishes slavery, or if it does any thing more than to protect the right of the master to his slave? If that is the only establishment of it, then it is established by implication merely.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I really do not know whether the gentleman would consider it as establishing or merely protecting. I do not know that there is a law in any State of the Union that eo nomine establishes slavery; I do not know.

Mr. POLK:--The object of the inquiry was this: it has been contended heretofore that, by the law of Mexico, there could be no slavery there; and then there is another law of New Mexico professing to protect the right of property. I have never seen that New Mexican law.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I believe I have answered the gentleman as far as my information extends. I have examined that law. It is as strong in favor of the master as the laws of Kentucky or Missouri. I believe it is the law of Mississippi transcribed literally, verbatim. That is my understanding. The law is as complete on the subject as the law of any State that I know of.

Mr. MASON:--Mr. President, if the Senator from Kentucky is right, and, in the interpretation of this section, the courts are necessarily to consider the expression, "according to the course of the common law," to which slaveholders are referred for the enforcing of the relation of master and slave, as referring only to common law remedies, then I am at no loss to conceive, after our experience of judicial interpretation against slavery, by what sort of artificial and sophistic reasoning those judges of the Federal courts may feel themselves bound to withhold the remedy. Why, sir, are we to shut our ears and our eyes against experience passing before us every day? What is the present Constitution? The second section of the fourth article is in these words:

"A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime."

That is the text of the Constitution. What is the interpretation in the free States? In the State of Kentucky an African is property, under their laws and usages, and has been so for two hundred years; for it was so when it was a part of Virginia; and did it ever enter into the mind of man to conceive that this plain text of the Constitution would be resisted, upon the ground that property in man was not acknowledged? And yet it is done. If I am not mistaken, the honorable Senator from New York [Mr. SEWARD], not now in his seat, when Governor of New York, made that very question with the Governor of Virginia; and seeing this, are we to be willingly blind to this as the actual, judicial, and executive interpretation in every thing that affects the question of slavery as it stands in that section, and that, too, while we are seeking equality? Sir, it never entered into the mind of man, at the time this Constitution was formed, to credit that the time could ever come in the relations of these States when a man who fled from the State of Kentucky because he had stolen a negro into the State of Ohio, was screened from the operation of the Constitution, because in Ohio they do not deem a negro to be the subject of property; and yet that is the fact, the very issue now depending between those States; and we are asked to be blind, willingly blind, to all that experience at the very time we are attempting to secure a guarantee for violated rights!

Now, I said, Mr. President, that, if I were to tax my ingenuity, I might find a mode, even if the honorable Senator is right in ascribing to this clause of the section the necessary interpretation that it refers to remedies only. The Senator says the previous part of the section establishes the relation, as he construes it, not directly like the resolution of the honorable Senator which we offer here as an amendment, which establishes directly that there is property in slaves. This does not; but designedly avoids it; not from any improper motive--I do not ascribe that--but it is not only silent, but it avoids the very question. I suppose the honorable Senator is right in saying this language, judicial cognizance, according to the course of the common law, refers only to the remedy. Now, I tax my ingenuity to know how a court, in one of the free States, always leaning, of course, against slavery, would reason out that proposition, whether the remedy could be applied. Suppose an action of trover is brought. The inquiry would be, what is the remedy? We are told this is the remedy for which you are to apply to the law. A remedy is nothing in the world but a redress for wrong. Before you can apply the remedy, therefore, you must ascertain whether a wrong has been committed for which the remedy is adequate. Well, it comes from one side: the wrong was in taking the negro from the possession of the owner, against the local law of the Territory. The answer would be, "that may be true as far as the local law of the Territory is concerned; but here the Constitution adopts the common law as part of its text, and points the judges to the common law, and it applies the remedy." Now, the remedy is redress of the wrong, and we are bound to see that the wrong is one to which the remedy is applicable. The remedy is to recover property in the possession of one who is not entitled to it, and the common law, which applies that remedy to that wrong, says there is no wrong inflicted by taking the negro from the possession of his owner. It comes to that. It is suggested to me by the honorable Senator from Vermont [Mr. COLLAMER], that the common law, as a remedy, is one applicable to a common-law wrong. I do not say that the reasoning is just; I do not say that it is juridical; but I say, in our experience, we should be willingly blind if we take that for a security which will only be a snare.

Mr. PUGH:--Mr. President, it is very well known to the Senate that I prefer the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky, as a matter of individual choice, to the proposition which is proposed by the Peace Conference. Nevertheless, that Conference having been authorized, if not by Congress, at all events, so far as my State is concerned, by the act of her Legislature; and an overwhelming majority of the commissioners having agreed to this proposition as it stands, I shall hesitate very much in departing from it, whatever might be my individual opinion; but certainly if I thought the two Senators from Virginia had given it a correct interpretation, I should not agree to it. Now, as to this clause, it, in my judgment, had better have been omitted:

"The same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law."

I suggest that the common law is referred to as fixing a right simply. The course of the common law is a phrase defined for more than two hundred years, in Latin, in English, and in Norman French. It means the formula of proceeding. I understood the Senator from Virginia [Mr. MASON] to say that it had been decided in several of the courts that an action of trover could not be brought for a negro slave in England. I think I am familiar with the case. It is reported in Salkeld's Reports, Lord Raymond's Reports, and in the Modern Reports--the same case reported three times; but the same court which decided that trover would not lie, because trover included the idea of property in the man himself, in the same opinion said that trespass on the case would lie for the loss of the service; so that it was all a question of pleading, and no question of right at all. It is within my recollection--and I believe the case was brought to the Supreme Court on a writ of error, and can be found in Howard's Reports--that a citizen of Kentucky declared in trespass on the case for taking away his slaves, and added two counts in trover. What is trover but an action of trespass on the case? Nothing more; and it never was any thing more. The measure of damages is the same in both actions--the value of the service of the servant; and yet that controversy on mere pleading--which, in nine-tenths of the States of this Union, has ceased to be of any value, because they have a code of procedure, is made a terrific objection here.

Now, sir, I have never read the code of New Mexico, and I do not propose to read it; but it is perfectly understood that that Territorial Legislature, pursuing the privilege, if you call it privilege, conferred by the compromise measures of 1850, has established the relation of master and slave, or master and servant, as perfectly as it is established in any of the fifteen so-called slaveholding States. I do not admire this word "status" which we find in the report of the Peace Conference; but as to the meaning of that word, I cannot be in any doubt. It does not refer to any persons in particular; it refers to a legal relation of servitude as between master and servant, and it provides that that relation, or condition, or status, shall not be changed; that for all wrongs or controversies arising out of that there shall be a remedy through the Federal judiciary.

I can see why the commission made this distinction. There have been many who have insisted that the Congress of the United States should pass laws for the protection of the right of the master to the services of his slave in a Territory; but it has always been my opinion, that the worst thing the slaveholding States ever could have would be to have that; for there would be a perpetual controversy here from session to session, and from day to day, whether the law went far enough in giving protection or went too far; and they would be remitting their right to the adjudication of the Senators and Representatives from the non-slaveholding States. Others have insisted, as the propositions of my honorable friend from Kentucky provided, that the relation should be protected by the legislation of the territorial authority. I would rather it were so, individually, if they chose to establish it. The peace commission do not want that. They evidently do not want to quarrel with the Territorial Legislatures about the measure of legislation; but they declare the right, and then say that this right shall be enforced in the Federal judiciary according to the course of remedies and forms of the common law. I do not see how there can be a doubt; and yet, as I have said, it seems to me that a great deal of it is unnecessary verbiage. I do not mean to debate that; I am not one of the peace commissioners; I am not to select my words to express the idea; but I am here; and my State with other States, having appointed commissioners in view of a crisis like this, as they esteem it, and as I esteem it, and they having agreed upon a great variety of propositions, some of which commend themselves to my judgment and some do not; but taking it altogether as one proposition, I am satisfied that I must either vote for all of it, or let all of it fall. I would rather vote for the proposition of my honorable friend from Kentucky. I said that sixty days ago; and I have said it in season and out of season. I have expressed my views frequently. I think the proposition of the commissioners would be better expressed, though it would come to the same thing, in these words: "in all the territory south of that line, it is hereby declared that no law or regulation shall ever be made or have any effect denying or impairing the right of the inhabitants to the service or labor of such persons as were held in that condition in any State of the Union; and thence taken into the said Territory." That would have expressed my idea more clearly, yet I am satisfied with this; it amounts to that. Whether the word "status" be good Latin or good English, the meaning is very clear.

I believe I admonished the Senate two hours ago that time was very precious; and I shall not detain them myself.

Mr. BAKER:--Mr. President, I mean to vote for the passage of these proposed amendments, just as they are, without any change; and I propose to give very briefly a few of the reasons which govern my judgment in that act. I will do it as pointedly as I can, and I will certainly do it very briefly.

In the first place, I feel that I am but submitting to the people of the whole country, amendments which they, and they only, can incorporate in the present Constitution; and I do not believe that, in any state of the case, I can do very wrong in doing that; but when I consider the immediate condition of the country, I feel that I am doing very right. Twenty States assemble in what is called the Peace Convention. They recommend to us, in times of great trial and difficulty, the passage of these resolutions. They are eminent men; they are able men; they are--very many of them, at least--great men; they have been selected by the States which they respectively represent, because of their purity of character and ability. The country is in great trouble. Six States have seceded; and I am told by very many men in whom I have great confidence, that their States are to-day trembling in the balance. I believe it. I am told--and upon that subject I have not yet made up my mind--that the adoption of these measures by the people will heal the differences with the Border States. I do not believe that I can do wrong, therefore, in giving the people of the whole Union a chance to determine these questions.

In the beginning, I voted against the propositions of the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. Even then I did not perceive any great harm in submitting any propositions to the people of the United States which circumstances might appear to render necessary for any good purpose. I refused to vote for them, for two reasons: first, I believed something better might be attained; and second, I did not believe that the people of the States would agree to them. I do not believe that now, and for one simple reason: I think I may consider myself in some respect a representative of the opinion as well as the power of my own people. I am a Republican, a zealous and determined one. I have all my life been of the opinion that Congress ought not to protect slavery, and to extend the dominion of this Government for that purpose or with that possibility. A great many in the North, who are not Republicans, but are what we call DOUGLAS men, have shown, at the last election, under something of trial and sacrifice, that they too, do not believe that the Constitution does or ought to extend slavery. I am not disposed to give up that opinion; I do not believe they are. I was not disposed to give up when six States were in the Union who are now out, as they say; and I am not disposed to give it up yet. Independently of pride of opinion, I do not believe that kind of sacrifice would accomplish any good result.

These are the reasons in brief which induced me to vote with regret against the propositions of the distinguished Senator from Kentucky in the earlier portion of this session. But now, we are within two days of adjournment. Propositions essentially variant in their character to those are submitted here; and I am asked: "Will you, in your representative capacity, submit these to your people for their decision, either to accept or reject?" Now, why not? I need not dwell upon the fact that, while we are a representative, we are at the same time a democratic Government. I will not shut my eyes to the fact that twenty States appeal to us; I will not shut my eyes to the fact that there is imminent danger of permanent dissolution; I will not shut my eyes to the fact that, though the Republican party is in a constitutional majority, it is not yet, and it never has been, in an actual majority; and I do not believe that it is possible for one-third of the people to coerce the opinion of two-thirds.

Mr. WILKINSON:--I wish to ask the gentleman a question.

Mr. BAKER:--Do, sir.

Mr. WILKINSON:--I understand him as saying that the whole of the twenty States which were assembled in this Peace Convention agreed to this proposition.

Mr. BAKER:--My distinguished friend was writing, instead of listening, when he understood that. I did not mean to say that, and I did not.

Mr. WILKINSON:--I understood the Senator to say that twenty States appealed to us.

Mr. BAKER:--Yes, sir; just as I say that the Government appeals to another Government, I do not say every individual in it; just as I say that Congress appeals to another Government, not every individual member of Congress; but I do say, in the words of the proposition before us, that "they," the Peace Convention, composed of the States recited, "have approved what is herewith submitted, and respectfully request that your honorable body will submit it to conventions in the States, as article thirteen of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States." That is all I said, or, at least, it is all I meant to say.

Now, sir, suppose every argument that the distinguished Senators from Virginia have brought to bear on this proposition was true: what then? Is that any reason why it should not be submitted to the people? Suppose they do not approve of it: what then? It is their business, not ours. Suppose they should: it is a measure of peace, of security, of union. Sir, I know, as you do, many of the members of that Convention. I have acted with them as Whigs in old times, and I wish they could come back. I know they have proved in old times, as they will prove again, that they love this Union to the very depth and core of their hearts. I do not propose to give them up; I do not propose to weaken them; I do admire, with my whole heart, the sacrifice of opinion which they make, and which is typified by the noble expression of the distinguished Senator from Kentucky to-day. Party or no party, North or no North, I, at least, will meet him half way. My State is very far distant. She had no members in that Convention. I do not know whether she will approve this measure; but I know it will neither hurt that State nor me to give her a chance to determine. I know very well that the Senators from Virginia do not approve it. That is the very reason I do. [Laughter.] If I was sure they would not think me guilty of disrespect, I would remind them of what was said by a distinguished man in old times. Phocion, in the last days of his Republic--and I hope in that respect, at least, there will be no parallel--Phocion was once making a speech to the Athenian people, and something he said excited very great applause. He turned around to gentlemen, friends near him, and said: "What foolish thing have I been saying, that these people praise me?" Sir, if Virginia, represented as she is to-day--not as I believe she really is--but if Virginia, represented as she is here to-day, and as she has been during this session, were to approve these propositions, I should doubt them very much indeed.

I was surprised, however, to hear some things that the distinguished Senator from Virginia--I do not know whether to call him junior or senior--said. I do not mean the Senator who spoke last. He [Mr. HUNTER] says that this proposition here is worse than the old Constitution. If that be really so, what in the world has he been complaining of so bitterly? He tells us, now, that under the old Constitution slavery was secure. Then, why do you grumble? He considers it as secure, not only wherever it is, but wherever it can go--nay, more than that; wherever the Stars and Stripes of the American Republic can float. I have been telling my people that, as a Republican, for a long while, and complaining of the Dred Scott decision; but he says slavery is secured. All the complaint that the other Senator from Virginia [Mr. MASON] makes, is against the decision of the courts in the free States we have been in the habit of making, which he insists are against the decision of the Supreme Court, constituted other than we wished it was. We have been in the habit of believing that one of the great evils we complained of was under the old Constitution, and that a new construction was given to it, alien to the intention, wish, construction, of our fathers; and we have complained that the Supreme Court was so constituted that it could not be reversed. We complained, as partisans, that now this Senate and the other House were so composed that we had no power in the Government, save through the President. Now, the Senator from Virginia indorses the whole of it, and says they were very well off, and did beautifully. Then why dissolve; why threaten; why make a Peace Conference necessary?

Mr. President, let us be just to these propositions. As a Republican, I give up something when I vote for them; but remember, sir, I am not voting for them now; I am only voting to submit them to my people; and I shall go before them, when the time comes, being governed in my opinion and advice as to whether they shall vote for them or not, as I see that Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Missouri, by their people, desire. To be frank, sir; if this proposition will suit the Border States, if there will be peace and union, and loyalty and brotherhood, with this, I will vote for it at the polls with all my heart and with all my soul; but if I see that the counsels of the Senators from Virginia shall prevail; if my noble friend from Tennessee [Mr. JOHNSON] shall be overwhelmed; if secession shall still grow in the public mind there; if they are determined, upon artificial causes of complaint, as I believe, still to unite their fate, their destiny, and their hope, with the extremest South, then, perceiving them to be of no avail, I shall refuse them. Therefore, at the polls at last, I shall be governed as an individual citizen by my conviction at the moment of what the ultimate result of these propositions will be; but I am not voting for that to-day. I am saying: "People of the United States, I submit it to you; twenty States demand it; the peace of the country requires it; there is dissolution in the very atmosphere; States have gone off; others threaten; the Queen of England upon her throne declares to the whole world her sympathy with our unfortunate condition; foreign Governments denote that there is danger to-day that the greatest Confederation the world has ever seen is to be parted in pieces, never to be reunited." Now, not what I wish, not what I want, not what I would have, but all that I can get, is before me. I know that I do no harm. If the people of Oregon do not like it, they can easily reject it. If the people of Pennsylvania will not have it, they can easily throw it aside. If they do not believe there is danger of dissolution, if they prefer dissolution, if they think they can compel fifteen States to remain in or come back, or if they believe they will not go out, let them reject it. I repeat again, it is their business, it is not mine.

But, sir, whether I vote for it at the polls or not, in voting for it here it may be said that I give up some of my principles. Mr. President, we sometimes mistake our opinions for our principles. I am appealed to often; it is said to me: "You believed in the Chicago platform." Suppose I did. "Well, this varies from the Chicago platform." Suppose it does. I stand to-day, as I believe, in the presence of greater events than those which attend the making of a President. I stand, as I believe, at least, in the presence of peace and war; and if it were true that I did violate the Chicago platform, the Chicago platform is not a Constitution of the United States to me. If events, if circumstances change, I will violate it, appealing to my conscience, to my country, and to my God, to justify me according to the motive. [Applause in the galleries.]

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. FOSTER in the chair). Order will be preserved in the galleries, or they will be cleared.

Mr. BAKER:--Again, sir, let us see how, as a Republican, I give up any thing. First, suppose I did: I would give up a great deal to preserve a great Government; I would give up a great deal to be able to shake hands with Kentucky and Tennessee as friends for the rest of my life, as I have in all that has gone before. I would not be ashamed to give up. I would not at least be giving up to traitorous secession, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina are guilty of to-day; but I would be giving up to loyal and affectionate brethren, who implore me for the love of a common Union to do something to satisfy the doubts and fears of their people. I can stand that; I will do it.

Again, sir; how much do I give up? I have said, as a Republican, that Congress has the power to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the United States. I believe it to-day. Talking about giving up, there are a good many other people that give up something here. Gentlemen on the other side, who have been contending that Congress had no power whatever to prohibit slavery, acknowledge that they were mistaken; at any rate they go for it; they do prohibit it by law, by the Constitution itself. Therefore I am not the only one that gives up.

Again: I believe it is wrong, politically wrong--I am not now discussing the social and moral question--but I believe it to be politically very wrong to establish slavery in the name of freedom. Sir, twelve years ago or more, it was my fortune, perhaps, to wander in a foreign land beneath the Stars and Stripes of my country. I went there, as I think, impelled by motives of patriotism, perhaps having mingled with them not a little desire of adventure, love of change, and that feverish excitement for which we people of this country are always and everywhere remarkable; but I believe, if I know myself, that I did suppose I was doing something to repay the country for much that she had done for me. Sir, often and again, wandering sometimes beneath

"Where Orizaba's purpled summit shone,"

sometimes by the dark pestilential river that marks the boundary between the two countries, often and often have I wondered to myself whether I was wandering and suffering there to spread slavery over an unwilling people. I am not sorry to see that now that is rendered impossible. I am not sorry to see that it is impossible, first, in the course of events; but if it were not so, I know, if these propositions shall pass, that the foul blot of slavery never will be extended over one foot of territory to be stolen or conquered by the people of the United States.

But I am asked, "What do you say about New Mexico?" I will tell you in twenty words. I am an older Republican than many of those I see around me, who vote to-day differently from me; not a better but an older. I voted in 1850, on the floor of the other House, against the compromise measures of that year. I did so, among other reasons, because I was not willing that Utah and New Mexico should become slave or free according to the wishes of their people, believing as I did then (I have changed my opinion in some respects since), that that was not best for the whole country. Contrary to my wishes, those compromise measures prevailed. New Mexico is nominally now, I believe, a slave Territory; that is, to use the words of the distinguished Senator from New York [Mr. SEWARD], there are some twenty slaves in the whole Territory. There they may, they probably will, remain. I submit to my people a proposition, that if they approve it as a compromise, as a concession, for peace for the Union, as it happens that that little Territory includes all that possibly can be slave territory, they will let it alone till the people are able and willing to make their own State constitution. That is all. Do I state it fairly? Does it go beyond that?

First, I contend that I give up but little. I give it up, as I understand, for purposes of freedom; and the distinguished Senators from Virginia agree with me. They say, in substance, that I am getting a great deal more than I give; and I confess, taking that view of the subject, at least in part, I wonder that a good many more of my Republican friends do not go with me.

Again: it is said on the Republican side that we protect slavery. In one sense we do, and in another sense we do not. In the offensive idea to me and to you of protecting slavery, I do no such thing, and I would die first. When the resolutions of the Senator from Kentucky were up the other day, I voted for the amendment of the other Senator from Kentucky [Mr. POWELL], in order to make them clear, to show what I was voting against. I was unwilling that territory hereafter to be acquired should be rendered slave territory; and I put that proposition distinctly in it, in order that when I voted against them, it might be seen why and how I did it. As I have said, this proposition renders that impossible. First, it refers only to the territory we now possess; that is, New Mexico alone. As to the territory north of 36° 30´, I need not speak. We know that God Almighty has registered a decree in Heaven that that shall never be slave. We, on our part, want no WILMOT proviso there; we all agree that we are willing to let it alone. South, there is but the barren Territory of New Mexico. Beyond that, who knows? If we are to acquire it, we are to acquire it by this proposition, by the assent of a majority of the States of both sections and two-thirds of the whole; and I do not know a man living who believes that with that proposition incorporated in the Constitution, slavery is probable, or even possible.

Therefore, Mr. President, I agree that in the compromise I, as a Republican, do give up to that extent, and no more, what I have said; but doing that, I believe that I consecrate all the territory between here and Cape Horn to freedom, with all its blessings, forever and forever.

So far, sir, as the discussion as to the meaning of this phrase about the common law is concerned, I do not care to indulge in it, and for this simple reason: first, according to the legal view of the Senator from Ohio, everybody knows that this expression, "the course of the common law," means the duly established forms of procedure known to the courts; that is all. In the next place, I am not afraid of the common law. I have been reared under it. With all its imperfections, and they are many, I love it. While it may be an objection to Virginia to quote it, to me it is full of guardianship and blessing. I do not stop to talk about the Somerset case, nor the decision in Salkeld, nor the Modern Reports. It is enough for me that I know, taking the whole proposition together, that slavery is impossible beyond where it now is, and, as a Republican, I can justify myself to my conscience in giving that vote.

Mr. President, I add very few more words. I should have been excessively pleased, as a partisan and a man, if the inauguration of Mr. LINCOLN could be one at which all the States would attend with the old good feeling, and with the old good humor. I have seen six States separate themselves, as they say, from us, and form a new confederacy, with great pain and greater surprise. I cannot shut my eyes, if I would, to the existing state of things. I listen to the warning of my friend from Kentucky. I listen to the warning of my friend from Tennessee. I have been in both States. I know something of their people. I believe that there, even there, the Union is in danger; and I believe if we break up here without some attempt to reconcile them to us, and us to them, many of the predictions of friends and foes as to the danger will be accomplished. I said, in the earlier part of the session--I repeat it--I would yield nothing to secession. When the Representatives from South Carolina and Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana came here invoking war, telling us that if we did not yield to them they would secede, they would confederate with foreign Governments, they would break this Union, they would hold us as aliens and strangers and enemies, I believed then, as I believe now, that that was too dear a price to pay even for Union and peace; but to-day the case is altered. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, reiterate their love for the Union. They tell us in unmistakable terms that they desire to remain; and in every county, nay, in every township of those States, we have staunch and true and ardent friends who would be willing to seal their devotion to this Union with their blood. It is they to whose appeal I would listen. It is from them that I would take counsel and advice; and when they tell me, "pass these resolutions; they are resolutions of peace; submit them to your people; listen to what ours say in reply; if it appears to you at the polls that these resolutions will produce peace, restore union, create or renew fraternal, kindly feeling, pass them; let us settle this question, and be one people," I agree; with all my heart, I will do it.

Now, as I close, let me ask what evil; who will be hurt? Suppose, when I get home, I find that the Senators from Virginia are on the stump and they are convincing their people that they are a great deal worse off; the more they convince Virginia that she is worse off, the more Pennsylvania and New York will be convinced that they are better off; and every argument they make against it in Virginia will have a twofold weight North and West. I could not make half as good a speech in favor of these propositions of Union, even in Oregon, or California, or Illinois--I speak of the States I know best--as I should make if I were to read their objections to these propositions.

But suppose--which I do not think possible--they could succeed, not only in Virginia (which I do not believe), but in Kentucky and Tennessee; suppose they were to swear, by the throne of God, they would not take them, but would dissolve and go off whether we passed them or not: we could very easily refuse to vote for them and be in as good a condition as we are to-day, and, in the mean time, next Monday, Mr. LINCOLN will be inaugurated. I desire to see around him thronging, nay forming the procession, every augury of hope and peace.

I expect to hear from his lips words of manly trust and confidence in the Union, and of concession, kindness to all its constituent parts. I have hoped that, in response to what he shall say, I shall hear from every part of what is now acknowledged everywhere yet as our Confederacy, a perpetual hymn of hope and praise rising from all parts of the Union; and, above all things else, I have hope and trust in time and patience. Therefore it is that I shall do no harm.

I know that there are very excited feelings upon this subject North and South. I understand that Massachusetts, an honored State--let me say, to qualify what I am going to say, first, that I believe that Massachusetts is the pattern of a community in the world; as well represented here as any State can be; representing herself better than anybody else can do it for her--I know that there are excited feelings in Massachusetts, and I think she has good cause. The act that more than any other else, perhaps, leads to this proposition of a Peace Convention--that "Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"--was an act which I abhorred and condemned from the beginning, and which I am not sorry to perceive that Massachusetts remembers now. Many gentlemen on the floor know to what I allude. On the other hand, South Carolina and Louisiana are ferocious for disunion; and I am afraid that their young men do want war. There is not excitement enough on the plantation and the farm, and in the streets of the towns; but they really want contest, excitement, and bloodshed. What they want I do not; I am trying to keep from it. I do not apprehend, therefore, that the sentiments which I have expressed here to-day will meet the approbation of the extreme men upon either side. I have no doubt my republicanism may be doubted. I think I can see in the look of my friend on my left now [Mr. KING] that he has various convictions that I am very far from being sound in the faith. [Laughter.] Sir, it may be. I come from the midst of a people not directly concerned in this controversy; a population about half northern, half southern. We have intermarried together. Our interests, our fears, our hopes, our recollections, are mingled North and South; and I believe I am expressing their opinions--which perhaps form my own--when I say that I can see no possible harm to anybody anywhere in submitting these propositions to the people, who are, and ought to be, sovereign.

Besides, sir, what else can I do? As I sit down, let me ask Senators upon every side, what else can any of us do? Shall we sit here for three months, when petition, resolution, public meeting, speech, acclamation, tumult, is heard, seen, and felt on every side, and do nothing? Shall State after State go out, and not warn us of danger? Shall Senators and Representatives, patriotic, eloquent, venerable, tell us, again and again, of danger in their States, and we condescend to make no reply?

Sir, there is other business to be done here besides the mere ordinary business of the Government; besides the voting of supplies, and the raising of means by which to buy them. We have questions here to-day, as I believe, of peace and war, and I have waited long to see some mode of their solution. I repeat, I go for this proposition, and agree to submit it to the vote of the people, not because I believe it the best that can be done. I believe, however, that, to-day being two days from the close of this session, it is all I can do. When my people ask me, on my return, "Sir, have not States gone out?" I will say, "Yes." "Do not more threaten it?" if that is the word (I trust it is not the best one), I say, "Yes." They say, "Sir, do you believe they will do it?" "On my honor and on my conscience," I say, "if something is not done, yes." They then ask, "What have you done?" Mr. President, what have we done? I believe that is the question the country will ask of us; and I, for one, will vote for this proposition, that I may be able to respond.

Mr. GREEN:--Mr. President, I regard the consideration of this question as one of the most important which has ever been presented to the Senate since I have been a member of it. The Union is in danger; the fate of the country is at stake; and whatever the Senate or the House of Representatives or Congress combined can do, ought to be done to save the country. I have very little faith or hope, and I would express the reason why. But as little as there is, I will cling to the last remaining straw, and sink with it grasped fast in my hands, if I have no other resource. This country is of too much importance to me, to my family, to my friends, to my State, to my associates everywhere, to give up without a struggle. That struggle may prove to be fruitless; it may prove to be unavailing. The taunts and jeers thrown out are calculated to stir up ire and ill-feeling; I shall pass them by with disregard. I choose to sacrifice my feelings, and to make myself a burnt-offering on the altar, if I can do any thing to save the country.

What, then, shall we do? These propositions, presented by what is called the Peace Conference, are not to be compared to the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky; and I will not vote for a single one of them, while I will vote for his. They amount to a sacrifice of my honor, and a destruction of the rights of my State. I am permitted to say that the representatives from my State in the Peace Conference condemned them all, while they are willing to go for the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky. We cannot stand by this, and we will not.

Let us not deceive each other; let us not undertake to practice a system of deception which will sound pleasant to the ear, but will be bitter to the taste. I will not do it. Here is a positive prohibition of slavery north of 36° 30´, and then a doubtful question whether it is recognized south of 36° 30´. The Senator from Kentucky thinks it is; but I will not act upon a doubt. We have had too many doubts heretofore, and out of those doubts have grown many difficulties. I shall never permit, so far as my action is concerned, another question of doubt.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Will the gentleman allow me to interrupt him? Did he understand me as admitting that it was a doubtful recognition of slavery?

Mr. GREEN:--Not at all. I said expressly that the Senator from Kentucky contended that it did amount to a recognition, but others denied it, and that made it a question of doubt. I will not misrepresent anybody if I know it. Now, sir, I will not act upon a question which admits of doubt. We have passed along in our career for so many years that we have arrived at a point when we must understand each other distinctly and unequivocally, and I will not leave a single point open to equivocation. It must be expressly settled, and settled not only in express words, not only in unmistakable language; but I go further than that; it must emanate from the hearts of a people disposed to stand by it; and if they will not stand by it, I will not associate with them.

I want to preserve this Union; I want to maintain the constitutional rights of all classes, North and South; but to give me a mere written guarantee on parchment, and file it in the office of the Secretary of State, with a predetermination in the hearts and minds of the northern people inculcated and instructed to violate it, I cannot live with, and I will not. I would rather go where I naturally belong, with southern men; but if the true-hearted, the patriotic, and the honorable portion of the North will reverse this inculcated spirit of hostility to southern institutions, and bring them up to the mark where they will recognize constitutional guarantees, then I say, "Hail, thou my brother, we can go together;" but never till that comes to pass. We have approached that period in our country's history when there should be no cheating or attempt to cheat. We must understand each other, and make a permanent, lasting Union, or a permanent, lasting, peaceful separation.

This proposition presented by the Peace Conference, as it is called, I think the merest twaddle--and I use the term with entire respect to the members--the merest twaddle that ever was presented to a thinking people. The proposition of the Senator from Kentucky has some sense in it. If he chooses to desert his own, I shall not complain of him; for I know that warm, patriotic impulses move him in all his action; but I cannot accept the other, and I shall vote against every one of its provisions. When it is said to me that the territory south of 36° 30´ has adopted slavery--that New Mexico has--I must reply to Senators that they misunderstand the law. New Mexico has never adopted slavery. New Mexico has done this: she has provided remedies for redress of wrongs, including wrongs affecting slave property; but she has never established slavery; nor has Utah. Utah has never even recognized it by implication. Utah passed a law of this character: apprentices bound to service for a period of years may be held there; but when their servitude has expired, according to their articles of apprenticeship, they are free; so that the law of Utah absolutely, if it has any effect, prohibits slavery.

Senators overlook these facts. I take the broad and the bold and the unmistakable ground, not that the Constitution establishes slavery anywhere, but that the Constitution, extending over a Territory, will protect me in all my rights not prohibited by a local competent authority; that my rights are to take any property which I own in any part of the Union, Yankee clocks from the North, polar bears from the Rocky Mountains, mules from the Middle States, and slaves from the South; and that, unless there is a competent local authority to prohibit my rights in these respective classes of property, I am to be protected. The second step is that there can be no local authority as long as the territorial condition remains, competent to prohibit slavery in any Territory.

These are my positions; and hence, so far from this extraordinary position that slavery is local being true, the reverse is true. It may be local in the United States, but so far from its being local to the Territory in the United States, the reverse is true. Talk about freedom being national, and slavery local! I have a right to pass through Pennsylvania, and my right of transit is as perfect this day as it was when Pennsylvania was a slave State....

I have been anxious from the beginning of this session to stave off public action, to hold the public pulse still, and give an opportunity for reaction of northern sentiment. I want no reaction south. It has been my only hope, and my last hope, and that hope has failed....

These resolutions are intended to lull old Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, until we are hand-cuffed and tied fast, and then action is to commence. They are all designed simply to lull us into a fancied security; but if we are wise betimes, and look forward to coming events, we will at once strike the blow, and separate from a Confederation which denies us peace, denies us protection, denies us our constitutional rights, and seek them in some other association of States....

Now, Mr. President, I want all these propositions voted down, and I hope my friend from Kentucky will revive his propositions and bring them up again. There is some vitality in them; there is some point in them; but as for these wishy-washy resolutions, that amount to nothing, it is impossible that any Senator here will, for a moment, entertain the idea of supporting them. The Peace Conference! And the smallest peace that ever I have heard of. Let the Senator adhere to his original propositions; let the Senator bring them up and press them upon the attention of the Senate. That is as far backing down as I will go. It is a little more than I want; but still, as a last effort to save the Union, I would go that far. Talk about these measures! These measures that have no vitality--these measures that amount to a total surrender of every principle--I never will vote for; and let the consequences of the future be what they may, I stake my faith and reputation upon the vote I intend to cast.

Mr. WADE:--I move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. LANE:--I hope the Senator will give me the floor before he makes that motion.

Mr. TRUMBULL:--I ask the Senator from Oregon to yield to me a moment.

Mr. LANE:--For a motion to adjourn, I will.

Mr. TRUMBULL:--Yes, sir; I desire the floor with a view to make that motion. It is apparent that no good is to come out of the discussion of the proceedings of this Peace Conference. It is a proposition got up for the purpose of satisfying the Border States; and the Border States, Missouri and Virginia, say they will have none of it. The first section is a proposition establishing slavery--

Mr. MASON:--I rise to a question of order.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Senator from Illinois will pause. The Senator from Virginia rises to a question of order, which he will state.

Mr. MASON:--I understand the motion to adjourn has been made.

Mr. TRUMBULL:--I have not made the motion yet. I stated that I would make that motion, and I was merely going to give the reason. The Senator from Oregon will have the floor to-morrow. I was stating the reason why I should make the motion to adjourn, which I intend to make in the course of a minute, and I merely made that statement to show that there was no object in sitting here and punishing ourselves in regard to resolutions which manifestly cannot command the assent of this body. I now move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--I call for the yeas and nays on that motion.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

And the Senate refused to adjourn, and, for special business, the peace propositions were set aside. The same day they were introduced, as follows:

Mr. LANE:--Mr. President, my object in getting the floor, was to give the reason why I cannot vote for the resolution now before the Senate. You are aware, sir, that I did vote for the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky to amend the Constitution, with the hope, if they could be adopted, that peace, perhaps, might be restored to the country; but those propositions have been superseded, and the Senator from Kentucky himself says that he is willing to sacrifice, on the altar of his country, as he terms it, his own propositions, and take the amendments which are proposed to the Constitution presented by the Peace Congress to the Senate. The resolutions proposed by the distinguished Senator from Kentucky were as low down as I could go. They did not secure to every State that right they have under the Constitution, as I understand it; but the resolution now before the Senate, to speak modestly, as I look at it, with all due respect to the great men who met here to consider this matter, who deliberated for many days, and presented this as the result of their deliberations, is a cheat, a deception, a humbug--nothing that any State can take as a final settlement of the questions that are now giving trouble to this country, nothing that can settle permanently those difficulties. We must have something more definite, something more certain, or there can be no Union even of the States that now remain in the Union, as I believe.

Mr. GREEN:--Mr. President--

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--Does the Senator from Oregon give way?

Mr. LANE:--Only for an adjournment.

Mr. GREEN:--I rise to make that motion, that the Senate do now adjourn.

So the motion was agreed to; and the Senate by a vote--23 to 22--adjourned.

March 2d.--Senator LANE having secured the floor, made the following speech on the report of the Peace Conference:

Mr. LANE:--Mr. President, I hope I shall be permitted to proceed without interruption, and I trust not to consume much time. While I had the floor yesterday, I stated some of my objections to the proposed amendments to the Constitution which are now before us. They are: that they do not do justice to the whole country--that they do not do justice to all the States. I have always held that the territory is common property; that it belongs to all the States; that every citizen of every State has an equal right to emigrate to, and settle in, the common Territories; and that any species of property, recognized as such in any State of the Confederacy, should have a like recognition in the Territories, and be guaranteed, protected, and secured in its full integrity, to the owner thereof. That this should be so, was the intent of the revolutionary fathers who shaped and framed the Constitution; and it was this principle, more, perhaps, than any other, which called into being that noble compact, which has so long been a bond of Union and goodness between all the States. It is the very life-blood and vitality of the Constitution. It is the ligament that has held us together heretofore, and which, if cut now, will result only in hopeless and immutable disruption. I have never deviated a single iota from this correct doctrine. Had we lived up to this equitable principle--the foundation upon which the Constitution rests, upon which only this Union can be maintained--we should have had no trouble in this country to-day. It is not my fault that trouble and dissatisfaction prevail; it is not my fault that secession has taken place, and that further secession will take place, unless Congress shall recognize this great principle of justice, of right, and of equality. That is the doctrine upon which this Union rests; and it must be maintained, or the connection will be severed.

While upon this question, Mr. President, I may be permitted to allude to my course in the Senate last session, and I shall do so very briefly, upon a series of resolutions introduced by the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. DAVIS]--a series of resolutions that were considered in this body, after having been previously maturely and deliberately adopted by a caucus composed of the Democratic Senators, and agreed upon by them, as setting forth the principles necessary to be maintained in order to secure the existence and perpetuity of this Confederacy. It has been charged upon this floor that, on the 25th day of May last, I voted against the right of protection to slave property in the Territories. In order that the Senate may know how I voted, and that I may show you and every other man that I stood then as I stand to-day, and as I have always stood upon this question, I will read some short extracts from the discussion upon this series of resolutions. The fourth resolution was in these words:

"Resolved, That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect and unfriendly nature, possesses the power to annul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common Territories, but it is the duty of the Federal Government there to afford for that, as for other species of property, the needful protection; and if experience should at any time prove that the judiciary does not possess power to insure adequate protection, it will then become the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency."

Now mark! this resolution states that all the property of all the people of any State, whether slave or otherwise, has an equal right to protection; and if experience should at any time prove that the courts had not the power to afford that protection, then it was the duty of Congress to enact such laws as were necessary to protect every man in his legal and rightful property, no matter of what description or characteristic. Sir, not long since, upon this floor, a Senator was hardy enough to say that I voted against protecting property in Territories; and he desired to know what had happened that States should be concerned; what had occurred to alarm the States that were seceding from the Union? I will show you, sir, very briefly, what I said upon that question then; and I will repeat it now, for I have never changed my sentiments on this subject. No living man can assert, and in so doing tell the truth, that I ever uttered a word against the equality of the States, and their equal right in the common territory of our common country; and any charge that I voted then to refuse protection to property in the territory is false. I have always held that the territory belonged to all; that it was acquired, as I knew, at the expense of the Southern States as well as of the Northern; and upon the battle-fields where I had witnessed the good conduct of Northern and Southern troops, I found the soldier from the Southern States pouring out his blood as freely, and certainly in very much larger quantity--for there were very many more from the Southern States who participated in the battles of our country in the war which resulted in the acquisition of territory, than there were from the Northern States. Then, so far as the acquisition is concerned, it is joint, and it was for the joint benefit of all portions of the country. Consequently, I have held, and I hold now, that the Territories should be so appropriated. And when those resolutions were up last winter, I said what I will now read:

"I only desire to say, in relation to the series of resolutions, a portion of which I have already voted in favor of, that I shall vote in favor of the rest; for the whole of them together meet with my hearty approbation. They assert the truth; they assert the great principle that the constitutional rights of the States are equal; that the States have equal rights in this country under the Constitution; and, as I understand it, they must be maintained in that equality. These resolutions only assert that principle; and I say that it is a misfortune to the country, in my opinion, that the principles laid down in these resolutions had not been asserted sooner. They ought to have been asserted by the Democratic party in plain English ten years ago. If they had been, you would have had no trouble in this country to-day; the Democratic party would have been united and strong, and the equality and constitutional rights of the States would have been maintained in the territory, and in all other things; squatter-sovereignty would not have been heard of, and to-day we should be united. It is the fault of the Democratic party in dodging truth, in dodging principle, in dodging the Constitution itself, that has brought the trouble upon the country and the party that is experienced to-day."

I believe, if we had asserted and maintained these great truths ten years ago, and placed ourselves upon them boldly, as it was our duty to have done, we would have no trouble in this country to-day; but instead of declaring the great truths enunciated in these resolutions, we went off upon issues unbecoming the Democratic party. A portion of our leaders wandered and went astray, and asserted that the people of a Territory had the right to prohibit slavery whenever, in their judgment, it ought to be prohibited; a power which Congress even does not possess, and consequently cannot confer upon a Territorial Legislature, unless the creature becomes greater than the creator. It was this kind of trouble, and this sort of heresy introduced into the Democratic party, that has broken it up, and brought the disasters upon our country which we experience to-day. I say, then, let the blame fall upon the guilty; I am innocent of it; for I have held but one doctrine upon this question from the beginning to the present hour, and I shall hold that doctrine to the end. In the speech from which I have already read, I also used the following language:

"Sir, it appears to me to be very singular indeed, that any man can hold that the territory of this country belongs to a portion of the people, and that the people of one portion of the Union can go there and enjoy their property, when the people of another portion cannot enjoy the right of property in that territory--territory common to the whole country; territory that was earned or acquired by the common blood and common treasure of all; territory that is sustained by the common treasure of all; and to say that all shall not have an equal right there, is to deny a fact so plain, a principle so just, a right so manifest, that I can hardly see how any man who professes to be a Democrat can deny it, or how he can attempt to embarrass the adoption of the correct principles announced in these resolutions. I shall therefore vote against all the amendments, and every thing that is offered to obstruct their passage, upon the ground that they assert justice, that they assert truth, that they assert the equality and constitutional rights of all the States, which principle must be maintained, or this Union cannot be preserved."

That was my doctrine then, it is the doctrine which I have held and advocated for twenty years. It is the doctrine I hold now; and I so notified the Senator from Tennessee, who arraigned me here as voting against protecting property, and who did me willful and gross injustice in it--for I voted for it and he voted against it. That is to say, I voted against the resolution introduced by Mr. CLINGMAN, declaring "that slave property did not need protection in the Territories," while the Senator from Tennessee voted for it; and when the motion was made to reconsider the vote adopting it in lieu of the fourth resolution of the DAVIS series, I voted to reconsider, and the Senator from Tennessee voted against it, showing clearly that he was against affording that protection to slave property which the fourth resolution provided for. Did I not maintain the truth? Was I not prophetic in the announcement that I made in this Senate Chamber then? I said, that unless this great principle of justice, of equality, of the right of every man to the common territory should be maintained, this Union would be broken up. This great principle has not been maintained, but the Union has been destroyed.

But, sir, to go to the votes. It will be borne in mind, and every Senator on this floor will bear me out in my statement, that while the DAVIS resolutions--the series of which I speak--were up, various propositions were made to amend them, and I voted against all amendments. There are Senators here at this moment who will sustain me when I say that, when in caucus and we had under consideration this series of resolutions, I said, and said it boldly and in plain terms, that if every man from every Southern State of this Union would come here and say, for the sake of peace, if you please, or any other reason, he was willing to abandon his equality, his right in the common territory, then, if alone, I would stand and protest against it; protest that he had no right to surrender a constitutional right; that none but a coward would do it; that every man had a right in the common territory; that it was his privilege, and he should never surrender it with my permission. On the other hand, I said that if every Northern man in the Senate Chamber--nay, but even every Northern citizen--expressed a desire to surrender his right, his equality, his privilege, to go to the common Territories with his property, I should enter my solemn protest against it, and insist that he had a constitutional right to go there, which he should never surrender with my consent. Then, how any man could assert that I ever entertained the opinion that slavery did not need protection from aggression, is to me the strangest, falsest thing in nature. I said, as I have shown you, that I had voted against all amendments, and would continue to vote against all amendments, or any attempt whatsoever calculated to obstruct the passage of the resolutions; for they asserted the right of the people to go to the Territories, asserted the power of the court to protect them in the possession of their property, and that if the court failed to protect them, Congress should afford the necessary authority to do so.

But, sir, allow me to observe, there was a resolution that I never voted for, and that no man can charge me with ever having voted for. Senators will recollect--and whoever has read the proceedings of the Senate will recollect--that an amendment was offered as a substitute to the fourth resolution, in these words:

"That the existing condition of the Territories does not require the intervention of Congress for the protection of property in slaves."

I did not vote for that resolution; but the Senator from Tennessee did. That amendment was adopted in lieu of the fourth resolution of the series that I have read, which insured protection to slave property in the Territories. It was adopted not entirely by Democratic votes; and that there may be no mistake, I will read what the Senator from Massachusetts said when he moved a reconsideration:

"I wish simply to say that I voted for that resolution because I believed the condition of the Territories requires no such law now or ever, and I do not believe in the enactment of any such law; but my friends on this side of the Chamber have put that resolution in the series; and for myself, I do not wish to be responsible for any portion of these resolutions, and I therefore wish the vote to be reconsidered."

This was the language of the Senator from Massachusetts, when he found that the Republicans, united with some Democrats, had stricken out the fourth resolution of the series, and inserted this as a substitute. I said to Mr. WILSON on that occasion:

"I desire merely to tender my thanks to the honorable Senator from Massachusetts. The series of resolutions, as introduced by the honorable Senator from Mississippi, are germane one to the other. They are a declaration of principles by the Democratic party. This amendment, as the Senator has said correctly, has been fastened on the Democratic resolutions by the votes of the Republican Senators. I feel grateful, indeed, to the Senator for making the motion to reconsider. I hope the vote will be reconsidered, and the resolution voted down."

The motion was put, and on the yeas and nays the vote was reconsidered. I voted for the reconsideration, and I voted against the amendment when it was adopted as a substitute for the fourth resolution. Among those who voted in the affirmative for reconsideration were Messrs. BENJAMIN, BROWN, CHESNUT, CLAY, DAVIS, FITZPATRICK, GREEN, GWIN, HAMMOND, HARLAN, HUNTER, IVERSON, JOHNSON of Arkansas, and LANE. Among those who voted against it, I find JOHNSON of Tennessee. I did not vote to continue in the series a resolution that refused protection to all the people in the common Territories. Portions of the Journal have been paraded to show the vote on Mr. BROWN'S amendment to Mr. CLINGMAN'S amendment. I said, in several speeches, that I should vote against all amendments, because the series had been considered not only here, but in a caucus composed of the Democratic Senators of this body, and we had agreed to take them as a whole, and to vote them through altogether if we had the strength to do so. I voted against every proposition to amend. I voted against Mr. BROWN'S, and I voted against Mr. CLINGMAN'S, and I voted against every other amendment that was calculated to weaken or embarrass the passage of the resolutions. Yet I am represented here as having voted against affording protection to slave property in the Territories! I ask again, if any Senator, if any man who can read, can say that the fourth resolution, for which I did vote and for which I struggled and contended, does not declare that slave property shall be protected in the common Territories of our country.

Could any thing be stronger than the fourth resolution? Could any man desire a more direct declaration of principles than that? Upon the yeas and nays I voted for it. I voted against the amendment that was adopted, and afterwards reconsidered. How, then, can a man arraign me before the country as having said upon oath, on the 25th of May last, that slave property should not be protected in the common Territories with other property? I have always held that all property should be protected, slave as well as other property; that it should have the same protection as, and no more protection than any other property. That they do not secure all this, is the objection I have to the amendments to the Constitution proposed by the Peace Conference. They are ambiguous, loose, and deceptive. I do not know that the people can comprehend them. There will be no certainty under them; and they would, if adopted, result in endless trouble and litigation. I trust no amendments will ever be made to the Constitution, unless they are made upon principles of right, justice, and equality, so that there can be no mistake in construing them hereafter. If we amend the Constitution, let us do it with a view to the peace of the country, with a view to the harmony of the country, with a view to the security of every interest, and of every State in the Union. If we could do that, and this day amend the Constitution so as to provide expressly that every State should have equal rights in the Territories and elsewhere within the Union, this Confederacy would last forever, the States that have left us would come back, and we should have then a great and a lasting Union indeed. Without it, we never can have a permanent Union. We must do something that is clearly right, or the States that have left us will never return. They never ought to return, unless they can have the right of equality secured to them by the Constitution. I claim for my State just that which she is entitled to, and not a particle more. I would concede to the Southern States, that to which they are entitled, and not a particle more. That, they must have, or there can be no peace, no union, no harmony, no security, and no perpetuity of this Confederacy. Such amendments to the Constitution, securing these objects and principles, are indispensable to the maintenance of the Government as it was formed.

Then why not do right? Why not every southern man ask just that which he is entitled to, and no more? He ought to be content with nothing short of what he is entitled to; and if he be, he is untrue to his section and his constituents; untrue to the people whose servant he is; and untrue to the institutions of the country; for the country can exist only upon the triumph of such principles. He who is unwilling to deal fairly by the North and the South, is a man who is guilty of shattering and ruining the Confederacy; destroying the peace and harmony and success of this great experiment of ours.

Mr. President, in the State of Connecticut the Democracy assert the correct principle, and they charge the trouble in the country to the right quarter. I stated, on a former occasion, that the Democracy of old Connecticut would never join the Republican party in any attempt to coerce the Southern States; and I am now authorized by their own declaration to say again, what I said before, that they, like the Democracy of Oregon and of every other Northern State, will never join a party that has refused justice; that has refused equality and right; that has refused to protect property in the Territories, or wherever the jurisdiction of the United States extends, in putting down those who contended for their rights and for the equality to which they were entitled. Sir, the loyal Democracy of this country fully understand the question, and they assert the right.

Now, sir, these great principles were not carried out. The platform on which the Democracy presented their candidates for President and Vice-President was not heeded, though based upon the Constitution. I will say to the Senator who has boasted of his efforts in Tennessee in behalf of the BRECKINRIDGE ticket, that I shall notice that hereafter; but I have only to say now, that, for the sake of the country, I would to God the ticket had succeeded. We should then have had those principles endorsed upon which the Government is established, and the country would have been at peace. For that alone I wished it to succeed.

I will say only a word, now, as to the amendments proposed to the Constitution. I had the pleasure of listening, yesterday, to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. I know his patriotism and his devotion to the Union. I know his willingness to take any thing, however small, however trifling, however little it might be, that would, in his opinion, give peace to the country. Sir, I am actuated by no such feeling. We should never compromise principle nor sacrifice the eternal foundations of justice. Whenever the Democratic party compromised principle it laid the foundation of future troubles for itself and for the country. When we do, then, amend the Constitution, it ought to be in the spirit of right and justice to all men and to all sections. I voted for the Senator's propositions, and I will do so again, if we can get a vote, because there is something in them; something that I could stand by; but there is nothing in the amendments proposed by the Peace Conference. He proposed to establish the line of 36° 30´, and to prohibit slavery north of it and protect it south of it, in all the present territory, or of the territory to be hereafter acquired. In that proposition there was something like justice and right; but there is nothing in the amendments proposed by the Peace Conference that any man, North or South, ought to take. They are a cheat; they are a deception; they are a fraud; they hold out a false idea; and I think, with all due respect to the Senator--for I have the highest regard for him personally--that he is too anxious to heal the trouble that exists in the country. He had better place himself upon the right and stand by it. Let him contend, with me, for the inalienable and constitutional rights of every American citizen. Let him beware of "compromising" away the vital rights, privileges, and immunities of one portion of the country to appease the graceless, unrelenting, and hostile fanaticism of another portion. Let him labor with me, to influence every State to mind its own affairs, and to keep the Territories entirely free to the enterprise of all, with equal security and protection--without invidious distinctions--to the property of every citizen. Thus, and only thus, can we have peace, happiness, and eternal Union.

I could not avoid noticing the anxiety of the Senator from Kentucky to accept any thing, and the readiness of the Senator from Oregon to pledge his people--"my people"--to any thing that he chooses. Now, I know there are many free people in the State of Oregon. They generally do as they please. They have no master. No man owns them; and no man can claim to control them. But this I am warranted in asserting--for I know long, well, and intimately, the gallant men of Oregon--that they will not be found ready or inclined, at the Senator's and his masters beck, to imbrue their hands, in a godless cause, in fraternal gore.

Mr. President, the principles asserted in the resolutions adopted by the Senate, last winter, have not been carried out. We see the consequences. We see a dissevered country and a divided Union. A number of the States have gone off, have formed an independent Government; it is in existence, and the States composing it will never come back to you, unless you say in plain English, in your amendments to the Constitution, that every State in the future Union has an equal right to the Territories and all the protection and blessings of this Government--never! I tell you, sir, although some foolish men and some wicked ones may say I am a disunionist, I am for the Union upon the principles of the Constitution, and not a traitor. None but a coward will even think me a traitor; and if anybody thinks I am, let him test me. This Union could exist upon the principles that I have held and that are set forth in the DAVIS resolutions; but upon no other condition can it exist. Then, sir, disunion is inevitable. It is not going to stop with the seven States that are out. No, sir; my word for it, unless you do something more than is proposed in this proposition, old Virginia will go out too--slothful as she has been, and tardy as she seems in appreciating her own interests and her rights, and kind and generous as she has been in inviting a Peace Congress to agree upon measures of safety for the Union. The time will come, however, when old Virginia will stand trifling and chicanery no longer. Neither will North Carolina suffer it. None of the slave States will endure it; for they cannot separate one from the other, and they will not. They will go out of this Union and into one of their own; forming a great, homogeneous, and glorious Southern Confederacy. It is and it has been, Senators, in your power to prevent this; it is and it has been for you to say (you might to-day, as it is the last day, say so), whether the Union shall be saved or not. I know, that gallant Old Dominion will never put up with less than her rights; and if she would, I should entertain for her contempt. I should feel contempt for her if she were to ask for any thing more than her rights; and so I would if she were to put up with any thing less than her constitutional rights. Then, sir, secession has taken place, and it will go on unless we do right.

Mr. President, in the remarks which I made on the 19th of December last, in reply to the Senator from Tennessee, I took the ground that a State might rightfully secede from the Union when she could no longer remain in it on an equal footing with the other States; in other words, when her continuance as a member of the Confederacy involved the sacrifice of her constitutional rights, safety, and honor. This right I deduced from the theory of equality of the States, upon which rests the whole fabric of our unrivalled system of government--unrivalled, as it came from the hands of its illustrious framers--a model as perfect, perhaps, as human wisdom could devise, securing to all the blessings of civil and religious liberty, when rightly understood and properly administered; but like all other Governments, and even Christianity itself, a most dangerous engine of oppression when, having fallen into the hands of persons strangers to its spirit, and unmindful of the beneficent objects for which it was framed, it is perverted from its high and noble mission to the base uses of a selfish or sectional ambition, or a blind and bigoted fanaticism. I said, on that occasion--referring to this fundamental principle of our Government, the equality of the States--that "as long as this equality be maintained the Union will endure, and no longer." I might here undertake to enforce, by argument and the authority of writers on the nature and purposes of our Government, this, to me, self-evident proposition. But I deem it unnecessary to consume the time of the Senate in discussing that branch of the subject.

I propose, Mr. President, to confine what I have to say in regard to the right of secession to the question, Who must judge whether such right exists, and when it should be exercised? According to the theory of every despotic Government, of ancient or modern times, there is no such right. A province of an empire, how much soever oppressed, is held by the oppressor as an integral part of his dominions. The yoke, once fastened on the neck of the subject, is expected, however galling, to be worn with patience and entire submission to the tyrant's will. This is the theory of despotism. What are its fruits? We have seen, in modern times, some of the bloodiest struggles recorded in history growing out of the assertion by one party, and the denial by the other, of this very right. Hungary undertook to "secede" from the Austrian empire. Her right to do so was denied. She constituted an integral part of the empire--a great "consolidated" nation, as some consider the United States to be. Being an integral part of the empire, according to the theory of the Austrian Government, she must so remain forever. Austria not having the power to enforce an acquiescence in this doctrine, Russian legions were called to her aid; and Hungary, on whose gallant struggle for independence the liberty-loving people of this country looked with so much admiration and sympathy, soon lay prostrate and bleeding at the tyrant's feet. You may call this attempt of Hungary to regain her independence revolution. That is precisely what Austria called it. I call it an effort on her part to peaceably secede--to peaceably dissolve her connection with a Government which, in her judgment, had become intolerably unjust and oppressive. Her oppressors told her it was not her province but theirs, to judge of her alleged grievances; that to acknowledge the right of secession would strike a fatal blow at the integrity of the empire, which could be maintained only by enforcing the perfect obedience of each and every part.

We have, in the recent struggle of the Italian States, an instructive commentary on the now mooted questions of secession and coercion. Indeed, history, through all past ages, is but a record of the efforts of tyrants to prevent the recognition of the doctrine, that a people deeming themselves oppressed might peaceably absolve themselves from allegiance to their oppressors. When our Government was formed, our fathers fondly thought that they had made a great improvement on the despotic systems of modern Europe. They saw the infinite evil resulting from coercing the unwilling obedience of a subject to a Government which he abhorred and detested. They accordingly declared the great truth, never enunciated until then, that "Governments derive all their just power from the consent of the governed." A Government without such consent they held to be a tyranny.

Now, Mr. President, this brings us to the very point in issue. Who is to determine whether this consent is given or withheld? Must it be determined by the ruler? If so, the proposition just stated is an absurdity. Clearly it was the meaning of those who enunciated this great truth, that the subjects of a Government have the right to declare or withhold their consent; otherwise no such right exists. They, and they only, must judge whether their rights are protected or violated. If protected, every consideration of interest and safety impels them to consent to live under a Government which secures the blessings they desire. If, on the other hand, in their judgment, their most sacred rights are violated, interest and honor, and the instinct of self-preservation, all conspire to impel them to withhold their consent; which being withheld, the Government, as far as they are concerned, ceases.

Here I would call the attention of the Senate to the first of the Kentucky resolutions of 1798-'99, written by Mr. JEFFERSON, in which he says distinctly, that the parties to a political compact must judge for themselves of the mode and measure of redress, when they consider the compact violated and their rights invaded:

"Resolved, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that by compact, under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party; that this Government, created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its power; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."

Here Mr. JEFFERSON asserts that a State aggrieved shall judge not only of the mode, but the measure of redress. Is this treason? If the measure of redress extends to secession, how can the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. JOHNSON] do less than denounce the great apostle of liberty--as Mr. JEFFERSON has been called--a traitor?

No less clear and explicit on this point, is the language of Mr. MADISON. Being chairman of a committee to whom the subject was referred--the resolutions having been returned by several of the States--he says in his report:

"It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that where resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the States, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The States, then, being the parties to the Constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated, and consequently that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition."

In the remarks which I made on the 19th of December last, I referred to the fact that Virginia, in accepting the Constitution, declared that the powers granted under that instrument "being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." I referred, also, to the fact that New York had adopted the Constitution upon the same condition and with the same reservation. I may here quote the language of Mr. WEBSTER, distinctly recognizing the right of the people to change their Government whenever their interest or safety require it. He says:

"We see, therefore, from the commencement of the Government under which we live, down to this late act of the State of New York"--

To which he had just referred--

"one uniform current of law, of precedent, and of practice, all going to establish the point that changes in Government are to be brought about by the will of the people, assembled under such legislative provisions as may be necessary to ascertain that will truly and authentically."

If the people of a State, believing themselves oppressed, undertake to establish a Government, independent of that to which they formerly owed allegiance, and the latter interferes with the movement, and employs force to prevent such a consummation, no one who acknowledges the great truth that the basis of all free government is the "consent of the governed," will deny that such interference is an act of usurpation and tyranny. Those only who borrow their ideas of political justice from the despotic codes of Europe, and are more imbued with the spirit of METTERNICH and BOMBA than of JEFFERSON and MADISON, will attempt to justify, palliate, or excuse such violation of the sacred rights of the people. I have observed that often the noisiest champions of popular rights are the first to trample those rights under foot. The word "freedom" is continually on the tongues of gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber; and I believe the Senator from Tennessee has been suspected of a decided leaning to agrarianism, so zealous has he been in advocating the rights, so entirely devoted is he to the interests of the "dear people." But now, when the people of the seceding States have pronounced, in tones of thunder, the fiat which absolves them from allegiance to a Government which they no longer respect or love, these same gentlemen all lift their hands in horror, roll up the whites of their eyes, as did old Lord NORTH many years ago, and exclaim "Treason!" "Treason!" Then, boiling with patriotic rage, they rise up and declare that "this treason must be punished; the laws must be enforced." History tells us that this was the language of King GEORGE and Lord NORTH when the colonies renounced their allegiance to the mother country. The former of these worthies, we are told, spent much of his life in a state of mental darkness--in other words, he was a lunatic. The other received from nature a narrow intellect, and inherited prejudices common to the aristocracy of that period and of all other periods of the world's history. Their errors were the natural offspring of incapacity and the false teaching received in their youth. While, therefore, we cannot admire or approve their conduct, these circumstances incline us more to sorrow than to anger, disarm our resentment, and dispose us to forgive what, under other circumstances, would deserve the severest censure.

But what excuse can we find for the peculiar champions of popular rights in this Chamber; these zealous servants of the people, forever ringing in our ears, "Let the voice of the people be heard; respect the will of the people; vox populi vox Dei!" Sir, I say too, let the voice of the people be heard and respected. And I think, for the sake of consistency with all my past professions as a Democrat, I am bound to respect the declared will of the sovereign States which, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, have seceded from the Union and established a separate and independent Government. Whatever the causes may have been which impelled them to a separation from the other States, I am bound to respect the expression of their sovereign will; and I heartily reprobate the policy of attempting to thwart that will under the pretence of "punishing treason" and "enforcing the laws." We are told that the design is to attempt nothing more than to collect the revenue in the ports of the seceded States. To say nothing of the justice or injustice of the attempt so to do, I ask Senators from the North, and the Senator from Tennessee, will it pay? Will it not be a declaration of war against the seceding States, involving the people of all the States in a long and bloody conflict, ruinous to both sections? Are their ethics not the ethics of the school-boy pugilist, "Knock the chip off my shoulder"?

One of the framers of the Constitution [Mr. MADISON], whose expositions of that instrument all classes, all parties, have heretofore received, and still receive, or pretend to receive, with profound deference and respect, has left on record his views of the injustice, impracticability, and inefficacy of force as a means of coercing States into obedience to Federal authority.

Among the statesmen of the Revolution--those who participated in the formation of our Government--there was no one who had such exalted notions of the power and dignity of the Federal Government, as the great HAMILTON. He was a consolidationist. The advocates of coercion might naturally expect to obtain "aid and comfort" from the recorded declarations of one of his peculiar political faith. But an examination of his writings will show, that instead of favoring coercion, instead of being the advocate of force, he was the advocate of leniency and conciliation towards refractory States, and deprecated a resort to force as madness and folly.

If the great names of MADISON and HAMILTON have not sufficient weight to restrain the madness of those who urge a coercive policy against the seceding States, then, indeed, I see no escape from that most dreadful of all calamities which can befall a nation--civil war. If those in this Chamber who talk so flippantly of war, had seen, as it has been my lot to see, some of its actual horrors, they might, perhaps, heed the warnings and respect the counsels of the sages and patriots whose language I have quoted. They would at least refrain from ungenerous insinuations against the patriotism of those northern Democrats, who, like myself, reprobate the policy of coercion as destructive of the peace, the prosperity, and happiness of every part of the country, north as well as south.

But to return to the remarks of the Senator from Tennessee. In the pamphlet report of his speech, page 7, JEFFERSON is quoted; but the concluding part of the quotation is repeated in the Globe report and not in that of the pamphlet. That part is:

"When two parties make a compact, there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it."

JEFFERSON is here quoted to show that the Confederation has a power to enforce its articles on delinquent States. But the citation is unfortunate for the Senator from Tennessee. He had just previously asserted that Vermont and other States had, by personal liberty bills, violated the Constitution. Well; can he tell us how Virginia and South Carolina could enforce the Constitution on Vermont in that respect? It cannot be done. What follows? Why, as Mr. WEBSTER said at Capon Springs, "a compact broken by one party is broken as to all." Hence, according to the doctrines of JEFFERSON and WEBSTER as to the actual case which, according to the Senator, has occurred, the compact having been broken, the Southern States have a right to retire--are absolved from further obligations under the constitutional compact.

The Senator complains that I replied at all, as I was a northern Senator, and a Democrat whom he had supported at the last election for a high office. Now, I was, as I stated at the time, surprised at the Senator's speech--because I understood it to be for coercion, as I think it was by almost everybody else, except, as we are now told, by the Senator himself; and I still think it amounted to a coercion speech, notwithstanding the soft and plausible phrases by which he describes it--a speech for the execution of the laws and the protection of the Federal property. Sir, if there is, as I contend, the right of secession, then, whenever a State exercises that right, this Government has no laws in that State to execute, nor has it any property in any such State that can be protected by the power of this Government. In attempting, however, to substitute the smooth phrases of "executing the laws" and "protecting public property" for coercion, for civil war, we have an important concession, i.e., that this Government dare not go before the people with a plain avowal of its real purposes, and of their consequences. No, sir; the policy is to inveigle the people of the North into civil war, by masking the design in smooth and ambiguous terms.

Now, sir, I want it distinctly understood, as I have already shown, that during the last session I stood firmly by the DAVIS resolutions. I voted against every amendment. I voted against an amendment that he voted for, because I believed it was partial, and did not do justice.

But the Senator from Tennessee proceeded with an air and tone of great triumph to bring forward my vote on the amendments proposed to the DAVIS resolutions. I think I have said all that it is necessary for me to say upon that subject. I have shown that I have voted for them under all circumstances, and against every amendment. Those resolutions assert the right of property in the Territories, and that when the courts fail to afford protection, then it is the duty of Congress to come forward and provide that protection. I wished to put slave property upon the same footing as other property. That is where I then stood, where I now stand, and where I intend to stand. The Senator asks, with a kind of triumphant air, what has happened since that day? Mr. President, I have said that I have done all in my power, by standing firm to the resolutions agreed to by the Democratic party, to afford protection. The Senator misrepresented my vote on those resolutions. I never voted against the DAVIS resolutions, nor did their substitute ever come up as a separate proposition. It was an amendment to one of that series of resolutions I voted against; and I would vote against any thing and every thing that would embarrass their passage, for they contained just what I thought was right.

What has happened since? Why, a thing has happened that never happened before. The denial of any and all protection to slave property in any and in all the territory; the denial of the right to take slave property to any of them has been proclaimed and affirmed at the ballot-box by a majority of the States, and a majority of the electoral votes of this Union. What has happened? Why, the thing has happened that has been three times before attempted, and three times before failed; the first attempt having endangered the formation of the Union, and the second and third its continuance. The first attempt was made in 1784, to exclude slavery from all the Territories. It was abandoned in 1787 by excluding it only from the territory northwest of the Ohio, leaving it to colonize that portion southwest of that river. The same thing was again attempted in 1820, as to the territory acquired from Louisiana; and after a terrible agitation, was abandoned by adopting the Missouri line. The third attempt was made in 1850, as to the territory acquired from Mexico; and then also the Union narrowly escaped destruction; but the compromise measures were adopted. And now it comes again, but in a more formidable way than ever. A President has been elected on that issue; for the first time the people of the North, after all previous compromises and warnings, have voted on the question, and every Northern State has pronounced for the spoliation.

Mr. President, perhaps the most signal instance of the evils of compulsory union between dissimilar people, is that of Ireland and England. The people of Ireland--the home and heritage of my ancestors--have, as the South has, a representation in the national Legislature; but being also, as the South is, in a minority in that body, have no power to protect themselves from the aggressions of England. The consequence is, that they have been excluded from the common benefits of British legislation, commercially, and even religiously, to say nothing of their exclusion from official station in the empire. And, accordingly, Ireland has been impoverished, degraded, and discontented. She has been trampled upon, outraged, insulted, treated like Cinderella. The people of this country have always sympathized with the wrongs of Ireland, and her struggles for independence. Yet there is now a greater difference between the people of the South and of the North than between those of England and Ireland, and greater antagonism of opinion and feeling. Nevertheless, it is proposed to hold the South in political subjection to the North, and for that purpose to employ naval and military force.

Sir, I might mention many other cases: the subjection of Greece to Turkey; of Poland to Russia; of the Netherlands to Spain; Italy to Austria. In all these cases we have sympathized with, and, in many of them aided, the secession from the common government, by contributions and individual service. Yet those Governments were not founded on consent, and there was no compact conceding the right of secession.

Sir, in conclusion, whether the course the seceding States have seen fit to take be right or not, is a question which we must leave to posterity, and the verdict of impartial history. Our time will probably be more profitably employed in considering how we shall deal with secession than in discussing the causes which have produced it. Secession, right or wrong, justifiable or unjustifiable, is an accomplished fact; and it presents to us no less an alternative than that of peace or war. Sir, I believe that, in the general ruin which would follow coercive measures against the seceding states, all sections, all classes, all the great interests of the country, without any exception, would be involved. How much better, Mr. President, that, in so fearful a crisis as the present, instead of passing "force bills," and preparing for war, instead of "breathing threatenings and slaughter," and preparing implements of destruction to be used against our brethren of the South, how much better, I say, for ourselves, for posterity, for the cause of civil liberty throughout the world, that our thoughts should be turned on peace? Peace, not war, has brought our country to the high degree of prosperity it now enjoys. The energies of the people up to this time have been directed to the development of our boundless resources, to the mechanic arts, to agriculture, mining, trade, and commerce with foreign nations. Banish peace, turn these mighty energies of the people to the prosecution of the dreadful work of mutual destruction, and soon cities in ruins, fields desolate, the deserted marts of trade, the silent workshops, gaunt famine stalking through the land, the earth cumbered with the bodies of the dying and the dead, will bear awful testimony to the madness and wickedness which, from the very summit of prosperity and happiness, are plunging us headlong into an abyss of woe.

Sir, in God's name, let us have peace! If we cannot have it in the Union, as it existed prior to November last, let us have it by cultivating friendly relations with those States which have dissolved their connection with that Union, and established a separate government. Though we and they may not, and, perhaps, in the nature of things, cannot live harmoniously under the same Government, it is our interest, no less than theirs, that we should at once endeavor to establish between our Government and theirs those amicable relations which should ever exist between two neighboring Republics. War, with its attendant horrors, being thus happily averted, the people of each Republic will be left at liberty to pursue, undisturbed, their several vocations. A mutually advantageous commerce will grow up between the two nations; treaties, such as regulate our intercourse with the Canadas, will be formed; confidence in all branches of business will be restored; a new impetus given to every variety of industry; the march of improvement accelerated, and the cause of humanity, of civilization, and of Christianity, advanced throughout the world. The people of Europe, accustomed to refer the settlement of their slightest differences to the bloody arbitrament of the sword, will behold with silent wonder and amazement the spectacle of a great people unable to agree in reference to one of their peculiar domestic institutions, peacefully separating, as did the patriarchs of old; resolving themselves into two distinct political communities, not hostile, discordant, belligerent; but each, animated with a spirit of generous rivalry toward the other, pursuing a more successful and prosperous career in its own chosen path, than when, united under the same Federal head, they painfully sought together the same common destiny.

Mr. President, we are living at a day and at a time when a Northern sectional party have obtained possession of the power of this great Government, who have declared in their platform, in their speeches everywhere, and in their press, that slavery shall never go into another foot of territory; that no other slave State shall ever be admitted into this Union; that slavery shall be put in the course of ultimate extinction. We have the announcement of the party that the foot of a slave shall never press the soil of one of the Territories; that no new slave State shall be admitted; and, in addition to that, that no slave State shall go out of the Union. Who ever saw such a party as that? Who ever knew any thing like it in the world before? They will not let slavery go into the Territories; they will not let a slave State come in; and they will not let one go out! They will not let them go out because they could not carry out their programme of placing slavery in the course of ultimate extinction. They want to keep the slave States in for their benefit--to foot the bills, to pay the taxes--that they may govern them as they see fit, and rule them against their will. Well, sir, I wish to say one word to that party, in all kindness; for I shall not trouble them again on this subject. I shall be a private, independent citizen before long. But I will say to that party, they had better change their tactics; they had better change front, and do it speedily. Let them place themselves upon the high ground of right and justice, and adopt such amendments to the Constitution as will not only hold old Kentucky, which has produced the greatest "compromiser" of us all--that good old State where I was raised, and that I am proud of--but the other Southern States also. I am afraid Republicanism will not do this. I know those old Kentucky people from terrace to foundation. They will endure much--very much--peaceably and quietly; but if they are goaded too far; if, by repeated wrongs, they are compelled to fight, then I would say to their enemy "beware!" There are chivalry and patriotism in Kentucky which is neither in the power of accident nor nature to subdue. You had better not press them too far. Do not drive them to the goal of last resort. Give them justice while you have it in your power to do so. Satisfy them that ultimately they shall have equality in this broken Government, or Union, if you will. But, sir, I leave the patching up of the Constitution to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky and other gentlemen, especially my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. BIGLER], who has labored harder to patch up the Constitution than any man I ever knew, except my friend from Kentucky, and I wish him God speed in the work. Let it be upon just principles; let it be right; let us have justice; and I shall be content.

Now, Mr. President, I have paid all the attention to the attempt that was made to place me in the wrong that I deem necessary. I can only now repeat, in the conclusion of my speech, that neither the Senator from Tennessee, nor any other Senator, nor can any man, tell the truth and say that I have, by any vote, word, or act of mine, at any time or on any occasion, refused protection to all property alike in the Territories. I have made it a point always. Indeed, the doctrine of the equal right of property, whether slave or any other, in the Territories, and its equal right to protection, is as strong in me as life itself. I have never uttered a word against that principle; but I have said, upon all occasions, that that doctrine must be maintained, or this Union could not stand. I have fought for it; but as I said in the outset, while I deeply deplore the condition of the country, it has been caused by no act of mine. And with this remark, I part with him, who, in imitation of Esau, seeks to sell his birthright. I would, if there was time, give a little advice to all sides, to every Senator on this floor. I would say: Senators come up to the great importance of this question; meet it; adopt, by a two-thirds vote--as we could do if Senators would deal rightly--amendments to the Constitution, placing all the States upon an equality in the Territories, and on every other question; submit them to the people; and by such amendments I believe we could prevent, or stop, a further rupture of this Union.

In a reply to the speech of Senator LANE of Oregon, the following remarks on secession, coercion, the Territorial question, and the Peace Conference propositions, are furnished by

Senator JOHNSON, of Tennessee:--Mr. President, it is painful for me to be compelled, at this late hour of the session, to occupy any of the time of the Senate upon the subject that has just been discussed by the Senator from Oregon. Had it not been for the extraordinary speech he has made, and the singular course he has taken, I should forbear from saying one word at this late hour of the day and of the session. But, sir, it must be apparent, not only to the Senate but to the whole country, that, either by accident or by design, there has been an arrangement that any one who appeared in this Senate to vindicate the Union of these States should be attacked. Why is it that no one, in the Senate or out of it, who is in favor of the Union of these States, has made an attack upon me? Why has it been left to those who have taken both open and secret ground in violation of the Constitution, for the disruption of the Government? Why has there been a concerted attack upon me from the beginning of this discussion to the present moment, not even confined to the ordinary courtesies of debate and of senatorial decorum? It is a question which lifts itself above personalities. I care not from what direction the Senator comes who indulges in personalities toward me; in that, I feel that I am above him, and that he is my inferior. [Applause in the galleries.] Mr. President, they are not arguments; they are the resort of men whose minds are low and coarse. Cowper has well said:

"A truly sensible, well-bred man Will not insult me; no other can."

Sir, have we reached a point at which we cannot talk about treason? Our forefathers talked about it; they spoke of it in the Constitution of the country; they have defined what treason was; is it an offence, is it a crime, is it an insult to recite the Constitution that was made by WASHINGTON and his compatriots? What does the Constitution say:

"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

There it is defined clearly that treason shall consist only in levying war against the United States, and adhering to and giving aid and comfort to their enemies. Who is it that has been engaged in conspiracies? Who is it that has been engaged in making war upon the United States? Who is it that has fired upon our flag? Who is it that has given instructions to take our arsenals, to take our forts, to take our dock-yards, to take the public property? In the language of the Constitution of the United States, have not those who have been engaged in it been guilty of treason? We make a fair issue. Show me who has been engaged in these conspiracies, who has fired upon our flag, has given instructions to take our forts and our custom-houses, our arsenals and our dock-yards, and I will show you a traitor. [Applause in the galleries.]

Mr. President, if individuals were pointed out to me who were engaged in nightly conspiracies, in secret conclaves, and issuing orders directing the capture of our forts and the taking of our custom-houses, I would show who were the traitors; and that being done, the persons pointed out coming within the purview and scope of the provision of the Constitution which I have read, were I the President of the United States, I would do as THOMAS JEFFERSON did, in 1806, with AARON BURR; I would have them arrested, and, if convicted, within the meaning and scope of the Constitution, by the Eternal GOD I would execute them. Sir, treason must be punished. Its enormity and the extent and depth of the offence must be made known. The time is not distant, if this Government is preserved, its Constitution obeyed, and its laws executed in every department, when something of this kind must be done.

The Senator from Oregon, in his remarks, said that a mind that it required six weeks to stuff could not know much of any thing. He intimated that I had been stuffed. I made my speech on the 19th of December. The gentleman replied. I made another speech, and now he has replied again; and how long has he been "stuffing"? How often has he been "stuffed"? [Laughter.] He has been stuffed twice; and if the stuffing operation was as severe and laborious as the delivery has been, he has had a troublesome time of it, for his travail has been great and the delivery remarkable. [Laughter.]

We know how the Senator stands upon popular or squatter sovereignty. On that subject he spoke at Concord, New Hampshire, where he maintained that the inhabitants of the Territories were the best judges; that they were the very people to settle all these questions; but when he came here, at the last Congress, he could make a speech in which he repeated, I cannot tell how many times, "the equality of the States, the rights of the States in the Union, and their rights out of the Union;" and he thus shifted his course. If the conflict between his speech made in Concord in 1856, and his speech made here on the 25th day of May last, can be reconciled, according to all rules of construction, it is fair to reconcile the conflict. If the discrepancy is so great between his speech made then and his speech on the 25th of May last, of course the discrepancy is against him; but I am willing to let one speech set off the other, and to make honors easy, so far as speech-making is concerned.

Then, how does the matter stand? There is one speech one way, and there is another speech the other way. Now, we will come to the sticking point. You have seen the equivocation to-day. You have seen the cuttle fish attempt to becloud the water and elude the grasp of his pursuer. I intend to stick to you here to-day, as close and as tight as what I think I have heard called somewhere "Jew David's Adhesive Plaster." How does your vote stand as compared with your speeches? Your speeches being easy, I shall throw in the scale against you the weight of what you swore. How does that matter stand? I intend to refer to the record. By referring to the record, it will be found that Mr. CLINGMAN offered the following as an amendment to the fourth resolution of the series introduced by Mr. DAVIS:

"Resolved, That the existing condition of the Territories of the United States does not require the intervention of Congress for the protection of property in slaves."

What was the vote on the amendment proposed to that resolution by Mr. BROWN, to strike out the word "not." I want the Senator's attention, for I am going to stick to him, and if he can get away from me he has got to obliterate the records of his country. How would it read, to strike out the word "not."

"That the existing condition of the Territories of the United States does require the intervention of Congress for the protection of property in slaves."

Among those who voted against striking out the word "not," who declared that protection of slavery in the Territories by legislation of Congress was unnecessary, was the Senator from Oregon. When was that? On the 25th day of May last. The Senator, under the oath of his office, declared that legislation was not necessary. Now where do we find him? Here is a proposition to amend the Constitution, to protect the institution of slavery in the States, and here is the proposition brought forward by the Peace Conference, and we find the Senator standing against the one, and I believe he recorded his vote against the other.

But, let us travel along. We have only applied one side of this plaster. The Senator voted that it was not necessary to legislate by Congress for the protection of slave property. Mr. BROWN then offered the amendment to the resolution submitted by Mr. DAVIS, to strike out all after the word "resolved," and to insert in lieu thereof:

"That experience having already shown that the Constitution and the common law, unaided by statutory enactment, do not afford adequate and sufficient protection to slave property--some of the Territories having failed, others having refused, to pass such enactments--it has become the duty of Congress to interpose, and pass such laws as will afford to slave property in the Territories that protection which is given to other kinds of property."

We have heard a great deal said here to-day of "other kinds," and every description of property. There is a naked, clear proposition. Mr. BROWN says it is needed; that the court and the common law do not give ample protection; and then the Senator from Oregon is called upon; but what is his vote? We find, in the vote upon this amendment, that but three Senators voted for it; and the Senator from Oregon records his vote, and says "no," it shall not be established; and every Southern man, save three, voted against it also. When was that? On the 25th day of May last. Here is an amendment, now, to protect and secure the States against any encroachment upon the institution within the States; and there the Senator from Oregon swore that no further legislation was necessary to protect it in the Territories. Well, his speeches in honors being easy, and he having sworn to it in the last Congress, I am inclined to take his oath in preference to his speeches, and one is a fair set-off against the other. Then, all the amendments being voted down, the Senate came to the vote upon this resolution:

"That if experience should at any time prove that the judicial and executive authority do not possess means to insure adequate protection to constitutional rights in a Territory, and if the territorial government should fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency, within the limits of its constitutional powers."

Does not the resolution proceed upon the idea that it was not necessary then; but if, hereafter, the Territories should refuse, and the courts and the common law could not give ample protection, then it would be the duty of Congress to do this thing? What has transpired since the 25th day of May last? Is not the decision of the court with us? Is there not the Constitution carrying it there? Why was not this resolution, declaring protection necessary, passed during the last Congress? The Presidential election was on hand.

I have been held up and indirectly censured, because I have stood by the people; because I have advocated those measures that are sometimes called demagogical. I would to GOD that we had a few more men here who were for the people in fact, and who would legislate in conformity with their will and wishes. If we had, the difficulties and dangers that surround us now, would be postponed and set aside; they would not be upon us. But in May last, we could not vote that it was necessary to pass a slave code for the Territories. Oh, no; the Presidential election was on hand. We were very willing then to try to get northern votes; to secure their influence in the passage of resolutions; and to crowd some men down, and let others up. It was all very well then; but since the people have determined that somebody else should be President of the United States, all at once the grape has got to be very sour, and gentlemen do not have as good an opinion of the people as they had before; we have changed our views about it. They have not thought quite as well of us as we desired they should; and if I could not get to be President or Vice-President of all these United States, rather than miss it altogether, I would be perfectly willing to be President of a part; and therefore we will divide--yes, we will divide. I am in favor of secession; of breaking up the Union; of having the rights of the States out of the Union; and as I signally failed in being President of all, as the people have decided against me, we have reached that precise point of time at which the Government ought to be broken up. It looks a little that way.

I have no disposition now, in concluding what little I am going to say, to mutilate the dead, or add one single additional pang to the tortures of the already politically damned. I am a humane man; I will not add one pang to the intolerable sufferings of the distinguished Senator from Oregon. [Laughter.] I sought no controversy with him; I have made no issue with him; it has been forced upon me. How many have attacked me; and is there a single man, North or South, who is in favor of this glorious Union, who has dared to make an assault on me? Is there one? No; not one. But it is all from secession; it is all from that usurpation where a reign of terror has been going on.

I repeat, again, the Senator has made a set-to on me. I am satisfied if he is. I am willing that his speech and mine shall go to the country, and let an intelligent people read and understand, and see who is right and who is wrong on this great issue.

But, sir, I alluded to the fact that secession has been brought about by usurpation. During the last forty days, six States of this Confederacy have been taken out of the Union; how? By the voice of the people? No; it is demagogism to talk of the people. By the voice of the freemen of the country? No. By whom has it been done? Have the people of South Carolina passed upon the ordinance adopted by their Convention? No; but a system of usurpation was instituted, and a reign of terror inaugurated. How was it in Georgia? Have the people there passed upon the ordinance of secession? No. We know that there was a powerful party there, of passive, conservative men, who have been overslaughed, borne down; and tyranny and usurpation have triumphed. A convention passed an ordinance to take the State out of the Confederacy; and the very same convention appointed delegates to go to a congress to make a constitution, without consulting the people. So with Louisiana; so with Mississippi; so with all the six States which have undertaken to form a new Confederacy. Have the people been consulted? Not in a single instance. We are in the habit of saying that man is capable of self-government; that he has the right, the unquestioned right, to govern himself; but here, a government has been assumed over him; it has been taken out of his hands, and at Montgomery a set of usurpers are enthroned, legislating, and making constitutions and adopting them, without consulting the freemen of the country. Do we not know it to be so? Have the people of Alabama, of Georgia, of any of those States, passed upon it? No; but a Constitution is adopted by those men, with a provision that it may be changed by a vote of two-thirds. Four votes in a convention of six, can change the whole organic law of a people constituting six States. Is not this a coup d'état equal to any of Napoleon? Is it not a usurpation of the people's rights? In some of those States, even our Stars and our Stripes have been changed. One State has a palmetto, another has a pelican, and the last that I can enumerate on this occasion, is one State that has the rattlesnake run up as an emblem. On a former occasion I spoke of the origin of secession; and I traced its early history to the garden of Eden, when the serpent's wile and the serpent's wickedness beguiled and betrayed our first mother. After that occurred, and they knew light and knowledge, when their Lord and Master turned to them, they seceded, and hid themselves from his presence. The serpent's wile, and the serpent's wickedness, first started secession; and now, secession brings about a return of the serpent. Yes, sir; the wily serpent, the rattlesnake, has been substituted as the emblem on the flag of one of the seceding States; and that old flag, the Stars and the Stripes, under which our fathers fought and bled and conquered, and achieved our rights and our liberties, is pulled down and trailed in the dust, and the rattlesnake substituted. Will the American people tolerate it? They will be indulgent; time, I think, is wanted, but they will not submit to it.

A word more in conclusion. Give the Border States that security which they desire, and the time will come when the other States will come back; when they will be brought back--how? Not by the coercion of the Border States, but by the coercion of the people; and those leaders who have taken them out will fall beneath the indignation and the accumulating force of that public opinion which will ultimately crush them. The gentlemen who have taken those States out are not the men to bring them back.

I have already suggested that the idea may have entered into some minds, "if we cannot get to be President and Vice-President of the whole United States, we may divide the Government, set up a new establishment, have new offices, and monopolize them ourselves when we take our States out." Here we see a President made, a Vice-President made, cabinet officers appointed, and yet the great mass of the people not consulted, nor their assent obtained in any manner whatever. The people of the country ought to be aroused to this condition of things; they ought to buckle on their armor; and, as Tennessee has done (GOD bless her!), by the exercise of the elective franchise, by going to the ballot-box under a new set of leaders, they will repudiate and put down those men who have carried these States out and usurped a Government over their heads. I trust in GOD that the old flag of the Union will never be struck. I hope it may long wave, and that we may long hear the national air sung:

"The star-spangled banner, long may it wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

Long may we hear old Hail Columbia, that good old national air, played on all our martial instruments! long may we hear, and never repudiate, the old tune of Yankee Doodle! Long may wave that gallant old flag which went through the Revolution, and which was borne by Tennessee and Kentucky at the battle of New Orleans, upon that soil the right to navigate the Mississippi near which they are now denied. Upon that bloody field the Stars and Stripes waved in triumph; and, in the language of another, the Goddess of Liberty hovered around when "the rocket's red glare" went forth, indicating that the battle was raging, and watched the issue; and the conflict grew fierce, and the issue was doubtful; but when, at length, victory perched upon your Stars and your Stripes, it was then, on the plains of New Orleans, that the Goddess of Liberty made her loftiest flight, and proclaimed victory in strains of exultation. Will Tennessee ever desert the grave of him who bore it in triumph, or desert the flag that he waved with success? No; we were in the Union before some of these States were spoken into existence; and we intend to remain in, and insist upon--as we have the confident belief we shall get--all our constitutional rights and protection in the Union, and under the Constitution of the country. [Applause in the galleries.]

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. FITCH in the chair):--It will become the unpleasant but imperative duty of the Chair to clear the galleries.

Mr. JOHNSON, of Tennessee:--I have done.

[The applause was renewed, and was louder and more general than before. Hisses were succeeded by applause, and cheers were given and reiterated, with "three cheers more for JOHNSON."]

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Sergeant-at-Arms will immediately clear the galleries, and the order will not be rescinded.

The order having been executed by clearing the galleries and locking the doors leading to them, the Presiding Officer announced that the business of the Senate would be proceeded with.

The Senate, having disposed of several bills, was about to take action on a proposed amendment to the House resolutions, when the Peace Conference amendments were adverted to as follows:

Mr. MASON:--Now, I desire to say a word. There was a commission from twenty or twenty-one States summoned here by the State of Virginia to take into consideration the state of the country, and they have proposed an elaborate amendment to the Constitution, which they ask this body, in connection with the other House, to refer to the States. That has been under consideration for two days; no vote has been taken upon it; and the Senator from Illinois now proposes to postpone that in order to give precedence to a resolution from the House of Representatives proposing to amend the Constitution by prohibiting Congress from interfering with slavery in the States. His motion is, at this stage of the session, to put aside any further consideration of this amendment to the Constitution proposed by that Peace Conference, presented in the impressive manner in which it was done by the honorable Senator from Kentucky, in order to give precedence to this joint resolution of the House on this the last day of the session. Sir, I shall vote against giving it that precedence. I think it is due not only to those honorable gentlemen who came here and have submitted to us the result of their labors that we should give it that precedence, but I feel that it is due to the State of Virginia, who invited the Conference, that no precedence should be given over it. For that reason, I shall vote against it.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--I am glad to find that the Senator from Virginia has become such a warm advocate of the report of the Peace Conference. How many hours is it since we heard him denounce it as unworthy the consideration of Southern men or of this country? How long is it since these denunciations were ringing in our ears? We do not hear the praises of the Peace Conference sounded until we are about to get a vote on another proposition to pacify the country; and for fear we may have a vote that will quiet the apprehensions of the Southern States in respect to the designs of the North to change the Constitution, so as to interfere with slavery in the States, we find now that the Peace Conference is to be pushed forward, to defeat this. Sir, if he is a friend of the proposition of the Peace Conference, let him act with me and sit as long as I will in urging it upon the Senate. I am for both; but this one is within our reach. We can close this much in five minutes. We should have had it passed before this time, if the Senator from Virginia had not interposed objections. If the amendment to the Constitution which furnishes guarantees to the border slave States fail, it will be the result of the efforts of the Senator from Virginia. My object is to take that up; we can dispose of it in a very few minutes; and then, when we have secured thus much, we will proceed immediately to take up the report of the Peace Conference; and I tell the Senator from Virginia he will find me standing here adhering to it as long as he will; and when the vote comes, I think I shall show that I am as friendly to it as he; and that I have as much respect for and appreciation of the services of the great men who reported it.

Mr. MASON:--The Senator from Illinois and I construe our duties in a very different way. I have no parliamentary ends to obtain here by dexterous motions to give preference. The Senator has never heard me express the slightest approbation of these resolutions from the Peace Conference. On the contrary, he has heard me point out, with whatever ability I might, the objections that would compel me to vote against them. I intend to vote against them; but I deem it due to the character of these resolutions, and the way in which they were brought before the Senate, that their precedence should not be taken from them, and that we should have the first vote upon them. The Senator from Illinois will not find me taking back one word that I have said of objection to the resolutions that came from the Peace Conference; but I protest against their precedence being taken from them--a matter which has engaged the attention of the Senate for the last two hours to effect it. Now that it is done, I shall vote against the motion to give precedence. The resolutions of the Peace Conference should not be thrust aside by this resolution of the House; but that is the motion now before us, to thrust aside these resolutions in order to give place to the resolution of the House, and I shall vote against it.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I shall pursue, on this occasion, the course I have pursued throughout. My object is to attain a great end, and, if possible, to give entire satisfaction to the country, and restore it to peace and quiet, or to go as far in that direction as it is in my power to go. I shall vote to take up the resolution of the House, because we can act upon it immediately. I am an advocate of the resolutions from the Peace Conference. I have shown it; I have expressed it, and my determination to vote for them, and so I will; but I confess that I feel somewhat as the gentleman from Illinois does--surprised at the great zeal with which gentlemen want to keep up these propositions merely to strike a blow at others, claiming a precedence for a thing they mean to trample and spit upon.

Mr. MASON:--It has precedence, if the Senator will allow me, and he took it from it.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--And he wants to continue that precedence. Sir, the way to manifest respect for their proposition is to vote for it. I do not understand this sort of proceeding on the part of gentlemen who desire to afford any means of pacification to the country. I am for this resolution of the House of Representatives; and I hope the Senate will vote to take it up. We can act upon it, and we can vote upon it, and we know well that we cannot pass these propositions of the Peace Conference. There are but two hours more of session in the other House--from ten to twelve o'clock on Monday morning. I cannot indulge in a hope, sanguine as I have been throughout, of the passage of those resolutions; and, indeed, the opposition here, and the opposition on this [the Democratic] side of the Chamber to those resolutions, are confirmation strong as Holy Writ that they cannot pass. Do gentlemen want to press them forward in order to prevent a vote on this resolution of the House? I hope not. I hope the motion of the gentleman from Illinois will prevail, and that we shall take up the House resolution.

Mr. BAYARD:--Mr. President, I have forborne to take any part in this discussion about the merits of any of these propositions before the Senate, nor do I intend to do so now. I shall reserve what I may have to say to another occasion. I shall not occupy the time of the Senate now. I shall vote against this motion, because, while I feel I do no injustice to others, I must necessarily exercise my own opinions. I consider the resolution passed by the House of Representatives as not worth the paper on which it is written, for the purpose of adjusting the difficulties in this country. I shall not detain the Senate by any attempt to give the reasons. Sufficient for me to state the ground of my objection, why I shall not vote to give preference to a resolution which, as it stands, I think will lead to no attainable result as regards peace or quiet in the country. As regards the other propositions, for which it is sought to be substituted, I express no opinion now, except to say, they are not exactly those that I should have preferred; but that I would gladly and willingly vote to adopt the distinct resolutions offered originally by the Senator from Kentucky. As to attaining a vote and disposing of this House resolution at once, of course, as I do not attach any importance to the measure, if passed, for the purpose for which it is to be passed, that would be a sufficient answer; but further, it will not stop debate, and it cannot prevent amendments. Amendments may be made; one substitute after another may be offered, and you can be led into debate quite as much as on the other. I would rather see the other proposition discussed; and on the whole, not thinking the particular resolution of the House entitled to preference as being of any great importance, I am not disposed to give it precedence.

Mr. SEBASTIAN, in speaking on the House resolutions, said: "It is now past four o'clock in the morning of the 4th of March, and it is evident, from obvious causes, that it is utterly impossible that any expression of preference for any other resolution than this can now have any effect, or receive even the notice of the House of Representatives."

At different stages of the proceedings of the Senate, in proposing and voting in relation to various amendments, the following among other things said and done, occurred with reference to the Report of the Peace Conference:

Mr. JOHNSON, of Arkansas:--I beg leave to offer as an amendment, and I presume it will be the last, the propositions submitted by the Peace Conference. I offer them not with a belief that they will be accepted or sustained at all. I should be glad to see even that step taken by the party who are to have, and who, in point of fact, do have possession of this Government. I offer them for the purpose of obtaining a vote upon them. I offer them, stating frankly that I shall not vote for them. I offer them with the conviction that there is between the Representatives on the other side of the Chamber, and those on the southern side, an irreconcilable difference; and it ought to be proclaimed, and it ought to be made frank and unmistakable. I offer it because it evolves truth. There is nothing left here to this Senate, on this the last night of the session, but this: to declare to the American people what is true, in order that they may know it, and may prepare themselves to meet it; that they may prepare, if they can, to reconcile it with peace, or to reconcile it to themselves; to stand by all the sorrowful consequences that shall otherwise come. This is the reason why I present this amendment. I believed when I voted for them that the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky were fair, were just to the people of the South, and to my own State among that number; and it is but honest that I should say now in presenting this amendment, that I consider these propositions a thousand fathoms beneath the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky.

It is in that condition that I offer this amendment. I hope Senators will have the courage and the nerve, if they have faith in and regard for their constituents, to whom they have taught their doctrines heretofore, to adhere to them and to stick to them now; and while they will vote against this amendment, I will stand by them also and vote against it, as one person who for fourteen years has represented his State in one or the other branch of this Congress. In saying this, I say it as the last act of my political life, and it is one upon which I put my faith, and on which I would put the last hope I have on earth. I know from the bottom of my soul that I am not averse to the continuation and the preservation of the present Union of States, which I have always considered sanctifies the continent of North America to peace and to prosperity forever. I feel from the bottom of my heart that whenever it shall be divided, it will be given up, from petty causes, and from petty irritations and misapprehensions, to the contingencies of war and the contingencies of blood and disaster, which have followed the divisions and separations of every other continent in the whole wide world.

Then, Mr. President, I offer this amendment from the conviction that common honesty of purpose, and the common frankness of men of nerve and of honor, will give us one vote to show that there is among us an irreconcilable difference, or that will give hope to those who, like the Senator from Kentucky, it seems to me, can hope against hope, that there is something to be done. I cannot believe that any thing is gained by this resolution. I cannot conceive that the proposition of the House gives security to my people. I will not stop to comment upon it, and to show why it is that I cannot vote for it. I sincerely hope that we may have a vote of the Senate upon the amendment I now offer; and I call for the yeas and nays upon it.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. JOHNSON, of Tennessee:--I wish merely to repeat again, before the yeas and nays are called on this amendment, that I shall vote against this, as I have voted against all preceding amendments, with the distinct understanding that I am not committed for or against any proposition contained in those amendments. I hope we shall vote them all down.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--I will merely state that when we have disposed of this resolution, I hope we shall take up the Peace Conference propositions immediately, and get through with them.

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. CRITTENDEN (when his name was called):--I desire to say that, although preferring this amendment, I shall vote against it, as I have against all others, in order to pass it as it came to us from the House.

Mr. JOHNSON, of Arkansas:--I should like to have made a further explanation; but I will not do it. I vote "nay."

The result was then announced--yeas 3, nays 34; as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Foot, Nicholson, and Pugh--3.

NAYS.--Messrs. Anthony, Baker, Bigler, Bingham, Bright, Chandler, Clark, Crittenden, Dixon, Doolittle, Douglas, Durkee, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harlan, Hunter, Johnson of Arkansas, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, King, Latham, Mason, Morrill, Polk, Rice, Sebastian, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wigfall, Wilkinson, and Wilson--34.

So the amendment was rejected.

Other amendments--of which some were approved and some rejected--were offered to the joint resolutions, and, finally, the proposals of amendments to the Constitution from the Conference Convention were again brought forward in this manner:

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I intend to be perfectly consistent in my course on this subject. I look upon the result of the deliberations of the Peace Congress, as they call it here, as affording the best opportunity for a general concurrence among the States and among the people. I determined to take it in preference to my own proposition, and so stated to many of the members of that Convention. I now propose the propositions agreed to by them as a substitute for my own.

I came here this morning, without the least expectation of any vote being taken on this proposition of mine. It has never been in a condition before where I was prepared to offer amendments to it. I had amendments which I intended to propose, not intending to make material changes, as I supposed, in substance and effect, but changing the phraseology, particularly of the first article, in which I propose to substitute an amendment, to declare merely that the status of persons held to servitude or labor under the laws of any State shall continue with the laws thus unchanged, as long as the Territory remains under a territorial government; and when it forms a constitution, to come into the Union as a State, to be received with or without slavery. All my papers and the amendments which I prepared are at my room, not here. That is the condition of the thing.

Mr. HUNTER:--The resolution stands now as several States have instructed for it, and I hope we shall have a vote on it.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I now move to substitute the resolutions of the Peace Convention. I have declared that I would do this; that I would abandon my own resolutions, and take that proposed by the Peace Conference.

Mr. HUNTER:--Then I call for the yeas and nays on the amendment of the Senator from Kentucky.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--Does the Chair understand the Senator from Kentucky to offer as an amendment to the resolution now before the Senate, the resolution of the Peace Conference?

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Yes, sir.

Mr. HUNTER:--That is an amendment, and on that I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--I wish to say a word in explanation; of course I shall make no speech at this hour. I have examined the propositions offered by that Convention; they contain, in my judgment, every material provision that is contained in the resolution called the CRITTENDEN resolution. The resolution that I offered contained nothing substantial that has not been adopted by the Convention, except in one particular, and that particular is this: they reject so much of the resolution offered by me as embraced future acquired territory. They said it was enough to settle in regard to the territory we now hold; and they have substituted a provision which, I think, ought to be perfectly satisfactory, as to acquisition of future territory. They say none shall be acquired, unless it be by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which two-thirds vote shall include a majority of the Senators from the slaveholding States, as well as a majority of the Senators from the North. That gives ample security to the South; it gives ample security to the North. No territory can be acquired without the approbation of both sections of the Union, and having this in their power, they can then make any previous arrangement in regard to slavery that they please, before the acquisition of territory. That is the way they dispose of future acquisitions. I prefer it to the disposition made in the resolutions which I submitted to the Senate. I therefore offer them, and for other reasons: out of deference to that great body of men selected on the resolution of Virginia, and invited by Virginia herself. The body having met, and being composed of such men, and a majority of that Convention concurring in these resolutions, I think they come to us with a sanction entitling them to consideration; therefore I have moved them.

Mr. GWIN:--I hope the substitute will not be adopted. The very reason the Senator has given in favor of it, with reference to the acquisition of future territory, I think should be the cause of its being voted down. I am sure Senators from Northern States should not vote for such an amendment as this; because the first acquisition, if we get any at all, will be the very kind of acquisition that the Northern States want. It is well known that if we had had the same counsels in 1854 that we had in 1803, we should have acquired the whole Russian Pacific territory to Behring Straits. If THOMAS JEFFERSON had been President, we should have got the whole of the Pacific possessions of Russia, as we got Louisiana from France, on the same principle; and I believe the first acquisition of territory we shall get will be the Russian possessions to Behring Straits. I hope this amendment of the Constitution will not be voted for by those who are in favor of acquiring territory, especially which will give us such important advantages on the Pacific Ocean. I am utterly opposed to restricting all acquisition hereafter; especially on the Pacific coast of the United States, both north and south. I hope this amendment will be voted down.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--I was exceedingly anxious to get a separate and distinct vote, first on the Peace Conference propositions, and then on the CRITTENDEN proposition, as perfected by the Senator from Kentucky. I have announced several times to-night, that that was my purpose; but after what the Senator from Kentucky has said about his obligations to the Peace Conference, to give priority to their proposition, I must follow him, although I should be delighted if we could make arrangements for separate votes. I prefer his perfected amendment to the Peace Conference proposition; but still, I cannot separate from him on this question, when he thinks he is bound to bring it forward.

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll on the amendment.

Mr. NICHOLSON (when his name was called):--I greatly prefer the resolution of the Senator from Kentucky, because it is unequivocal, unambiguous in its language, and embraces future as well as present territory; but I am willing, if that cannot be got, to vote for the other; and I do not concur in the criticisms that have been made on it to the full extent, though there are features in it to which I very much object. I shall, therefore, vote "nay" on this proposition.

Mr. POWELL:--As I have before announced, I have paired with the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. CAMERON]. If I were not paired, I should vote "nay."

Mr. GWIN:--He would vote with you, if he were here.

Mr. POWELL:--I cannot tell; he is not here.

The result was announced--yeas 7, nays 28, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Crittenden, Douglas, Harlan, Johnson of Tennessee, Kennedy, Morrill, and Thomson--7.

NAYS.--Messrs. Bayard, Bigler, Bingham, Bright, Chandler, Clark, Dixon, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Gwin, Hunter, Lane, Latham, Mason, Nicholson, Polk, Pugh, Rice, Sebastian, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wigfall, Wilkinson, and Wilson--28.

So the amendment was rejected.

No. IV.

[The action of both houses of Congress in relation to the Peace Conference, and the propositions of amendments therein adopted, would seem to form a portion of its history. I shall endeavor to furnish their action so far as it can be separated from other matters connected with the propositions presented. Immediately after the adoption of the resolutions of Virginia, under which the Conference was called, and on the 28th of January, 1861, the following proceedings took place in the House of Representatives of the United States.]

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, } WASHINGTON, MONDAY, January 28th, 1861. }

The SPEAKER, Hon. WM. PENNINGTON, laid before the House a message from the President of the United States, which was read by the Clerk, as follows:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:_

I deem it my duty to submit to Congress a series of resolutions adopted by the Legislature of Virginia, on the 19th inst., having in view a peaceful settlement of the exciting questions which now threaten the Union. They were delivered to me on Thursday the 24th inst., by ex-President TYLER, who has left his dignified and honored retirement, in the hope that he may render service to his country in this its hour of peril. These resolutions, it will be perceived, extend an invitation "to all such States, whether slaveholding or non-slaveholding, as are willing to unite with Virginia in an earnest effort to adjust the present unhappy controversies in the spirit in which the Constitution was originally formed, and consistently with its principles, so as to afford to the people of the slaveholding States adequate guarantees for the security of their rights, to appoint Commissioners to meet, on the 4th day of February next, in the City of Washington, similar Commissioners appointed by Virginia, to consider, and, if practicable, agree upon some suitable adjustment."

I confess I hail this movement, on the part of Virginia, with great satisfaction. From the past history of this ancient and renowned Commonwealth, we have the fullest assurance that what she has undertaken she will accomplish, if it can be done by able, enlightened, and persevering efforts. It is highly gratifying to know that other patriotic States have appointed, and are appointing Commissioners to meet those of Virginia in council. When assembled, they will constitute a body entitled, in an eminent degree, to the confidence of the country.

The General Assembly of Virginia have also resolved "that ex-President JOHN TYLER is hereby appointed by the concurrent vote of each branch of the General Assembly, a Commissioner to the President of the United States; and Judge JOHN ROBERTSON is hereby appointed, by a like vote, a Commissioner to the State of South Carolina, and the other States that have seceded or shall secede, with instructions respectfully to request the President of the United States and the authorities of such States to agree to abstain, pending the proceedings contemplated by the action of this General Assembly, from any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms between the States and the Government of the United States."

However strong may be my desire to enter into such an agreement, I am convinced that I do not possess the power. Congress, and Congress alone, under the war-making power, can exercise the discretion of agreeing to abstain "from any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms" between this and any other Government. It would, therefore, be a usurpation for the Executive to attempt to restrain their hands by an agreement in regard to matters over which he has no constitutional control. If he were thus to act, they might pass laws which he should be bound to obey, though in conflict with his agreement.

Under existing circumstances, my present actual power is confined within narrow limits. It is my duty at all times to defend and protect the public property within the seceding States so far as this may be practicable, and especially to employ all constitutional means to protect the property of the United States, and to preserve the public peace at this the seat of the Federal Government. If the seceding States abstain "from any and all acts calculated to produce a collision of arms," then the danger so much to be deprecated will no longer exist. Defence, and not aggression, has been the policy of the administration from the beginning.

But while I can enter into no engagement such as that proposed, I cordially commend to Congress, with much confidence that it will meet their approbation, to abstain from passing any law calculated to produce a collision of arms pending the proceedings contemplated by the action of the General Assembly of Virginia. I am one of those who will never despair of the Republic. I yet cherish the belief that the American people will perpetuate the Union of the States on some terms just and honorable for all sections of the country. I trust that the mediation of Virginia may be the destined means, under Providence, of accomplishing this inestimable benefit. Glorious as are the memories of her past history, such an achievement, both in relation to her own fame and the welfare of the whole country, would surpass them all.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

The "series of resolutions" referred to, and transmitted in President BUCHANAN'S message to Congress, are in the body of this book on pages 9 and 10.

The following communication by the Governor of Virginia to the General Assembly thereof, was also submitted with the President's Message:

_The Commonwealth of Virginia, to all to whom these presents shall come, greeting:_

Know you, that the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, having, by joint resolution, adopted on the 19th instant, and hereto attached, appointed ex-President JOHN TYLER a Commissioner to the President of the United States to carry out the instructions conveyed in said resolution: therefore, I, JOHN LETCHER, Governor, do hereby announce the said appointment, and authenticate the same.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and [L.S.] caused the great seal of the State to be affixed, in the City of Richmond, this 20th day of January, Anno Domini 1861.

JOHN LETCHER.

By the Governor: GEORGE W. MUNFORD, Secretary of the Commonwealth.

Mr. STANTON:--I move that that message be printed, and referred to the Standing Committee on Military Affairs.

Mr. JOHN COCHRANE:--I move as an amendment to that motion, that it be referred to the special committee of five.

Mr. HOWARD, of Michigan:--I would suggest that whatever committee the message is referred to, ought to have power to report it back at any time; otherwise it will be locked up where the House cannot control it.

Mr. BURCH:--The gentleman from Virginia only yielded the floor for the reading of the message, and is now entitled to the floor.

The SPEAKER:--It is proper that the message should be disposed of in some way.

Mr. STANTON:--If the House will allow me, I will move that the message be referred to the Standing Committee on Military Affairs, with power to report on it at any time.

The SPEAKER:--That motion is not in order. A motion has been made to refer the message to the Committee on Military Affairs, and the gentleman from New York moves, as an amendment, that it be referred to the special committee of five.

Mr. BOCOCK:--If there is to be any debate on this motion, it should be allowed to go over until my colleague (Mr. PRYOR) makes his speech.

Mr. STANTON:--I move the previous question.

Mr. CURTIS:--The question should first be taken on the motion to refer to the Committee on Military Affairs.

The SPEAKER:--That statement is correct. The question is on referring the message to the Military Committee.

Mr. BOCOCK:--I am bound to interpose on behalf of my colleague, who says he only yielded to have the message read.

Mr. STANTON:--The previous question is demanded, and that will put an end to the matter at once.

Mr. MILLSON:--I think the question deserves some little consideration. I therefore move to postpone the further consideration of the President's message till to-morrow.

Mr. STANTON:--Very well; let that course be taken.

The motion was agreed to.

* * * * *

After the report of the Peace Conference had been transmitted to the House of Representatives, and while the joint resolutions were under consideration, several ineffectual attempts were made to get the labors of the Conference before the House. Here is one of the first:

Mr. MAYNARD:--It is known, I suppose, to most members of the House, informally and unofficially, that what is known as the Peace Conference, to which the country has been looking for several days, has concluded its labors and dissolved. [Cries of "Order!"] I desire to make a proposition.

Mr. BINGHAM, and others objected.

Mr. MAYNARD:--I have a right to make a proposition.

Mr. CRAIGE, of North Carolina:--I call the gentleman to order, and insist upon the enforcement of the rules.

Mr. MAYNARD [amid loud cries of "Order!"] moved to postpone the vote upon the pending propositions until to-morrow after the morning hour.

The motion was not agreed to.

And again, the same day, February 27th, the following effort was made:

Mr. McCLERNAND:--I wish to state that I understand there is on the Speaker's table a communication from the president of the Peace Conference. I ask the unanimous consent of the House that it be taken up and read.

Mr. LOVEJOY:--I object.

So action was further delayed.

March 1st, 1861.--When a communication from the Navy Department came up for consideration in the House, the motion to postpone the special order brought out the following action on the communication of the Peace Conference:

The SPEAKER:--There is a communication, which has been for some time lying upon the Speaker's table, from the president of the Peace Conference. The Chair thinks it is right that it should be taken up.

Mr. LOVEJOY:--I object.

Mr. GROW:--I call for the regular order of business.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair has not thought proper to present it until the propositions of the Committee of Thirty-three had been disposed of; but he thinks it right that they should now be presented.

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania:--I object, on behalf of John Tyler, who does not want them in. [Laughter.]

Mr. McCLERNAND:--I move to suspend the rules.

Mr. GROW:--I call for the regular order of business.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair thinks he ought to have the privilege of presenting these papers.

Mr. GROW:--I rise to a question of order. The territorial business is the special order. I am entitled to the floor; and I submit that it cannot be taken from me by any motion to suspend the rules.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair thinks the motion to suspend the rules is in order.

Mr. GROW:--The Chair can hardly understand my question of order. It is that the territorial business is the special order, made so by a suspension of the rules. While that is pending, therefore, by the uniform decision of the House, no motion can be entertained to suspend the rules.

The SPEAKER:--The territorial business was made the special order for the two succeeding days after the propositions reported by the Committee of Thirty-three had been disposed of.

Mr. BOTELER:--I want to know if there is any business, or can be any business, that should take precedence of these propositions of the Peace Conference?

Mr. LOVEJOY:--Yes, sir; there are ten thousand things that should take precedence.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair decides that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. McCLERNAND] has the floor, and is entitled to make the motion to suspend the rules.

Mr. GROW:--Do I understand the Chair to decide that the business of the Territories does not come up to-day?

The SPEAKER:--The Chair is of opinion that, under a strict construction of the rule, it would properly come up to-morrow.

Mr. GROW:--I appeal from the decision of the Chair.

Mr. HATTON: I move to lay that appeal on the table.

Mr. HICKMAN:--Upon that motion, I call for tellers.

Mr. WASHBURNE, of Illinois:--Before the House divides upon the appeal, I desire the Chair to state precisely what the point of order is that we are to vote upon.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair decided that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. McCLERNAND] had the floor, and was in order in moving to suspend the rules for the purpose of receiving the communication the Chair desired to lay before the House. From that decision an appeal was taken, and a motion made to lay the appeal on the table. The question is now upon the latter motion.

Mr. GROW:--I rise to a question of order again. The Chair has not stated my question of order correctly. My point of order was, that the business of the Territories was set down as a special order immediately after the disposal of the business of the Committee of Thirty-three.

Mr. HATTON:--I call the gentleman from Pennsylvania to order.

Mr. GROW:--I have the right to state my point of order.

The SPEAKER:--The gentleman from Pennsylvania will state his point of order.

Mr. GROW:--It is, that the Territorial business having been made the special order, comes up now as the regular order of business.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair decides that the gentleman from Illinois obtained the floor, and had the right to submit the motion to suspend the rules.

Mr. GROW:--He had no right to take the floor from me for any such purpose.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair overrules the question of order.

Mr. GROW:--And from that decision I take an appeal.

The SPEAKER:--The appeal is already pending; and a motion has been made to lay the appeal on the table.

Mr. GROW:--I call for tellers on the motion.

Tellers were ordered, and Messrs. ADRAIN and GROW were appointed.

The House divided; and the tellers reported--forty-seven in the affirmative.

Mr. HOWARD, of Michigan:--I move that the House adjourn.

Before the vote had been taken on the motion, the hour of five arrived; and

The SPEAKER declared the House had taken a recess until seven o'clock.

* * * * *

EVENING SESSION.

The House reassembled at seven o'clock P.M.

COMMUNICATION OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE.

Mr. GROW:--What is the regular order of business?

The SPEAKER:--The Chair had decided that the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. McCLERNAND] was entitled to the floor, to move that the rules be suspended to receive a communication from the Peace Conference. From that decision the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. GROW] appealed; and a motion was made to lay the appeal on the table.

Mr. McCLERNAND:--I think we can perhaps agree to an arrangement that will be satisfactory to gentlemen upon both sides, by which any difficulty upon the question of order can be avoided. If gentlemen upon that side of the House will allow the propositions to be presented, we are willing that they shall be referred, and the House then proceed to the consideration of the territorial business.

Mr. KELLOGG, of Illinois:--I hope that will be done.

Mr. LOVEJOY:--I object to the reception of the proposition.

Mr. HICKMAN:--There are but few members present. I move that there be a call of the House.

The motion was disagreed to.

Mr. HICKMAN:--I ask the Chair for his judgment whether there is a quorum present or not.

The SPEAKER:--In the opinion of the Chair, a quorum is not present.

Mr. McCLERNAND:--I inquire whether there is any objection to the propositions of the Peace Conference being taken up and referred?

Mr. LOVEJOY:--I certainly object in toto coelo to any such proposition.

Mr. BOTELER:--I desire to ask this question: can any member object to the reception of a communication from the Peace Congress?

Mr. LOVEJOY:--It is not a Peace Congress at all. There is no such body known to this House.

Mr. BOTELER:--I merely ask the question for information, for I do not profess to be familiar with the rules; I desire to know whether the objection of a single member can defeat the reception of such a proposition, especially when that single member is known not to be a conservative man, but a man opposed to all compromises?

The SPEAKER:--The Chair will suggest that a great deal of time will be saved by having a call of the House, as there is evidently no quorum present.

A call of the House was taken. A quorum having appeared, the House proceeded to dispose of several special orders, when, on a motion of postponement, it returned in this wise to the Peace Conference:

Mr. LOGAN:--I demand the yeas and nays on the motion to postpone.

The yeas and nays were not ordered.

The special order was then postponed.

Mr. McCLERNAND:--I now move to suspend the rules of the House, for the purpose of receiving the memorial of the Peace Congress, which assembled lately in this city.

Mr. GROW:--To be received? What for?

Mr. McCLERNAND:--For reference I suppose.

Mr. BURNETT:--No; but to get it in, and put it upon its passage.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair understood the proposition to be, that the rules should be suspended, in order that the paper should be received for reference.

Mr. McCLERNAND:--I withdraw that part of the proposition.

Mr. SICKLES:--If it be received, it is then in the power of the House to do with it what it pleases.

Mr. GROW:--The understanding was that the motion should be made for the suspension of the rules only to receive the proposition.

Mr. SICKLES:--That is all right. When the paper gets in, the House can do with it what it may deem fit.

Mr. LOVEJOY:--I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. SHERMAN:--Is it proposed to act on the memorial of the Peace Congress?

Mr. SICKLES:--If it comes before the House, it will be for us to say what disposition shall be made of it. [Cries of "Call the roll!"]

Mr. CRAIGE, of North Carolina:--This motion is merely for the suspension of the rules to receive the proposition, and this, therefore, may be considered a test vote. [Cries of "Call the roll!"]

The question was taken; and it was decided in the negative--yeas 93, nays 67; as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Charles F. Adams, Green Adams, Adrain, Aldrich, William C. Anderson, Avery, Barr, Barret, Bocock, Boteler, Brabson, Branch, Briggs, Bristow, Brown, Burch, Burnett, Campbell, Horace F. Clark, John B. Clark, John Cochrane, Corwin, James Craig, John G. Davis, De Jarnette, Dunn, Etheridge, Florence, Foster, Fouke, Garnett, Gilmer, Hale, Hall, Hamilton, J. Morrison Harris, John T. Harris, Haskin, Hatton, Hoard, Holman, William Howard, Hughes, Jenkins, Junkin, William Kellogg, Killinger, Kunkel, Larrabee, James M. Leach, Leake, Logan, Maclay, Mallory, Charles D. Martin, Maynard, McClernand, McKenty, McKnight, McPherson, Millson, Millward, Laban T. Moore, Moorehead, Edward Joy Morris, Nelson, Niblack, Nixon, Olin, Pendleton, Peyton, Phelps, Porter, Pryor, Quarles, John H. Reynolds, Rice, Riggs, James C. Robinson, Sickles, Simms, William N.H. Smith, Spaulding, Stevenson, William Stewart, Stokes, Thomas, Vance, Webster, Whiteley, Winslow, Woodson, and Wright--93.

NAYS.--Messrs. Alley, Ashley, Bingham, Blair, Brayton, Buffinton, Burlingame, Burnham, Carey, Case, Coburn, Colfax, Conway, Burton Craige, Dawes, Delano, Duell, Edgerton, Eliot, Ely, Fenton, Ferry, Frank, Gooch, Graham, Grow, Gurley, Helmick, Hickman, Hindman, William A. Howard, Hutchins, Irvine, Francis W. Kellogg, Kenyon, Loomis, Lovejoy, McKean, Morrill, Morse, Palmer, Perry, Potter, Pottle, Christopher Robinson, Royce, Ruffin, Sedgwick, Sherman, Somes, Spinner, Stanton, Stevens, Tappan, Tompkins, Train, Vandever, Van Wyck, Wade, Waldron, Walton, Cadwalader C. Washburn, Elihu B. Washburne, Wells, Wilson, Windom, and Woodruff--67.

So (two thirds not voting in favor thereof) the rules were not suspended.

During the vote,

Mr. WOODSON said:--I rise for information. What are we voting on? [Cries of "Order!"] I cannot for my life imagine how this can be regarded as a test vote. I will vote to receive the proposition of the Peace Conference; but on its passage I will vote against it.

The SPEAKER:--The motion is, to suspend the rules for the reception of the memorial.

Mr. CRAIGE, of North Carolina:--I understood the gentleman from Illinois to state that this was a test vote.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair cannot undertake to decide whether it is a test vote or not.

Mr. JOHN COCHRANE stated that his colleagues, Mr. CLARK B. COCHRANE and Mr. LEE, were paired.

Mr. CRAIGE, of North Carolina:--I would have no objection, Mr. Speaker, to permit this resolution to come before the House, but I understood the gentleman from Illinois to proclaim that this was a test vote. Utterly opposed to any such wishy-washy settlement of our national difficulties, I vote "no."

Mr. CURTIS stated that he was paired with Mr. ANDERSON, of Missouri.

Mr. FOSTER:--While I am willing to vote for the reception of the memorial of the Peace Congress, of which I was a member, still I am unwilling to be considered as favoring their proposition. Is this vote a test vote on that proposition?

The SPEAKER:--The Chair does not think that it is; but each gentleman will decide for himself.

Mr. HALE:--I am willing to receive this memorial in courtesy to the Peace Conference; and not regarding this as a test vote, I vote "ay."

Mr. LEACH, of Michigan, stated that he had paired with Mr. ENGLISH, or he would have voted in the negative.

Mr. LEAKE (when his name was called) said that he regarded this thing as a miserable abortion, forcibly reminding one of the old fable of the mountain and the mouse; nevertheless, he was willing to let the mouse in, in order to have the pleasure of killing it.

Mr. RUFFIN:--As it is announced that this is a test vote, I am compelled to vote "no." Otherwise, I would have been willing to let the matter be brought before the House for its consideration.

Mr. JENKINS:--Who can make this a test vote? Certainly no man in this House. This is a vote to receive the memorial, and nothing more.

Mr. WILSON stated that Mr. VALLANDIGHAM was paired with Mr. BEALE.

Mr. JUNKIN stated that his colleague, Mr. MONTGOMERY, was detained at home by illness.

Mr. NIXON stated that his colleague, Mr. STRATTON, was detained at his room by illness, and that if he were present, he would vote to receive the memorial of the Peace Conference.

Mr. ELY stated that his colleague, Mr. LEE, was detained at his room by indisposition.

Mr. PENDLETON stated that his colleague was detained at his room by indisposition.

Mr. CAMPBELL stated that his colleague, Mr. SCRANTON, was absent from the Hall because of illness.

Mr. POTTER:--As this is a test vote, I vote "no."

Mr. BRAYTON:--I understand this to be a test vote, and therefore vote "no."

Mr. HOARD:--These papers are not before us. They are not printed, and we cannot be supposed to know any thing of them; and I would ask, therefore, how they can be regarded as a test vote? I vote "ay."

Mr. BOCOCK:--Mr. Speaker, out of deference to the Peace Conference, called as it was by my State, I vote to receive this report. But unless the report, as it appears in the papers, can be amended, it cannot receive my approval.

Mr. SHERMAN:--I vote against this, simply because we have no time to consider it.

Mr. HINDMAN:--I vote against suspending the rules, because I desire to defeat the proposition of the Peace Conference, believing it to be unworthy of the vote of any Southern man.

Mr. COX (not being within the bar when his name was called) asked leave to vote.

Mr. WASHBURNE, of Illinois, objected.

Mr. GARNETT:--Mr. Speaker, intending and desiring to express my abhorrence of these insidious propositions, conceived in fraud and born of cowardice, by giving a direct vote against them, yet from respect for the conference which reported them, I am willing to receive them, and therefore now vote "ay."

Mr. HARRIS, of Virginia:--I vote "ay," because I am in favor of the resolutions as a peace measure.

Mr. MAYNARD:--Believing these propositions eminently wise and just, I will let my vote stand in the affirmative.

Mr. BURNETT:--I hope the Chair will enforce the rules.

The SPEAKER:--I am trying to, all I can; and I hope gentlemen will keep their seats and preserve order.

Mr. DE JARNETTE:--I vote "ay," with the hope of having an opportunity to vote against the propositions of the Peace Conference.

Mr. BOTELER:--I vote "ay," to introduce these propositions, because I believe it to be my duty to do every thing, consistent with honor, to preserve the peace and save the Union of my country.

Mr. COX:--I desire to ask a question of the Chair.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair will hear you.

Mr. COX:--I desire to know whether or not it will be in order to move to suspend the rules to enable me to have my vote recorded?

Mr. SPEAKER:--No, sir.

Mr. COX:--I would like very much to have it recorded in favor of these peace propositions. I vote "ay," if there is no objection.

Mr. HINDMAN:--Consent is not given to the gentleman from Ohio to have his vote recorded.

The SPEAKER:--It is not received.

Mr. ROBINSON, of Rhode Island:--Believing that this is a test vote, I change my vote, and vote "no."

Mr. JOHN COCHRANE:--I wish to know whether the vote of my colleague, CLARK B. COCHRANE, is recorded.

The SPEAKER:--It is not.

Mr. JOHN COCHRANE:--I think he has retired from the House on account of sickness in his family; and I believe he is laboring for the Union in other quarters.

Mr. MILLSON:--I desire to vote.

Objection was made.

Mr. MILLSON:--I am entitled to vote, having been absent upon a committee of conference. I vote "ay."

Mr. HINDMAN:--Is the gentleman entitled to vote under the rules of the House?

Mr. BARR:--Objection comes too late.

The SPEAKER:--It has been usual to allow gentlemen to vote under such circumstances.

Mr. HICKMAN:--Do the rules allow him to vote?

The SPEAKER:--The Chair supposes that is the rule of the House.

Mr. HINDMAN:--I ask to have the rule read.

Mr. MILLSON:--No rule of the House could take away the right of a member to vote when he is absent by order of the House. If the rules deprived a member of the right to vote under such circumstances, it would be void.

The result was announced as above recorded.

Mr. McCLERNAND:--This vote divides the Republican party, and sounds its death knell.

No. V.

REPORTS OF DELEGATES TO STATES.

Report of the Peace Commissioners to the Legislature of Virginia.

To His Excellency JOHN LETCHER, Governor of Virginia:

The undersigned Commissioners, in pursuance of the wishes of the General Assembly, expressed in the resolutions of the 19th day of January last, repaired in due season to the City of Washington. They there found, on the 4th day of February, the day suggested in the overture of Virginia for a Conference with the other States, Commissioners to meet them from the following States, viz.: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. Subsequently, during the continuance of the Conference, at different periods, appeared likewise Commissioners from Tennessee, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Maine, Iowa, and Kansas. So that before the close twenty-one States were represented by Commissioners, appointed either by the Legislatures or Governors of the respective States.

The undersigned communicated the resolutions of the General Assembly to this Conference, and, both before its committee appointed to recommend a plan of adjustment, and the Conference itself, urged the propositions known as the CRITTENDEN resolutions, with the modification suggested by the General Assembly of Virginia, as the basis of an acceptable adjustment.

They were not adopted by the Conference, but in lieu thereof, after much discussion, and the consideration of many proposed amendments, the article with seven sections, intended as an amendment to the Constitution, was adopted by sections (not under the rules, being voted on as a whole), and by a vote of the Conference (not taken by States), was directed to be submitted to Congress, with the request that it should be recommended to the States for ratification, which was accordingly done by the President of the Conference.

The undersigned regret that the Journal showing the proceedings and votes in the Conference has not yet been published or furnished them, and that consequently they are not able to present it with this report. As soon as received it will be communicated to your Excellency.

In the absence of that record it is deemed appropriate to state that on the final adoption of the first section, two of the States, Indiana and Missouri, did not vote, and New York was divided, and that the votes by States was, ayes 9, nays 8--Virginia, by a majority of her Commissioners, voting in the negative.

The other sections were adopted by ranging majorities (not precisely recollected), and on the fifth and seventh sections the vote of Virginia was in the negative. The plan, when submitted to Congress, failed to receive its recommendation, and as that body, having adjourned, can take no further cognizance of it, the undersigned feel the contingency has arrived on which they are required to report, as they herein do, the result of their action.

Respectfully,

JOHN TYLER, G.W. SUMMERS, W.C. RIVES, JAS. A. SEDDON.

The above report having been read and ordered to be printed, Mr. SUMMERS stated that the reason it was not signed by Judge BROCKENBROUGH, the other Virginia Commissioner, was because that gentleman was not in Richmond. Mr. SUMMERS presented a communication in which Judge BROCKENBROUGH stated his views at length on the propositions adopted by the Convention, and it was printed, by vote of the Legislature, in connection with the report.

After reviewing the different sections of the propositions adopted by the Peace Conference, Judge BROCKENBROUGH, in his letter, states that the said propositions, as an entirety, would have received his vote, and therefore the vote of Virginia, in the Peace Conference, if it had been submitted to a vote in that form.

* * * * *

Reports of the New York Commissioners to the Legislature of that State.

MAJORITY REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS TO THE PEACE CONVENTION.

March 23d, 1861.

To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York:

The Report of the Commissioners appointed by the Legislature of the State of New York to meet Commissioners from other States in the City of Washington on the fourth day of February, 1861, upon the call of the State of Virginia, by resolutions passed by the General Assembly of that State on the nineteenth day of January, 1861.

A copy of the Journal of the Convention is submitted herewith, from which it will be seen that prior to the presence of the Commissioners from New York, that body had been completely organized, rules of order adopted which excluded all persons other than members from witnessing its deliberations, forbidding any publication or other communication of its proceedings, and the taking of any entry from its Journal without leave; in short, requiring all its debates and acts to be kept secret. A committee had also been organized of one from each State to be appointed by the Commissioners from such State, to which the Virginia resolutions were referred, "with all other propositions for the adjustment of existing differences between the States, with authority to report what they might deem right, proper, and necessary to restore harmony and preserve the Union;" and this committee had been in session two days before your Commissioners were enabled to appoint any one of their number upon it. This was done on the eighth of February by the appointment of Mr. Field.

William E. Dodge, one of your Commissioners, took his seat in the Convention on the seventh day of February, 1861, and Messrs. Field, Noyes, Wadsworth, Corning, King, and Wool, on the eighth of February, Mr. Smith on the eleventh, and Judges James and Bronson on the twelfth day of February, and Mr. Granger, who was appointed in the place of Judge Gardiner, who declined, on the eighteenth day of February, 1861.

It was deemed advisable by your Commissioners that the proceedings of the Convention should be open to the public and the press, and hence they advised and concurred in resolutions introduced for that purpose, which were laid on the table on the motion of a Commissioner from the State of New Jersey. On a subsequent day they also concurred in a resolution authorizing the employment of a stenographer, to "preserve accurate notes of the debates and other proceedings of 'the Convention,' which notes should not be communicated to any person, nor shall copies thereof be taken, nor shall the same be made public until after the final adjournment of this Convention, except in pursuance of a vote authorizing their publication;" but this was refused, and the resolution laid on the table on motion of a Commissioner from the State of Pennsylvania, by a vote of eleven to eight, all the Slave States represented voting against it, with the addition of the States of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Before the Convention closed its session, the following states, twenty-one in all, were represented in the Convention: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Missouri, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Kansas. With the concurrence of a majority of your Commissioners, Mr. Field offered in the committee of one from each State, on the fourteenth of February, the following proposition:

"Each State has the sole and exclusive right, according to its own judgment, to order and direct its domestic institutions, and to determine for itself what shall be the relation to each other of all persons residing or being within its limits;"

but it was rejected by a majority of the committee, and formed no part of its report.

That committee made its report on the fourteenth of February, unaccompanied by any written observations, in the shape of an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in the following words:

ARTICLE 1. In all the territory of the United States not embraced within the limits of the Cherokee Treaty Grant, north of a line from east to west on the parallel of 36° 30´ north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited whilst it shall be under a Territorial Government; and in all the territory south of said line, the status of persons owing service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed by law while such territory shall be under a Territorial Government; and neither Congress nor the Territorial Government shall have power to hinder or prevent the taking to said territory of persons held to labor or involuntary service, within the United States, according to the laws or usages of the State from which such persons may be taken, nor to impair the rights arising out of said relations, which shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal Courts according to the common law; and when any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a population required for a member of Congress, according to the then Federal ratio of representation, 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 service or labor, as the constitution of such new State may provide.

ART. 2. Territory shall not be acquired by the United States, unless by treaty, nor except for naval and commercial stations and depots, unless such treaty shall be ratified by four-fifths of all the members of the Senate.

ART. 3. Neither the Constitution nor any amendment thereof shall be construed to give Congress power to regulate, abolish, or control, within any State or Territory of the United States, the relation established or recognized by the laws thereof touching persons bound 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 City of Washington, retaining, and taking away persons so bound to labor; 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 by land, sea, or river, 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 of touching at ports, shores, and landings, and of landing in case of distress, shall exist, nor shall Congress have power to authorize any higher rate of taxation on persons bound to labor than on land.

ART. 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 judicial and ministerial officers, from enforcing the delivery of fugitives from labor to the person to whom such service or labor is due.

ART. 5. The foreign slave-trade and the importation of slaves into the United States and their Territories from places beyond the present limits thereof, are forever prohibited.

ART. 6. The first, third, and fifth articles, together with this article 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.

ART. 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 officers, whose duty it was to arrest such fugitive, was prevented from so doing by violence or intimidation from mobs and riotous assemblies, or when after such arrest such fugitive was rescued by force, and the owner thereby prevented and obstructed in the pursuit of his remedy for the recovery of such fugitive.

Mr. Field, the member of the committee from New York, dissented from this report, as also did Mr. Baldwin, of Connecticut, and Mr. Crowninshield, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Seddon, of Virginia.

This report was under discussion, and various amendments were proposed to it until the twenty-seventh day of February, a majority of your Commissioners steadily opposing all its provisions except that prohibiting the foreign slave-trade, and most of such majority being opposed to the submission, by the Convention, of any amendment of the Constitution of the United States at the present time, and in the present excited state of the public mind. During the consideration of the report various independent propositions were made by the consent, and with the concurrence of your Commissioners; among which was one by Mr. Baldwin, of Connecticut, presented on the fifteenth of February, in the form of a minority report from the committee upon the plan of adjustment, which concluded with a resolution, "That the Convention recommend to the several States to unite with Kentucky in her application to Congress to call a Convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, to be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States or to Conventions therein, for ratification, as the one or other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress;" and this proposition, after being discussed at length, was lost on the twenty-sixth of February, by a vote of thirteen States against to nine in its favor, a majority of your Commissioners casting the vote of New York in favor of it.

A proposition somewhat similar, embracing an address to the people of the United States, and containing a resolution for calling the Convention, was also submitted to the Convention, with the like concurrence of a majority of your Commissioners, by Mr. Tuck of New Hampshire, on the eighteenth of February, and on the twenty-sixth was also defeated by a vote of eleven States against nine.

It will be seen, therefore, that your Commissioners, with those from several other States, offered to unite in a call for a Convention, to be convened in pursuance of the Constitution of the United States; and that the slave States uniting with several of the free States, uniformly opposed, and at last defeated it.

On the twenty-third of February Mr. Vandever, of Iowa, offered the following resolution:

"Resolved, That whatever may be the ultimate determination upon the amendment to the Federal Constitution, or other propositions for the adjustment approved by this Convention, we, the members, recommend our respective States and constituencies to faithfully abide in the Union."

A motion to lay it upon the table prevailed by a vote of eleven to nine, a majority of your Commissioners voting in the negative.

On the twentieth of February, Mr. Field, one of your Commissioners, at the instance of a majority of them, offered, as an amendment to the Constitution to be adopted by the Convention, and proposed with any other amendments, that it should recommend the following:

"The Union of the States, under this Constitution, is indissoluble; and no State can secede from the Union, or nullify an act of Congress, or absolve its citizens from their paramount obligation of obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States."

On the twenty-sixth of February, after several ineffectual attempts to get rid of the proposition, on points of order, it was negatived by a vote of eleven States against ten, a majority of your Commissioners casting the vote of New York in its favor.

Mr. Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, moved the following as an amendment to the seventh article, on the twenty-first of February.

"And Congress shall further provide by law, that the United States shall make full compensation to a citizen of any State, who, in any other State, shall suffer by reason of violence or intimidation from mobs or riotous assemblies in his person or property, or in the deprivation by violence of his rights secured by this Constitution."

A motion was made to insert the word "white" before "citizen," but it failed by a vote of eleven to ten; and on the twenty-fifth of February the entire amendment was defeated by a vote of eleven to eight; your Commissioners, by a majority, casting the vote of New York in its favor.

Several other propositions upon other subjects were also submitted to the Convention, as will appear by the Journal; but it is not deemed necessary to refer to them more particularly, except, that on the eighteenth of February, Mr. Reid, of North Carolina, proposed to amend the first section of the committee's report by inserting after the word "line" in the seventh line thereof, the words "involuntary servitude is recognized; and property in those of the African race held to service or labor, in any of the States of the Union, when removed to such territory, shall be protected," and which was lost by a vote of seventeen States against to three for it. On the twenty-sixth of February, he also moved to insert in the same section, after the words "common law," the words, "and such rights shall be protected by all departments of the Territorial Government during its continuance," which the President ruled out of order, as the section had been previously gone through in detail, and was only before the Convention on its final passage.

The Report of the Committee on a plan of adjustment, already mentioned, came up for consideration on its final passage, after many amendments had been made to it, as will appear by the Journal, on the twenty-sixth of February, in the following form, and was ultimately thus adopted, by the votes stated at the end of each section:

ARTICLE XIII.

SECTION I. In all the present territory of the United States north of the parallel of 36° 30´ of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature 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.

When any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, 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.

YEAS.--Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee--9.

NAYS.--Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Virginia--8.

DIVIDED.--New York and Kansas--2.

NOT VOTING.--Indiana.

SEC. II. No territory shall be acquired by the United States except by discovery, and for naval and commercial stations, depots, 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 hereinbefore mentioned be cast as a part of the two-thirds majority necessary for the ratification of such treaty.

YEAS.--Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia--11.

NAYS.--Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Vermont--8.

DIVIDED.--New York and Kansas--2.

SEC. III. 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, nor 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 labor or service for sale, or placing them in depots to be afterwards transferred to other places as merchandise, is prohibited.

YEAS.--Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Caroline, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia--12.

NAYS.--Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont--7.

DIVIDED.--New York and Kansas--2.

SEC. IV. 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 judicial and ministerial officers, from enforcing the delivery of fugitives from labor to the person to whom such labor or service is due.

YEAS.--Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia--15.

NAYS.--Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire--4.

DIVIDED.--New York and Kansas--2.

SEC. V. 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 the Territories, from places beyond the limits thereof.

YEAS.--Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Kansas--16.

NAYS.--Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Virginia--5.

SEC. VI. 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.

YEAS.--Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee--11.

NAYS.--Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Virginia--9.

DIVIDED.--New York.

SEC. VII. 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 assemblies, 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 further claim to such fugitive. Congress shall provide by law for securing to citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

YEAS.--Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia--12.

NAYS.--Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Missouri, and Vermont--7.

DIVIDED.--New York.

NOT VOTING.--Massachusetts.

When the question was first taken on the first section, it was lost by a vote of eleven States against it to eight in its favor, a majority of your Commissioners casting the vote of New York against it. A motion was immediately made to reconsider, which was advocated by Mr. Granger, one of the Commissioners from New York, and was carried by a vote of fourteen States for, to five against it--a majority of the Commissioners from New York again casting its vote in the negative, and the Convention adjourned. On the next day it again came up on its final passage, and was then carried by a vote of nine States for, to eight against it--the vote of New York not being given. Why it was not given is left by the Commissioners to be stated by Mr. Field, on his own responsibility. (See note, p. 596.)

The vote of New York was not given upon any of the sections except the fifth, for the reason already stated; but upon that section we all voted Aye, as all her Commissioners then present were in its favor.

After the several votes had been taken, it was objected that the whole article should be put to a vote upon the question of its final adoption before it could be regarded as properly passed, but the President of the Convention decided that this was not necessary, and no such vote was taken. At the close of the discussion on this subject your Commissioners were prepared to cast the vote against the entire article, if any question had been taken upon it as a whole, as a majority of your Commissioners think it should have been.

Soon after the adoption of these proposed amendments to the Constitution, and after voting down and laying on the table various propositions made by a minority in the interest of freedom and the free States, the Convention adjourned--having adopted an address to Congress requesting that body to submit the amendment, to Conventions of the several States, for ratification, according to the Constitution of the United States; and they were accordingly communicated to Congress on the same day. In the Senate, they were referred to a committee, and were recommended for adoption by a majority of that committee; but Messrs. Seward and Trumbull, a minority of the committee, reported against the amendments, and in favor of a National Convention; thus following out and approving the proposition which had been made in the Convention by your Commissioners, and the entire minority of that party, nearly three weeks before, and for which the majority which controlled it, if it had chosen to do so, could at any time have obtained an unanimous vote. The amendment of the Convention, however, failed to secure the approval of either branch of Congress.

The labors of your Commissioners having thus terminated, it is due to those whom they represented, and to themselves, that the majority should state briefly the reasons why the proposed amendments to the Constitution did not meet their approbation.

First.--In their judgment, no amendment of that sacred instrument in the interest, and for the purpose of the extension and perpetuation of the slave power--an interest which has wielded the whole political power of the United States during almost the entire existence of the Government--was either expedient or necessary. They preferred it should remain and continue just as it came from the hands of our revolutionary fathers; a Constitution establishing freedom and not slavery.

Second.--The Convention would scarcely listen to, much less adopt, any amendment in the interest of freedom or of free labor, or of the rights of citizens of the free States; the only one of that character--that in relation to securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States--having been voted down as a direct proposition when offered by Mr. Wilmot, and only adopted in an indirect way at the end of the section requiring payment to be made by Congress for rescued slaves. In like manner the absolute right of secession in every State as inherent under the Constitution of the United States was claimed to exist by members of the Convention from the slave States, accompanied by a denial of any right in the General Government to coerce obedience to it, or to enforce the laws for the collection of revenue. And although all the delegates from the slave States did not take this ground, yet in several instances a majority of the delegates from several of them did so, and the States themselves generally voted against all propositions to the contrary. The article proposed by your Commissioners denying the right of nullification and secession was defeated in accordance with these views; so that in effect slave States, and such of the free States as voted with them, would not consent so to amend the Constitution as to deny the right of nullification and secession, even if all the guarantees demanded by the slave interest were accorded to it. In addition, many of the delegates from the slave States declared that it was the fixed determination of those States to stand by the States that had seceded from the Union, and to aid them in resisting it, even if such guarantees were given; and that they would resist any attempts to coerce them, or to enforce the revenue, or any other laws within their limits, without their consent. In other words, they claimed a right to remain in the Union under the Constitution, with its new guarantees of slavery, and yet to obstruct the operations of the Government, to prevent the execution of the laws, and to aid those who were in open rebellion against, and had made war upon it. Under these circumstances your Commissioners did not deem it consistent with justice, or the respect due to their own State, to give their assent to any of the proposed amendments, except that prohibiting the slave-trade--and even that, in their opinion, was unnecessary, as no enlightened legislative body would dare to propose to reëstablish that infamous traffic.

Third.--By the first section of the proposed amendments, slavery is constitutionally established in all of the territory south of the line of 36° 30´, and all control over it by Congress or the territorial legislatures is absolutely taken away during its territorial condition. In effect, there is to be no law for slavery, its permanency and existence being provided for, except the will of the master and the present odious slave code of New Mexico. These are fastened upon every inch of the soil of that immense region, beyond even the power of the people to remove them, however much they may desire to do so, prior to the formation of a State government. Slavery must therefore be the normal condition of the territory, while the State is in the process of formation and organization; and the inevitable result must be, that free labor and free institutions will be excluded, and no free State formed within its limits. As the territory was free from the blight of slavery when acquired, your Commissioners could not assent to its being changed into slave soil by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Fourth.--The second section of the proposed amendments gives to the slave States an absolute negative upon the acquisition of free territory in every possible mode by which it can be acquired; and in giving reciprocally the same right to free States as to acquiring slave territory, also fetters the operations of the General Government both in peace and war, depriving it to some extent of the exercise of perfect sovereignty, and at the same time sanctioning, and perpetuating in the organic law, an odious discrimination in favor of an institution peculiar to the slave States, and at variance with the humane principles of the age. The free States do not need any such veto power in their favor, and the slave States would not demand it except to maintain and preserve for slavery a balance of power hitherto claimed, and to some extent exercised by them, for which they secure by this amendment a constitutional perpetuation. No well-founded objection seems to exist in regard to the acquisition of free territory, unless it be that it is obtained in order to convert it into slave soil; and your Commissioners could not consent to give to a single interest, that of slavery, a negative upon such acquisitions. They have always regarded slavery as a local institution, depending solely upon the laws of the States in which it was permitted for its existence; and they did not deem it expedient or just to recognize it as, or elevate it to, the rank of a positive governmental power, by clothing it with the right to interrupt one of the ordinary and most essential functions of the Government. Slavery, except as a limited basis of representation, has now no political power or authority under the Constitution; the wise and good men who framed that instrument cautiously withheld it in all other respects; and your Commissioners find in the history of the aggressions of the slave interest, only additional reasons for confining it within its original limits.

Fifth.--To so much of the third article as declares that the Constitution nor any amendment of it, shall be so construed as to give Congress the power to regulate, abolish, or control slavery within any State, there was no objection, as it has never been seriously claimed that any such power was given; but this provision is connected with so many objectionable, not to say odious ones, that your Commissioners felt themselves bound to vote against it. These surrender all the power of Congress over the District of Columbia, and over other places within its exclusive jurisdiction, in respect of slavery and its ultimate extinction, however much the people of the United States in the progress of civilization and humanity may desire it; and by the sixth section this provision is made unalterable without the consent of all the States. The influences produced by the existence of slavery at the National Capital, upon public men and public measures, are well known; and while they may be tolerated, as they have been, without any desire to exercise the power of eradicating the cause of the evil, still a sound policy requires that the power should not be abandoned. Connected with this surrender of a well-defined and necessary power, are other provisions in regard to the transit of slaves through the free States; in effect, permitting the carrying on of the internal slave-trade through these States, unless they pass laws forbidding it. This trade through the free States is not made dependent upon the consent of the States, but is made lawful without dissent; and the result is, that if this amendment shall be adopted, every free State will find it necessary to legislate for its exclusion, or to permit and regulate the transit by its own laws. These laws would be deemed odious by the slave States, and would produce dissatisfaction and irritation. Besides, in most of the free States, the normal legal condition of every person is that of freedom; this constitutional provision would at once change the local law of the State, and operate as a positive recognition of slavery in the absence of any new enactment. Thus, every free State would find itself compelled to adopt a slave code, more or less extensive in its character, regulating or excluding the inter-state slave-trade. Taking this in connection with the fourth section, authorizing the States to legislate upon the subject of fugitive slaves, and by their judicial and ministerial officers to enforce their delivery, contrary to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which declares all such interference on the part of the States unconstitutional, it is apparent that the legislatures of all the free States would be beset by hordes of persons in the interest of the slave power for the passage of laws protecting slavery within their limits. No means, however impure, would be omitted to obtain them; and it is easy to see that a slave code upon the subject of transit of fugitives, more or less stringent in its character, would soon find its way into every statute book. When the States now free abolished slavery within their own limits, they intended to get rid of the evil entirely, not only in practice but as a necessity of legislation; these provisions compel a return to it, and involve the adoption of new laws for its regulation or exclusion.

Seventh. [Transcriber's Note: should be "Sixth"]--The sixth section makes most of the amendments which give a constitutional protection to slavery, unalterable without the consent of all the States. It also includes the second section of the fourth article, which provides that "representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective members," including three-fifths of all slaves, &c.; and that portion of the fourth article which requires the delivering up of fugitive slaves. Thus, a preference is given to the slave interest over every other; these may all be affected by a constitutional amendment, ratified or adopted by three-fourths of the States; but the slave clauses are to remain, except by universal consent, fixed and immovable. No such protection is given to freedom; none to the property of free men, unless it be what is called property in slaves; none to the freedom of the press; none to the religion of the citizen, or to the rights of conscience. These rights, more sacred than any other, are deemed of less importance, and are secured by less guarantees than the right to hold a fellow man in bondage and to traffic in his flesh. Moreover, the three-fifth representation of slaves, and only the same rate of direct taxation, are perpetual by the same rigid provision. This not only gives to the slave States a representation of three-fifths of their slave property, but it secures to them an exemption from taxation on the same property to the extent of two-fifths. But no property whatever, in the free States constitutes a basis of representation, and all of it is liable to, and may be taxed. Unequal and unjust as was this discrimination in favor of the slave States, still as it formed a part of the original Constitution, it should be maintained; but when it is sought to extend it to new States, and to make it unchangeable without the consent of all the States, the attempt should be resisted by every freeman. There are other property interests more important than that of slavery, but none of them have been so arrogant as to claim such exclusive privileges and perpetuation.

Finally.--Other objections of a grave character might be stated, but it is not deemed necessary. The great purpose of the Convention was to amend the Constitution of the United States, so as to recognize and protect slaves as property. As a direct proposition this was negatived, but the same end was sought to be attained by indirect means, and its friends exulted in having accomplished it. Such is the obvious effect of these amendments. If adopted, slaves must everywhere in the Union be regarded as property, and entitled to the same legal protection as other property. The necessary result will be, that all State laws forbidding the bringing of slaves within their limits, will be void, the sovereignty of the States in that respect will be destroyed, and the National Constitution will recognize and protect property in man.

We do not believe that the people of the State of New York will, under any pressure of circumstances, however grave, recognize a claim so repugnant to humanity, so hostile to freedom.

We commend to your honorable body the careful consideration of these proposed constitutional amendments. We believe that they will, if adopted, engraft upon our Constitution the odious doctrine of property in man; that they will extend slavery over a vast domain once free; that they will change the whole spirit and character of our organic law, making that to protect and foster slavery which was intended to establish freedom; making that irrevocable and perpetual which the framers of the instrument intended should be temporary.

DAVID DUDLEY FIELD, WM. CURTIS NOYES, JOHN A. KING, JAMES S. WADSWORTH, A.B. JAMES, JAMES C. SMITH.

* * * * *

NOTE OF MR. FIELD.

The following statement shows why the vote of New York was not given upon the first question taken in the Peace Convention, on the twenty-seventh of February. The Journal represents the vote as divided. It was not divided. The vote was ordered to be cast, and should have been cast in the negative.

On Tuesday, the day preceding, a message came to me from the clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States, that the Court was waiting for me in a case which had stood upon the docket since December, 1859, and was now for the first time reached in its order. The case was of great importance, for upon its result depended the closing or reopening of a litigation which I had conducted for nineteen years, which had embraced in its different forms more than eighty suits, and in the course of which the Courts of the State and of the United States had come into direct conflict. All the tribunals of the State of New York, where the question had been raised, had decided against my clients. The Supreme Court of the United States, by a majority of two, had once decided in their favor.

The present case was to determine whether the Court would adhere to its former decision. The stake of my clients was therefore immense, and I was their only counsel.

The case being called after my arrival in Court, the Chief Justice observed that, as it was too late to begin that day, the argument would proceed first the next morning, at eleven o'clock, unless the Attorney-General should claim precedence in another case. Then, thinking that the Convention would close its business during the day, I hastened back, and the question being soon taken, I cast the vote of the State against the proposition before the Convention, and it was rejected by 11 to 8.

A reconsideration was moved and carried, and an adjournment taken to half-past seven in the evening. At that hour I returned to the Convention, but to my disappointment, and in spite of my efforts, it adjourned to the next morning at ten o'clock, a majority of my associates voting for the adjournment.

The next morning I endeavored to procure a meeting of the delegation before ten o'clock, that I might obtain a formal instruction to the Chairman in my absence to cast a vote of the State against the proposed amendments. Not being able, however, to obtain the earlier attendance of all the members, I waited till they appeared in the hall of the Convention, and there, shortly before eleven o'clock, I called them together, and, all being present, a resolution, in contemplation of my absence, was moved and carried, that "the Chairman declare that New York voted No on each section." Thereupon requesting Mr. King to act as temporary Chairman in my absence, and when New York was called to cast the vote in the negative, pursuant to the resolution, I left the hall and drove to the Capitol as rapidly as possible, that I might be present at the opening of the Court.

Was it reasonable, nay, was it possible, that I should do otherwise? It is known to be a rule of the Supreme Court not to postpone an argument for other engagements of counsel. If neither counsel is present, the case goes to the foot of the docket, to be reached again only after two or three years; if one of the counsel only appears, he makes an oral argument, and a printed brief is submitted on the other side. In my view, it would have been trifling with the rights of my clients either to submit their case on a printed brief or to postpone it for two years. I had no one to send to the Court in my place. To despatch a letter with an excuse was a liberty I did not feel justified in taking, and if taken, it might fail of its object, as the Court, when informed of the circumstances, must have believed that no member of the delegation would take advantage of my absence if he could, and that he could not if he would, since the vote had been already determined in a meeting of the delegation, and that determination could not be reconsidered or changed without the desertion to the minority of one of the majority.

But whatever might be the opinion of others, my duty appeared to myself extremely plain. There was nothing to be done in the Convention but the merely ministerial duty of declaring what had already been determined, which duty could certainly be performed by another as well as myself, while, on the other hand, no one but myself could act in Court for my clients. It is true that some of my associates expressed to me their apprehension that the minority might appeal to the Convention, and that the Convention might arbitrarily overrule the delegation; but I answered them as I repeat now, that neither the minority of the delegation nor the Convention itself had any right to interpose. We were not asking a favor, but exercising a right. Whether a person not present could vote was not the question. Persons did not vote except on unimportant questions and by general consent. States voted; the vote of each State was delivered by its Chairman, who collected the voices of his delegation and announced the result. There was nothing in the reason of the thing, nothing in any rule or usage of the Convention, which required the voices of the delegation to be collected at the instant of announcing the result. They might be collected one minute beforehand, or, as in the present instance, ten minutes, or twice ten minutes. All that could be required was, that each member should give his own judgment upon the particular proposition, and the sum of these judgments it was the sole province of the Chairman to make known. There could be no occasion for their standing by his side while he performed this duty unless he needed their support or they feared his weakness.

I have said that there was no rule of the Convention which ordered the matter otherwise; on the contrary, the rule as to the mode of voting--the 18th--was as follows:

"18. MODE OF VOTING: All votes shall be taken by States, and each State to give one vote. The yeas and nays of the members shall not be taken, or published--only the decision by States."

On the twenty-first of February, Mr. Dent, of Maryland, moved the adoption of the following rule:

"When the vote on any question is taken by States, any Commissioner dissenting from the vote of his State may have his dissent entered on the journal."

Mr. Chase, of Ohio, offered the following as a substitute for Mr. Dent's rule.

"The yeas and nays of the Commissioners of each State, upon any question, shall be entered upon the Journal, when it is desired by any Commissioner; and the vote of each State shall be determined by the majority of Commissioners present from each State."

Mr. Chase's substitute was rejected, and Mr. Dent's rule adopted.

The usage of the Convention may be understood by a single example. The Maine delegation consisted of her two Senators and six members of the House of Representatives. One member only attended for the greater part of the Convention, and cast the vote of the State. Indeed it was a frequent practice for members to absent themselves and leave their associates to act for them.

The State of New York had, moreover, decided for herself in what manner her Commissioners should speak for her, by declaring in the joint resolution of the Senate and Assembly that they should cast their "votes to be determined by a majority of their number," not the majority of those who should happen to be present at a particular instant on the floor of the Convention, but a majority of the whole number. Suppose, upon a question being put, the delegation had met for consultation, and by a formal resolution determined that the vote of the State be No; then, instructing their Chairman to cast the vote accordingly, had separated, and all but the Chairman retired from the hall, could he thereupon have changed the vote to Aye, because he disagreed with the majority and alone remained on the floor? Or could the Convention have refused this vote of the State? And if not, how is that question different from the one here?

It was, therefore, I must think with good reason, assumed by me when I left the hall, that if the question should be put in my absence, which by the way I considered uncertain, as the debate then going on might last for hours, and I hoped still to find some means of deferring my argument to the next day, I might certainly depend on the vote of New York being declared again as it had been declared before, never doubting for a moment the ability and the will of my associates to defend against all opposition the rights of the State, their own rights, and mine.

On my arrival at the Court I did not succeed in my desire to defer my argument to the next day; but had I done so, it would have made no difference, as the vote in the Convention must have been called before I reached the Capitol.

What occurred in my absence I can only know from report. Five different statements are given: one by Mr. King in a published letter, another by the secretary of the delegation in the minutes kept by him, the third by the chairman of the Massachusetts delegation, who had the best opportunity to observe what was passing, the fourth by the secretary in a correspondence with me, and the fifth in the published Journal of the Convention.

Mr. King's statement of what occurred in my absence is as follows:

"The vote on the amendment soon followed, and before New York was called I asked my colleagues what vote should be given, and the reply was that in the absence of Mr. Field the vote was divided. Nevertheless, I stated the case to the Convention, and asked permission to cast the vote as before. This was objected to by one of the Commissioners of the minority, and permission having been refused by the Convention, by direction of my colleagues when the State was called I answered that the vote was divided."

The other statements are subjoined, and numbered, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

From a comparison of these statements it appears.

First: That the direction given to Mr. King, when the whole delegation were together, regularly convened, in contemplation of my absence, was to "declare that New York voted No."

Second: That instead of confining himself to that duty, he began immediately upon my departure, and before the vote was demanded, to ask anew, "what vote should be given?" and when the vote was demanded, instead of voting No, "stated the case to the Convention, and asked permission to cast the vote as before."

Third: That Mr. King's colleagues, though they had just resolved, in expectation of my absence, that he should "declare that New York voted No," yet "before New York was called," and of course before any intimation from the Convention or its President, in answer to his question, "What vote shall be given?" replied, "that in Mr. Field's absence, the vote was divided," and directed him so to declare.

Fourth: That the Convention never "decided that no person could vote who was not present." Whatever was done, was done between the delegation and Mr. Tyler. No order was taken by the Convention, but, on the contrary, the objection on the part of the minority of the delegation was that "the Convention had no control or authority in the matter."

What caused this departure from the course of proceedings prescribed by the resolution does not clearly appear. The delegation did not rescind the resolution; the Convention did not reverse it. I do not understand that my associates consider it a nullity--certainly they could not have so considered it when it was passed. I have not sufficient evidence that they changed their minds within ten minutes, or that they have changed them yet. That the resolution was not a nullity, but an authoritative act, binding upon every member of the delegation, until duly reconsidered, I believed then, and believe still.

I submit, therefore, that my reason for attending court, at its opening, was not only sufficient but imperative; and if I had not yielded to it, I should have incurred the reproach of my clients, and the censure of all right-thinking men; that before I left the Convention, I did not only all that could have been done, but all that was necessary, to make the vote of New York certain against the proposed amendments of the Constitution; and that the omission to record the vote of New York as it was ordered, was owing not to any act or omission of mine, but to the efforts of the minority of the delegation, or some of them, to prevent an expression of the opinion of the majority, and to the failure of my associates of the majority to execute in my absence what had been resolved when I was present.

It is certainly with regret that I write this note. My preference was for a statement in which we all could join, but my associates refused to enter into any joint relation of the facts.

I hope, also, it will not be inferred from any thing I have written, that I do not regret the omission to record New York as voting against what appeared to me an unwise and pernicious proposition. Though the importance of the vote has been greatly magnified, and the result in my opinion would not have been different if the vote of New York had been counted, as I believe some of the States not voting would, if necessary, have voted in the affirmative; and even if it had been otherwise, I think the action of the Convention was of no importance whatever; yet, I should wish this State, of which we are so proud, to appear always, even in a matter of ceremony, on the side of Freedom; ever loyal to the Constitution as it is, but against placing there a guaranty to slavery beyond the guarantees of our fathers.

DAVID DUDLEY FIELD.

NEW YORK, March 20th, 1861.

* * * * *

I.--Extract from the Minutes of the New York Delegation, kept by their Secretary.

"WEDNESDAY, February 27th, 1861.

"New York delegation met in the room, and Mr. Wadsworth moved that the New York delegation vote No on each of the sections of the committee's report. Messrs. Corning, Bronson, Granger, Wool, and Dodge opposed, urging that the vote of New York be given on each section as it was called. The majority overruled, and decided to have the Chairman declare that New York voted No on each section.

"The question on the first section being called, Mr. King stated that one of the members of the delegation being called away to the United States Court, the delegation had taken a vote before he left, and he appealed to the justice of the Convention to have it so cast, stating that the vote of the delegation had been so cast on the previous day.

"The Convention decided that no person could vote who was not present.

"The delegation was divided."

* * * * *

II.--Letter from the Chairman of the Massachusetts Delegation.

"WASHINGTON, March 8th, 1861.

"MY DEAR SIR:--Your favor of the 6th instant is before me. After alluding to the fact that 'my seat in the Peace Convention was at the table directly under the President's chair, between him and the New York delegation,' you desire me to inform you what took place, on the occasion of the vote of New York being called on the morning of the 27th February. What I observed was this:

"When the vote of New York was called for, Governor King rose and stated in substance that you had a short time before left the Convention to argue a case in the Supreme Court, which had been assigned for that morning, and asked the permission of the Convention to give the vote of the State in your absence, the same as though you were present. To this one of the Commissioners, Mr. Corning I think it was, objected, saying that the vote of New York was to be given as her Commissioners who were present should decide, and that the Convention had no control or authority in the matter. Some conversation was then had between the Commissioners who favored and those who opposed the pending proposition, which I did not hear with sufficient distinctness to understand, and in a minute or two Governor King announced that the vote of New York was divided.

"This is the substance of what occurred, so far as I observed it.

"With great respect, your friend,

"J.Z. GOODRICH.

"To David Dudley Field, Esq., New York."

* * * * *

III.--Letter to the Secretary of the Convention.

"NEW YORK, March 4th, 1861.

"DEAR SIR:--Was any resolution passed by the Convention on Wednesday, the 27th of February, respecting the right of New York to vote, or affecting the vote of that State in the absence of any of her Commissioners? On one side I am told that there was such a resolution passed, or vote taken, in my absence; on the other side, I am told that there was not. If one was passed, will you do me the favor to give me a copy of it, and oblige

"Yours truly,

"DAVID DUDLEY FIELD.

"CRAFTS J. WRIGHT, Esq., &c., &c."

* * * * *

IV.--The Secretary's Answer.

No. 135, WILLARD'S, WASHINGTON, March 5th, 1861.

"DEAR SIR:--I have your letter. When New York was called, the inquiry was made whether an absent member could vote, stating that one member of that delegation was absent. The President stated that an absent member could not vote. New York was stated divided, and did not vote.

"Respectfully, &c.,

"CRAFTS J. WRIGHT."

* * * * *

V.--Extract from the Journal of the Convention.

"February 27th, 1861.

"The question on the adoption of said section resulted in the following vote:

"YEAS.--Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee--9.

"NAYS.--Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Virginia--8.

"So the section was adopted.

"On calling New York, the members stated that one of their number was absent, and the delegation were divided. Inquiry was made of the President whether an absent member could vote. The President decided he could not, without general leave.

"New York, Indiana, and Kansas were divided."

* * * * *

To the Legislature of the State of New York:

The undersigned beg leave to submit a reply to the statement of Mr. D.D. Field, to the report of the majority of the Commissioners to the Conference Convention at Washington, respecting his absence on the final vote in that body, on the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The fact of his absence is admitted by Mr. Field, and attempted to be defended at great length, but Mr. Field has omitted to state that, by the 14th Rule of the Convention, "no member should be absent from the Convention, so as to interrupt the representation of the State, without leave." Mr. Field neither asked nor obtained leave of absence, and hence, under the rule, he failed to discharge his duty, both to the Convention and his colleagues. Mr. Field does not state that he made any application to the court for a temporary postponement of his case, in view of the important vote then about to be taken in Convention. But, on the contrary, argues to show that his duty to his client was paramount to his duty as Commissioner of the State of New York, in a question involving constitutional principles. After Mr. Field had stated, in the presence of his colleagues in the Convention, that he was obliged to go immediately to the Supreme Court of the United States, he was urged by those who agreed with him in opinion, to remain, and give the vote of the State against the proposed amendments, and was repeatedly told that his absence would divide the vote; this was so stated to him, by the minority of the Commissioners, and that it would be so claimed by them before the Convention. He refused to remain, and with the full knowledge of the effect of his absence on the question about to be taken, he left the Convention, and thus defeated the vote of his State. We who remained in our places, felt deeply the embarrassment, and the remarks which were made in consequence of Mr. Field's withdrawal. We had steadily, up to that time, sustained with him, our own, and what we believed to be the sentiment of the State, in favor of freedom, and were, therefore, entirely unprepared for such a determination on his part. Nor is our surprise lessened by the manner and the certificates by which he has at great length attempted to defend his course on this occasion. The vote of New York was not declared until after the vote which had been previously taken in its delegation had been stated, nor until an appeal had been made to the Convention, and refused by its President, to enable his colleagues to protect its vote in the absence of the Chairman of the delegation. By his absence the vote of New York stood 5 to 5, and it was under the decision of the Convention alone, that the vote was declared to be divided. Mr. Field has stated that the omission to record the vote of New York against the amendments was not owing to any act or omission of his, but to the efforts of the minority of the delegation, or some of them, to prevent the expression of the opinion of the majority. The objection was made after notice to him that it would be made, and the Convention sustained it, hence the vote was lost by his absence. Nor is the opinion of Mr. Field entitled to consideration when he imputes to the majority a want of fidelity to him, in not claiming and adhering to the vote which had been taken when all were present, and which was afterwards rendered null, by his absence. They did adhere to it, and endeavored to cast the vote accordingly. It was his duty to have been present, and to have thus given effect to that which had been previously agreed to. Mr. Field states, and truly, that his colleagues refused to unite in a joint relation of the facts of the case. They refused, because they were not satisfied with his course, and would not be responsible for it in any way. Up to the moment of his leaving the Convention, Mr. Field had manifested great zeal and ability in sustaining and defending the principles which a majority of the delegation desired to advocate, and his failure at the last, and decisive vote, was as unexpected as it was indefensible.

JOHN A. KING, WM. CURTIS NOYES, A.B. JAMES, JAS. S. WADSWORTH, JAS. C. SMITH.

NEW YORK, March 28th, 1861.

* * * * *

To the Legislature of the State of New York:

Informed by the newspapers of this morning that five of my associates in the Peace Convention, after waiting nearly three weeks, made yesterday to the Legislature a communication purporting to be an answer to the note which I thought it my duty to append to the report, explaining why the vote of New York was not given at a particular time, I beg leave to submit the following in reply:

I do not perceive that my associates impugn a single statement of fact contained in my note. My engagement in Court, the importance of the engagement, the necessity for my keeping it, the meeting of the delegation in contemplation of it, their resolution directing how the vote should be cast in my absence, the neglect so to cast it, are all, by silence, admitted. Nor do I perceive any denial of the proposition that the delegation had a right to pass the resolution, which thus became binding on all its members until reconsidered and reversed.

Perhaps I ought to make one exception to this use of admissions. My associates apparently wish to have it believed, yet hesitate to assert, that the Convention made a decision respecting the right to vote. In one place they say, "that an appeal had been made to the Convention, and refused by its President;" in another, that "it was under the decision of the Convention alone that the vote was declared to be divided;" and in a third, that the objection of the minority was made after notice to me that it would be made, and the "Convention sustained it, hence the vote was lost," by my absence. They should have reflected that there could have been no "decision of the Convention" if the appeal to it was "refused by its President." The truth beyond question is, that although my associates imagined that the Convention decided something, it did in fact decide nothing.

My associates say further, that I argue to show that my duty to my client was paramount to my "duty as Commissioner of the State of New York, in a question involving constitutional principles." This is an idle calumny. My note can be read as well as theirs; and in general will be read by the same persons, and there is not a word in it to justify or excuse their assertion. I never thus argued. I claimed that I had two duties to perform, and that I performed both. I did not claim that my duty to my State was subordinate to any other duty whatever.

When my associates assert that their Chairman left the Convention "with full knowledge of the effect of his absence on the vote about to be taken," if they mean that I knew or supposed that they intended to reverse their own action, or that Mr. King would not announce the vote as it had been resolved, or would declare the vote divided, or that they would support him in it, or that the Convention would overrule the delegation, then they assert what they could not know to be true, and what is not true in fact. My note sets forth what I was told, and what I replied.

My associates argue that I failed to discharge my duty, because I did not obtain leave of the Convention before going into the Supreme Court. Though I do not remember to have heard before of leave granted by a deliberative body to a member to go out for half an hour, or for one or two hours, I will observe, by this Convention absence was expressly allowed, if it did not "interrupt the representation of the State." My associates do indeed claim that, when I left the hall, the State ceased to be represented, ten Commissioners only remaining behind. The argument of this strange position appears to be, that a State is not represented when its vote can be divided, and that the vote of New York was divided. Here is a double fallacy. To say that the vote was divided, begs the question. It was not divided so long as the resolution passed by the delegation remained valid, and its validity is not denied. The other part of the proposition is equally fallacious. A State is represented when there are in the body delegates authorized to represent it, whatever be their number. The arguments of my associates seem to be, that a State could only be represented in the Peace Convention by odd numbers, and that if it sent eight or ten representatives, it would have no representatives at all.

But what shall I say to the following sentences:--"Nor is the opinion of Mr. Field entitled to consideration, when he imputes to the majority a want of fidelity to him, in not claiming and adhering to the vote which had been taken when all were present, and which was afterwards rendered null by his absence. They did adhere to it, and endeavored to cast the vote accordingly. It was his duty to have been present, and to have thus given effect to that which had been previously agreed to." Would any one imagine that the authors were speaking of a vote, given in expectation of my absence, and to determine what should be done when I was away? The vote was taken because I was to be absent, and directed the Chairman how to act in that event, but it is nevertheless pretended that the moment I became absent, the vote became null. They might better have said that the vote would have become null, or rather that there would have been no occasion for it in case of my continued presence. Then they say that they adhered to it. How did they adhere? The resolution directed the Chairman to cast the vote in the negative. He did not obey the resolution. His associates and mine did not insist that he should. Nobody prevented his answering "no," when the vote was called. No reason has ever been given for his not so answering. That he should instead have entered voluntarily into a discussion with Mr. Tyler on the subject, and that his associates should have looked quietly on, can only be accounted for by supposing them indifferent or bewildered.

It is not an agreeable task to write thus of old friends; but I must defend myself when attacked, and defence cannot always be made pleasant to an assailant.

My late friends profess to think me responsible for the loss of the vote of New York on a certain occasion. I think them responsible for it. Which side is right the Legislature and the people of the State will judge.

DAVID DUDLEY FIELD.

NEW YORK, April 11th, 1861.

* * * * *

Report of a Minority of the Commissioners of New York.

IN SENATE, March 25th, 1861.

The undersigned, constituting a minority of the Commissioners, appointed by the Legislature of the State of New York, under resolutions responsive to those of the State of Virginia, referred to in the report of the majority of the Commissioners of said State of New York, admitting the correctness of the record of the proceedings presented by said majority, but differing from them in much of the reasoning which they present, respectfully report:

That they entered upon the duties assigned to them, earnestly desiring to carry out the patriotic spirit of said resolutions as therein expressed, which said original resolutions are herein embodied as a part of this report:

NEW YORK.

CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS appointing Commissioners from this State to meet Commissioners from other States at Washington, on invitation of Virginia.

WHEREAS, the State of Virginia, by resolutions of her General Assembly, passed the nineteenth instant, has invited such of the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States as are willing to unite with her, to meet at Washington, on the fourth of February next, to consider, and if practicable, agree on some suitable adjustment of our national difficulties; and whereas, the people of New York, while they hold the opinion that the Constitution of the United States, as it is, contains all needful guarantees for the rights of the States, are nevertheless ready, at all times, to confer with their brethren upon all alleged grievances; and to do all that can justly be required of them to allay discontent; therefore,

Resolved, That David Dudley Field, William Curtis Noyes, James S. Wadsworth, James C. Smith, Amaziah B. James, Erastus Corning, Addison Gardner, Greene C. Bronson, Wm. E. Dodge, Ex-Governor John A. King, and Major-General John E. Wool, be and are hereby appointed Commissioners on the part of this State, to meet Commissioners from other States, in the City of Washington, on the fourth day of February next, or so soon thereafter as Commissioners shall be appointed by a majority of the States of the Union, to confer with them upon the complaints of any part of the country, and to suggest such remedies therefor as to them shall seem fit and proper; but the said Commissioners shall at all times be subject to the control of this Legislature, and shall cast five votes to be determined by a majority of their number.

Resolved, That in thus acceding to the request of Virginia, it is not to be understood that this Legislature approve of the propositions submitted by the General Assembly of that State, or concede the propriety of their adoption by the proposed Convention. But while adhering to the position she has heretofore occupied, New York will not reject an invitation to a conference, which, by bringing together the men of both sections, holds out the possibility of an honorable settlement of our national difficulties, and the restoration of peace and harmony to the country.

Resolved, That the Governor be requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing resolutions to the Executives of the several States, and also to the President of the United States, and to inform the Commissioners without delay of their appointment.

Resolved, That the foregoing resolutions be transmitted to the honorable the Senate, with a request that they concur therein.

The foregoing resolutions were passed in the House of Assembly by a vote of seventy-three ayes to thirty-nine noes, and in the Senate by a vote of nineteen to twelve, those in the negative, in both Houses, being all members of the dominant party, and those in the affirmative composed of the members of the opposition, and of those Republicans who were supposed to be prepared to meet the State of Virginia and other sister States, in the spirit of the resolutions adopted by the States of Virginia and New York.

A single point in the record, to which reference has been made, requires some consideration before proceeding to the reasoning of a majority of the Commissioners upon the propositions finally adopted by the Convention. The majority of the Commissioners state that most of said majority were opposed to the submission by the Convention of any amendments of the Constitution of the United States at the present time, and in the present excited state of the public mind.

Not only was that ground assumed by a majority of the New York Commissioners, but some of their number argued with great ability against the danger of touching that sacred instrument, consecrated by memories so dear to every patriot heart.

The propositions, presented as amendments, were clear and distinct--their adoption would in no manner disturb the general harmony of the Constitution; yet, strangely enough, to an ordinary mind, the majority of the Commissioners who found such danger in adopting the specific amendments proposed, voted with a united action for a General Convention to remodel the entire Constitution--exposed to all the hazards that must attend such a Convention--by whose action a form of government might be presented, in which could not be found a single trace of that Constitution for which they professed such high veneration.

The undersigned will now consider the reasons presented by a majority of the Commissioners against the proposition: The majority declare that the Convention would not listen to, much less adopt any amendments in the interests of freedom, or of free labor, or of the rights of citizens of the free States, the only one of that character, that in relation to the securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States, &c., &c. As the undersigned have no recollection of the propositions to which reference would seem to be made, other than that embraced in the last clause, which they have quoted, they would call the attention of the people of the State of New York to this subject, as one deeply interesting in its character, and upon which it is supposed that there is very little difference of opinion. As this statement is thrown out by a majority of the Commissioners, in a manner to carry a belief that the harsh and cruel enactments which deprive colored citizens of the North of the privileges they claim in Southern States under the Constitution, it may be well for our people to consider that such enactments are not confined to the States fostering the institution of slavery, but exist and are enforced in some States making peculiar claim to love for freedom and the rights of man. The State of Illinois has a code of laws against free colored persons, citizens of other States, as severe as those of South Carolina or Louisiana. These laws have been recently enforced, and yet the North does not hear one word of the wrongs inflicted upon colored citizens of other States found within the borders of Illinois.

It will be recollected that the Constitution first presented by the State of Oregon, contained a clause prohibiting free colored persons from residing within that State. That Constitution received the votes of both the Senators from New York--each expressing his views of that instrument, yet the public censure has not fallen upon either of those gentlemen, by reason of such action. Nor is it necessary to go beyond the election polls of this State, claiming its fifty thousand majority for the cause of freedom and of equal rights--and yet counting from the ballot box an hundred thousand majority against securing the privilege of suffrage to colored persons, upon the same conditions that it is secured to whites. These facts are presented with the hope that they may create a spirit of charity in the public mind toward those States whose peculiar position renders such harsh legislation certainly not more censurable than it is in free States.

The undersigned differ entirely from the majority of the Commissioners, as to the action of the Convention upon subjects interesting to the North. It is known to all that Virginia, Kentucky, and it is believed all the Southern Border States instructed their delegates to insist on the Crittenden propositions, a material feature of which was, that in all future acquired territory, south of 36° 30´, slavery should be permitted; and yet when this material clause was found repugnant to the Northern sentiment, a distinguished Commissioner from Maryland moved to limit it to present territory, which proposition was adopted. Surely this was an important surrender to Northern sentiment that should not have been forgotten.

The majority say, that by the first of the proposed amendments, slavery is constitutionally established in all the territory south of the line of 36° 30´, as if such recognition of slavery there was now for the first time to be established by the proposed amendment. The majority of these Commissioners are counsellors of eminent ability, and yet, for some reason not easily comprehended, they have seen fit to ignore a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which declares that slavery can be carried into all the Territories of the United States, whether south or north of the line of 36° 30´. The famous Dred Scott decision, to which reference is here made, was often referred to in the debates of the Convention, and was insisted upon by many gentlemen, holding views and opinions similar to those of a majority of the New York Commissioners, as affording all the protection that the South could require, and claiming that the proposed amendment was unnecessary, by reason of such protection.

The Territory of New Mexico was declared open to slavery by the compromise act of 1850. The public mind of the North was deeply agitated upon that subject. A distinguished statesman, who was removed from earth before his eyes were forced "to rest upon a dismembered Confederacy," was violently assailed for declaring that slavery could work no practical evil in New Mexico; and yet the recent census has vindicated that assertion, showing that in the ten years that have passed since that compromise, only twenty-four slaves were to be found in what the majority of the committee are pleased to call the "immense region" of New Mexico; more than half of whom were servants of army officers, to be removed when they should be ordered to other stations.

The Territorial Legislature of New Mexico has declared the existence and passed laws for the protection of slavery throughout that entire Territory, while the proposed amendment of the Constitution would exclude it from all that portion of said Territory north of 36° 30´.

The undersigned are not only ready to vindicate their votes for that proposed amendment, but claim that such an amendment to the Constitution would be a great gain to the cause of freedom; taking from the action of the Dred Scott decision, and of the Territorial Legislation, all territory north of 36° 30´; and they challenge a comparison of their votes, with the course of those who preferred to leave this question subject to the action of that decision, and to the legislation to which reference is made.

The second section of the proposed amendments, touching the future acquisition of territory, met the approval of the undersigned, as certainly not less important to the North than to the South. The history of our country shows how hastily the assumed powers of Congress have been exercised upon this question, and at this moment presents a startling example, of a State of vast territory, acquired by a joint resolution of Congress, sustained at an enormous expense, and now withdrawing from the Confederacy, seizing upon and applying to its own use all the Government property found within its borders. Every reflecting citizen can determine for himself where there is the most danger to the cause of humanity, and whether territory is more probably to be acquired from the North, and consecrated to freedom, or from the Southwest, upon which these exciting contests might be revived.

This proposed amendment is presented with entire confidence for the decision of our people.

As the majority of the Commissioners do not dissent from the general principles of the third article, but object to some of its provisions, the undersigned would remark that the principal difference between them and the majority would seem to be whether Congress shall be denied the power of abolishing Slavery 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. Ever since the formation of the Government, this has been a subject upon which the friends of freedom have been divided. In the opinion of the undersigned, this question should be permanently settled.

The power of removing slaves from one section of the country to another, is secured by this section, but cannot be exercised against the wishes of the State through which slaves would otherwise be taken. The power to touch at ports, shores, and landings, with vessels having on board persons held in bondage, and of landing, in case of distress, is embraced in this proposed amendment, the latter clause of which will, certainly, receive the approval of every friend of humanity. The undersigned do not join in the fears expressed by the majority, that a resort to "impure means" could ever secure from the Legislature of New York any laws upon these subjects, not entirely consistent with the honor and dignity of the State.

The Fourth proposition was adopted by a vote so large as to make comment here unnecessary.

As the Fifth proposition received the unanimous vote of your Commissioners, it requires no comment.

The Sixth proposition is upon a subject that has been discussed ever since the formation of the Government, and need not be dwelt upon.

The Seventh proposition presented itself with such force to the Convention as to receive a strong vote, but seven States declaring against it. It will be seen that this section requires Congress to provide by law for securing to citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

Many other propositions were presented to the Convention, some of which received the full concurrence of the undersigned; to others they were opposed, and those who shared in the deliberations of the Convention do not doubt, and will not deny, that propositions were presented whose only object and effect could be to embarrass its proceedings.

The action of the Convention failed to secure at the hands of Congress the legislation necessary to present it to the people of the different States, in the manner prescribed by the Constitution. Still it is in the power, and the undersigned trust will be in the disposition of the representatives of the people of New York, in both Halls of its Legislation, to present them for the acceptance or rejection of her people.

Whatever differences of political opinion may exist, there can be but one mind as to the present critical condition of our country, or that it is the duty of every citizen to give all the aid in his power, to sustain an administration that has entered upon its complicated duties under circumstances of more embarrassment than have ever before existed in our country's history.

The undersigned not only as deeply regret, but as severely condemn, the action of those States who have attempted to withdraw from the Union, as do the majority of the Commissioners who opposed the adoption of the measures of conciliation presented by the Peace Convention.

Those who are conversant with the political action of the seceding States, will have observed how strong is their desire to draw the Southern Border States into this new Confederacy. With each of those Border States are large bodies of active politicians, constantly influencing the public mind, and misrepresenting, to a great extent, the opinions and designs of those who have wrought out this revolution in the national administration. The public mind is fearfully agitated upon these issues, and the refusal of the Legislature of New York to present the propositions of the Peace Convention, for the suffrages of her people, will greatly diminish the power of the Union men of the Border States to sustain themselves in their present trying position.

It is believed that Virginia is about to submit these propositions to her people; let New York, who so nobly responded to the call of Virginia, show that she, too, will be governed by the wishes of her people, and that if those ties which have so long held these powerful States in the bonds of brotherhood, must be severed, it shall be done only by the verdict of their people as recorded in the ballot box.

FRANCIS GRANGER, ERASTUS CORNING, GREENE C. BRONSON, WM. E. DODGE.

* * * * *

Report of the Rhode Island Peace Commissioners.

To the Honorable General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island:

The undersigned Commissioners on the part of this State, appointed upon the request of the State of Virginia, to meet Commissioners from the other States to confer upon the best mode of adjusting the unhappy differences which now disturb the peace of the country, respectfully beg leave to report:

That on the 4th day of February last, at Washington, the day and place named for the opening of the Conference, they met Commissioners from other States, and remained with them in conference until the 27th day of February, at which time twenty-one States were represented, when having agreed by a majority of States to submit to Congress, to be by Congress submitted to conventions in the several States, the annexed article in amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Convention finally adjourned.

This article, it will be seen, applies the old line of 36° 30´ of North latitude to all the present Territory of the United States, prohibiting slavery north of that line, whilst it recognizes and secures its existence south of that line during the territorial government, and provides for the formation of new States out of such territory with or without slavery as their constitutions may direct.

As this partition of territory was not disadvantageous, at least to the free States, as it disposed of the agitation consequent upon a recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States upon a celebrated case, and followed a precedent which had given peace to the country upon this most dangerous subject of controversy for upwards of thirty years, your Commissioners gave their assent to it as the best practical solution of all difficulties growing out of the territorial question.

New territory is no further dealt with by this article than to require, except in certain specified cases, a majority of all the Senators from each side of said line, to concur in its acquisition, whether made by act of Congress or by treaty, thus giving to each class of States a check upon the cupidity of the others.

The other sections of the article were designed in general so to define and limit the rights, powers, and duties of both Congress and the States, with regard to the subject of slavery, as to prevent further controversy, and to enable and induce those most opposed in opinion and interest, by the practice of mutual forbearance, to live in peace and amity under the same Federal Government. It is believed that in no essential particular will this article change the present actual state of things; its value consisting in the security therein which it gives to all, and in the settlement made by it of present and probable subjects of controversy.

In a great practical matter of this sort, your Commissioners deem these results of far more importance than strict adhesion to any theory, however plausible in the abstract, and especially than to any party declaration of principles of a sectional cast, however vehemently argued, or numerously adopted on either side. To deal well and wisely with the actual and real, and whilst consulting the past and looking to the probable future for guidance, to base his action on what is, comprises the whole duty of a statesman; leaving to political philosophers to dream of what might have been, or in the abstract of what ought to be. Reform, it is true, in this way comes slowly, but it comes without the disturbance of material interests, without agitation of human passions, and without the violent outbreaks which these occasion--hindering and obstructing its progress in that grand and orderly procession of moral causes and effects which expresses and marks the providence and government of GOD.

It was apparent to all that, whatever may have been the motive and origin of the present alarming movement in the extreme Southern States, the instrument successfully used to promote it was the agitation of their people upon the safety of the institution of negro slavery in the States and Territories; and various conflicting opinions with regard to the best course to be pursued to allay this agitation were elicited in the course of this long conference. Extremists were not wanting on the one hand, who seemed inclined to construe the anomaly of slavery of the negro race, found in the Constitution of a free people, into a general rule; and who proposed or voted for propositions which they knew could not be accepted, that their assertion might aid in the remaining States the cause of secession. Extremists were not wanting, on the other hand, who were opposed to doing any thing upon the subject of slavery, especially at present, lest such action should compromise the incoming administration, and the Republican party, and even the character of the Government itself. Without suspecting the purity of the motives of either of these extremists, who beyond doubt represented the views of large and respectable bodies of men in their different sections, your Commissioners found themselves equally unable to agree with either.

They could not ignore the fact that seven States had separated themselves from the others and set up a federal government of their own; and that these were ceaselessly agitating the people of the remaining Southern States by inflammatory speeches, and writings skilfully addressed to their interests and sympathies, to induce them to join in this new movement. They could not doubt the assurances given to them by able and patriotic men from the States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, that these attempts upon the loyalty of the people of their States had met at least with partial success; nor, indeed, blind themselves to the evidences of this found in the speeches and votes of individual Commissioners from these very States. Above all, they could not be insensible to the touching appeals of men, venerable in years, distinguished in public service, and whose reputation for ability and patriotism was national, to give them something in the shape of a constitutional security with which to allay the startled fears of their constituents, beat back the attacks of their enemies and ours, and even bring again to their duty thousands of men in the States of the extreme South, who had been led astray by the popular fears and impulses of the hour, and who, with the loyal but overborne, might well look to them for support, since no other had been afforded them in the reign of terror under which they were suffering. In the circumstances in which the country was placed, it seemed to your Commissioners that true policy ran in the course of generous impulse; that in this matter we were dealing not with treason, but with the most devoted loyalty which invoked our aid against it; that the concessions we made, if concessions indeed they were, were made to our friends that they might be strong enough to triumph over their enemies and ours, because the enemies of the country.

If, as is true, in this view of their duty your Commissioners stood in the main alone amongst the Commissioners from the Northern States, and ranged themselves by the side of the Central States of the Union, upon whom the weight of the civil strife must come if come it must, they need not assure you that no dastardly fears, no feelings of base compliance, dictated the position thus taken by them. Such motives to action neither became them nor those whom they represented. It was because of generous faith and earnest sympathy, of ties which no distance of time or space, and no difference of institutions can weaken; which in our fathers' days and our own led our heroes to hazard all for all, and at Guilford Court House, and Eutaw, and at Erie, with desperate valor to snatch victory for our common country out of the very lap of defeat; it was because our little State, with a warm heart and a ready hand, has never failed in counsel or deed to stand with the whole country in all dangers and in extremest disasters, that your Commissioners conceived that they best represented her by averting danger from those with whom they knew she would hasten to share it. If it be true that the time has arrived when our sympathy for an alien and a subject race has extinguished all sympathy for our own, and has hidden from us the ties of a common origin, common interests, and of a common glory, then, indeed, are we separated from our brethren, and the curse of slavery has fallen upon us as well as upon them. Your Commissioners found nothing in themselves to justify them in attributing such sentiments to the people of the State; and unitedly recommend the adoption by you of the amendment to the Constitution proposed by the Conference of Commissioners, as best fitted to give security and ensure peace to the country.

Among the measures strenuously enforced by some of the Commissioners, in lieu of that adopted by a majority, was the calling of a General Convention. To this measure your Commissioners opposed their most earnest and determined resistance. As a measure of peace, if for no other reason, because of the long delay which it implied, it would be utterly fruitless. But the possible danger of exposing a Constitution, framed and adopted in the earlier and more conservative days of the Republic, to be torn in pieces in these times of lawless irreverence and change, is too great for any wise man willingly to encounter. The very equality of the States in the Senate, which was won by the revolutionary sacrifices and valor of the smaller States, now almost forgotten, would, in the judgment of your Commissioners, be thereby greatly endangered; and your Commissioners earnestly represent to your Honorable body that under no circumstances should this State consent to a measure which might lead to her own extinction. The Constitution of a great country, adopted, as this was, on account of diversity of interests and views, with great difficulty, should be sacred. It may and should from time to time be amended to suit a change of circumstances, but never exposed to the danger of being uptorn. It is the symbol of our strength, because the ligament of our Union. It has collected about it the reverence of three generations of our people. It is the only rallying point now for the loyalty of the remaining States; the only hope of the restoration of the States which have left us; and, in its main features, it should be, as it was designed to be, perpetual. At no time should a General Convention be invited to invade it; and, of all times, this, in the judgment of your Commissioners, would be the most dangerous.

Finally, it will be found upon an inspection of the Journal of the late Conference of Commissioners, that the undersigned voted against many propositions in themselves just and expressive of their sentiments and yours, because inopportune and useless; and against others, because introduced for the very purpose of sowing dissension among the Commissioners and to prevent an agreement by majority upon any thing. In this they must ask your candid construction of their conduct, looking to the crisis, the occasion, the purpose and effect of the matter upon which they were called to act; and their unwillingness to hazard an agreement upon that deemed by them necessary, by tacking to it that which, however true, was at least useless, and might in the result be dangerous.

All which is respectfully submitted by

SAMUEL AMES, for self, and ALEXANDER DUNCAN, G.H. BROWNE, WILLIAM W. HOPPIN, SAMUEL G. ARNOLD,

Commissioners.

PROVIDENCE, March 4th, 1861.

* * * * *

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, COUNCIL CHAMBER, } BOSTON, March 25, 1861. }

To the Honorable the Senate:

I have the honor to transmit to the General Court, for its use and information, a Report just received by me from John Z. Goodrich, Charles Allen, George S. Boutwell, Theophilus P. Chandler, Francis B. Crowninshield, John M. Forbes, and Richard P. Waters, Esquires, who were appointed Commissioners on the part of Massachusetts, under a Resolve passed the fifth day of February last, to attend a Convention of delegates from the several States of the Union, recently held at Washington.

And I embrace this opportunity to congratulate the people of the Commonwealth upon the fidelity, judgment, and ability with which the Commissioners, by whom they were represented, conducted their share of the duties of that deliberation.

And I trust that a similar intelligent, manful, and, at the same time, charitable and patriotic adherence to principles, fundamental both in morals and politics, will characterize the people of Massachusetts, and all their representatives, by whatever experiences of danger or difficulty their devotion to truth and duty may hereafter be tried.

I ask leave to call the attention of the General Court, also, to the fact that, as yet, no provision has been adopted for the payment of the expenses incident to the service with which the Commissioners were charged, and to recommend that a suitable appropriation for that purpose be made at the present session of the Legislature.

JOHN A. ANDREW.

To His Excellency JOHN A. ANDREW, Governor, &c., &c.:

The undersigned, Commissioners appointed by your excellency, in pursuance of certain resolutions passed by the Legislature at its present session, to attend a Convention to be held in the City of Washington, with authority to confer with the General Government, or with the separate States, or with any associations of delegates from such States, having, agreeably to your excellency's instructions, repaired to Washington and conferred with the delegates of twenty other States of the American Union, now respectfully submit the following report of the proceedings of the said Convention, and of the action of the Commissioners from Massachusetts.

The Convention commenced its sessions on the 4th of February, and closed its deliberations on the 27th of the same month. The Massachusetts Commissioners repaired to Washington as early as practicable after their appointment, and presented their credentials on the 8th of February.

The sessions of the Convention were secret; although repeated efforts were made, with the concurrence of the undersigned, first, to remove the injunction of secrecy, then to admit the public to witness the deliberations, and then to procure a complete and accurate report of the debates and doings. These efforts failed, and the undersigned are therefore able only to transmit a copy of the Journal of the Convention.[10]

[Footnote 10: An authentic copy of the Journal was not received until the 21st instant and the Commissioners did not feel prepared to make a report without an opportunity for consulting it.]

On the 6th of February a resolution was adopted, upon the motion of Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, that a "committee of one from each State be appointed by the Commissioners thereof, to whom should be referred the resolutions of the State of Virginia, and the other States represented, and all propositions for the adjustment of existing difficulties between the States." Mr. Crowninshield represented Massachusetts upon this committee. At the earliest practicable moment he called for a specific statement of the grievances complained of by the discontented States of the Union. This call elicited much discussion, but no definite response to the demand was ever made either in the committee or in Convention.

On the 15th of February, Mr. Guthrie, from the committee of one from each State, made a report recommending certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States. This report was adopted in committee by a majority of five States, the delegates from Kansas not having then taken their seats in the Convention.

A copy of this report may be found upon the twenty-second and twenty-third pages of the Journal. After much discussion and many amendments, the several sections of the proposed article of amendment to the Constitution were finally adopted on the last day of the session. It is to be observed, however, that the report as a whole never received the sanction of the Convention, although the several sections of the article of amendment were separately approved by a majority of the States voting; and it may well be doubted whether the entire article would have been adopted by the Convention.

The first section was adopted by a vote of nine States to eight; four States--New York, Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas--not voting.

The other sections were approved by larger majorities.

The undersigned declined to vote upon the last section, but the vote of Massachusetts, with the unanimous consent of its Commissioners, was given in the negative upon all the others. This course seemed to be demanded, whether regard was had to the constitution of the Convention, the circumstances under which it assembled, the nature of the propositions submitted, the solution of the difficulties in which the Government and people are involved, or to the character and peace of the country in the future. The two Pacific States, whose loyalty to the Constitution and the Union is unquestioned, could not have been represented in the Convention. Other States failed to appoint Commissioners. The resolutions of the State of Virginia were passed on the 19th of January; and it was expected that within sixteen days thereafter the representatives of this vast country would assemble for the purpose of devising, maturing, and recommending alterations in the Constitution of the republic. As a necessary consequence, the people were not consulted in any of the States. In several, the Commissioners were appointed by the executive of each without even an opportunity to confer with the Legislature; in others, the consent of the representative body was secured, but in no instance were the people themselves consulted. The measures proposed were comparatively new; the important ones were innovations upon the established principles of the Government, and none of them had ever been submitted to public scrutiny. They related to the institution of slavery; and the experience of the country justifies the assertion that any proposition for additional securities to slavery under the flag of the nation, must be fully discussed and well understood before its adoption, or it will yield a fearful harvest of woe in dissensions and controversies among the people. Nor could the undersigned have justified the act to themselves, if they had concurred in asking Congress to propose amendments to the Constitution unless they were prepared also to advocate the adoption of the amendments by the people.

It is due to truth to say that the Convention did not possess all the desirable characteristics of a deliberative assembly. It was in some degree disqualified for the performance of the important task assigned to it, by the circumstances of its constitution, to which reference has already been made. Moreover, there were members who claimed that certain concessions must be granted that the progress of the secession movement might be arrested; and on the other hand there were men who either doubted or denied the wisdom of such concessions.

The circumstances were extraordinary. Within the preceding ninety days the integrity of the Union had been assailed by the attempt of six States to overthrow its authority; seven other States were disaffected, and some of them had assumed a menacing and even hostile attitude. The political disturbances had been associated with or followed by financial distress.

The Convention was then a body of men without a recognized and ascertained constituency, called together in an exigency and without preparation, and invited to initiate measures for the amendment of the Constitution in most important particulars, and all at a moment when the public mind was swayed by fears and alarms such as have never before been experienced by the American people.

In these circumstances the undersigned thought it inexpedient to propose amendments to the Constitution, believing that so important an act should not be initiated and accomplished without the greatest deliberation and care. Nor could the undersigned satisfy themselves that any or all of the proposed amendments would even tend, in any considerable degree, to the preservation of the Union. Although inquiries were repeatedly made, no assurance was given that any propositions of amendment would secure the return of the seceded States; and it was admitted that several of the Border States would ultimately unite with the Gulf States, either within or without the limits of the Union, as might be dictated by events yet in the future. Indeed, no proposition was in any degree acceptable to the majority of delegates from the border slave States that did not provide for the extension of slavery to the Territories, and its protection and security therein.

And further, as appears from the Journal, the Convention was not prepared to deny the right of a State to secede from the Union. Mr. Field, of New York, introduced the following proposition, which, on motion of Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, was laid upon the table:

"The Union of the States under the Constitution is indissoluble; and no State can secede from the Union, or nullify an act of Congress, or absolve its citizens from their paramount obligation of obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States."

After much debate and repeated attempts to avoid a direct vote, the following proposition was rejected:

"It is declared to be the true intent and meaning of the present Constitution that the union of the States under it is indissoluble."

AYES.--Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Kansas--10.

NOES.--Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia--11.

On the last day of the session, Mr. Franklin, of Pennsylvania, moved the adoption of the following resolution:

"Resolved, as the sense of this Convention, that the highest political duty of every citizen of the United States is his allegiance to the Federal Government, created by the Constitution of the United States, and that no State of this Union has any constitutional right to secede therefrom, or to absolve the citizens of such State from their allegiance to the Government of the United States."

Mr. Ruffin, of North Carolina, moved to postpone the consideration of the same indefinitely, and the resolution was thereupon postponed by the following vote:

AYES.--Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia--10.

NOES.--Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania--7.

For these reasons and others the Commissioners from Massachusetts supported the proposition originally made by Kentucky, and introduced by Mr. Baldwin, of Connecticut, recommending a national convention for the purpose of revising the Constitution, and of providing for the exigencies likely to arise from the changed and perilous condition of the country. This measure offered an opportunity for consideration by the people, and for careful deliberation by the convention that might be constituted for the purpose. It is highly probable that, after the lapse of three-fourths of a century, a convention of delegates from all the States would by general consent propose amendments to the Constitution; and it is also probable that such a convention would at once tend to strengthen the feeling of brotherhood among the people of various sections, while the discussion of the principles of the Government would render its preservation of paramount concern to all. This measure of peace and union was rejected.

The undersigned are constrained by the force of many facts and circumstances to believe that an exciting cause of the present difficulties, and a serious obstacle to their removal, is the possible acquisition of Mexico and Central America.

The proceedings of the Convention furnish evidence upon this point.

The proposition to restore the Missouri Compromise, which guaranteed freedom north of the parallel 36° 30´ north latitude, but furnished no protection to slavery south of that line, was rejected by the aid of the unanimous support of the slaveholding States.

The proposition to settle the territorial question by the admission of New Mexico as a State, was summarily discouraged by the South in the committee.

The suggestion of one of the Commissioners from Massachusetts, that if the Convention would leave the territorial question out of view, the difficulties concerning the rights and relations of the existing States might be adjusted, did not meet with a favorable response from the slaveholding section of the country.

It is to be observed further, that the various propositions and amendments which were in any degree acceptable to the slave States guaranteed slavery south of said line.

It did not seem to the undersigned of signal importance, whether this guarantee was limited to our present territories, or made in words to apply to all future acquisitions. Whenever the line of slave States from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean shall be formed, an effectual barrier will have been raised against the migration of freemen southward. Nor can it be assumed, that either with or without constitutional prohibition, the limits of the republic are not to be further extended; and if the proposed line be established by the Constitution, the fairest portions of North America will be given up irrevocably to African slavery. Nor is the limitation of the right of a sovereign State to fix its own boundaries, which involves the right to acquire territory, consistent with its honor in peace, or compatible with its dignity and necessities in time of war. The American people are fully forewarned that it is unwise to rely upon constitutional prohibitions against the acquisition of territory; nor can such prohibitions always withstand the assaults of a determined and desperate majority when acting in harmony with the tendencies of public opinion, and the real or supposed necessities of the country.

With these views, and with this experience in mind, the undersigned did not regard with favor the provisions contained in the second section of the proposed article of amendment. It is also to be observed that by this section territory may be acquired for naval and commercial stations, depots, and transit routes, without a resort to the treaty-making power. These provisions seem to be broad enough to permit the summary annexation of Cuba, and portions of Central America and Mexico, by a simple law or joint resolution of Congress.

Thus, these two sections considered together, furnished no additional securities against territorial acquisitions, while they effectually established and protected slavery in all territory, present and future, south of the parallel 36° 30´ north latitude. By the first section, the common law was to be so changed, that a condition of slavery would be assumed in regard to all the African race within the Territories, and the laws of the several slave States would be enforced against all persons of that race who might be carried from the existing slave States into the Territories. The language is ambiguous, but this interpretation seems to be warranted; and, in the opinion of the undersigned, the courts would render an interpretation adequate to the result just indicated. It is thus seen that the only method of establishing and protecting slavery in the Territories, is to provide for the execution, within their limits, of the laws of the several slave States.

This section also incorporates into the Constitution of the United States the existing laws and usages of New Mexico relating to slavery, and renders them irrepealable during the territorial condition.

By the second section, the Senators are divided into two classes, those who represent the slaveholding, and those who represent the non-slaveholding States of the Union, and a majority of each class is required as a part of the two-thirds majority necessary for the acquisition of territory by treaty. A full exposition of this proposition would show that it is a complete and dangerous departure from the principles of the Government, and sure to effect its complete dissolution. When the Senate becomes two separate and distinct bodies, and when the existence of the institution of slavery determines where the line of division shall be, then the Government, for all practical purposes, is at an end. This proposition was introduced by Mr. Summers, of Virginia; and Virginia, by its delegates, also introduced and supported a kindred proposition, by which "all appointments to office in the Territories lying north of the line 36° 30´, as well before as after the establishment of Territorial Governments in and over the same, or any part thereof, shall be made upon the recommendation of a majority of the Senators representing at the time the non-slaveholding States; and in like manner, all appointments to office in the Territories which may lie south of said line of 36° 30´, shall be made upon the recommendation of a majority of the Senators representing at the time the slaveholding States."

We cannot hesitate to declare the opinion, carefully formed, that this policy of dividing the Senate into two classes, is fraught with dangers to the country more to be dreaded than the bold and defiant measures of those men and States that are arrayed in open hostility to the Union. This measure is a part of the policy of Mr. Calhoun, by which the Government was to be changed, and the executive department so divided that nothing could be done without the concurrence of two Presidents, one representing the slaveholding and one representing the non-slaveholding States.

The third section contains several provisions for strengthening and securing slavery in the District of Columbia and in the several States and Territories. It gives to representatives and others the right to bring their slaves into the District of Columbia, retain, and take them away, even after slavery may have ceased to exist in that District by the constitutional action of Congress. It secures the slave-trade between States and Territories in which slavery is established or recognized by law or usage, with the right of transit through free States, by sea or river, and of touching at ports, shores, and landings, and of landing in case of distress; reserving, however, to the States and Territories the power to prohibit the transit of slaves and the sale or traffic therein. Thus the transportation of slaves would be a right as broad as the limits of the republic, unless it should be restrained by the laws of individual States, which acts might readily be regarded as a breach of comity.

The fourth section of the article gives to the States the power of concurrent legislation with the United States for the rendition of fugitive slaves, thus introducing a new topic of agitation into every State, without in any degree relieving Congress of its duty in this particular.

The fifth section prohibits the foreign slave-trade, and makes it the duty of Congress to pass laws to prevent the importation of slaves, coolies, or persons held to service or labor. As Congress has already, by the Constitution, full power to regulate the migration or importation of persons from other countries, there is no reason for such constitutional provisions upon the subject. It alone remains to enact proper laws and secure their faithful and prompt execution.

The sixth section declares that certain sections of the proposed article of amendment, and certain provisions of the Constitution relating to slavery, shall not be amended or abolished without the consent of all the States.

The undersigned, being of opinion that no such stipulation ought to be made, and that if made, it would not be binding upon the country, did not hesitate to give the vote of the State against the proposition.

The seventh and last section of the proposed article of amendment is in the following words:

"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 assemblies, 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 further claim of such fugitive. Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States."

In a Convention duly called and assembled for the revision of the Constitution, the undersigned would have assented to this section; and in declining to vote thereon they intended to so declare to their associates from the slaveholding States.

The undersigned thus set forth the doings of the Convention, and some of the reasons by which their conduct was controlled. It was not their fortune to concur with the action of the Convention. The concessions demanded by the discontented States, seemed to be inconsistent with honor, justice, and freedom, and calculated to render permanent the existing causes of disturbance. A Union restored by unmanly concessions, would be productive of bitter criminations and lasting hostilities, and would contain within itself the seeds of a violent death.

But the undersigned are bound to say that the differences in the Convention were, in the main, differences of opinion, and not of purpose. Loyalty to the Constitution and the Union was general; and the undersigned do not doubt that the act of Virginia, in inviting a conference with her sister States, will be productive of beneficial results to the country.

The Commissioners from Massachusetts were much impressed by the fact, which their personal intercourse with gentlemen from all the slaveholding States brought to their knowledge, that the present difficulties of the country were not caused by the pressure of grievances supposed to be actually existing; but rather by the fear of future interference with Southern rights, caused by entire misapprehension of the purposes of the people of the free States. Misrepresentation of those purposes, proceeding from among ourselves, whether prompted by ignorance of Northern sentiment, or by sinister motives, are greatly to be deprecated.

The undersigned entertain no doubt that the intercourse between the different sections of the country, through their representatives in Convention, had a most salutary influence in correcting false views of Northern sentiment, and in assuring our brethren of the South that there is no purpose among the people of those States, who, upon principle, oppose the extension of slavery, to disturb or touch with an unfriendly hand the domestic relations of any other States of the Union.

In the present exigency of public affairs, each State should be careful to perform its whole duty freely and faithfully to its sister States and to the country; and then may it well and fearlessly demand, whether the Union contain many States or few, that the Government shall be administered according to the principles of equality and justice which characterize the Constitution formed by our fathers, and which will prove a sufficient security in all the trials and perils of our national existence.

JOHN Z. GOODRICH, CHARLES ALLEN, GEO. S. BOUTWELL, T.P. CHANDLER, F.B. CROWNINSHIELD, J.M. FORBES, RICHARD P. WATERS.

BOSTON, March 22d, 1861.

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