have been acceptable to a majority of the people of the United States.

Mr. Breckinridge, a member of the Senate from the State of Kentucky, said upon the floor of the Senate on the 16th of July, 1861: "It was stated upon the floor of the Senate by the late Senator from Illinois, and I happened personally to know the fact myself, that the leading statesmen of the lower Southern States were willing to accept the terms of settlement which were proposed by the venerable Senator from Kentucky, my predecessor."

Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, had no confidence in compromise propositions. He said: "I do not believe, sir, that the remedy is to be sought there. I do not believe that the remedy is to be sought in new constitutional provisions: but in an honest, faithful execution of the things that are already written in the compact and in

any of the States by whose laws it is, or may be, allowed or permitted.

And whereas, also, besides those causes of dissension embraced in the foregoing amendments proposed to the Constitution of the United States, there are others which come within the jurisdiction of Congress, and may be remedied by its legislative power; and whereas it is the desire of Congress, as far as its power will extend, to remove all just cause for the popular discontent and agitation which now disturb the peace of the country, and threaten the stability of its institutions: Therefore,

1. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the laws now in force for the recovery of fugitive slaves are in strict pursuance of the plan and mandatory provisions of the Constitution, and have been sanctioned as valid and constitutional by the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States; that the slaveholding States are entitled to the faithful observance and execution of those laws, and that they ought not to be repealed, or so modified or changed as to impair their efficiency; and that laws ought to be made for the punishment of those who attempt by rescue of the slave, or other illegal means, to hinder or defeat the due execution of said laws.

2. That all State laws which conflict with the fugitive slave acts of Congress, or any other constitutional acts of Congress, or which, in their operation, impede, hinder, or delay the free course and due execution of any of said acts, are null and void by the plain provisions of the Constitution of the United States; yet those State laws, vold as they are, have given color to practices, and led to consequences, which have obstructed the due administration and execution of acts of Congress, and especially the acts for the delivery of fugitive slaves, and have thereby contributed much to the discord and commotion now prevailing. Congress, therefore, in the present perilous juncture, does not deem it improper, respectfully and earnestly to recommend the repeal of those laws to the several States which have enacted them, or such legislative corrections or explanations of them as may prevent their being used or perverted to such mischievous purposes.

8. That the act of the 18th of September, 1850, commonly called the Fugitive Slave Law, ought to be so amended as to make the fee of the commissioner, mentioned in the eighth section of the act, equal in amount in the cases decided by him, whether his decision be in favor of or against the claimant. And to avoid mişconstruction, the last clause of the fifth section of said act, which authorizes the person holding a warrant for the arrest or detention of a fugitive slave, to summon to his aid the posse comitatus, and which declares it to be the duty of all good citizens to assist him in its execution, ought to be so amended as to expressly limit the authority and duty to cases in which there shall be re. sistance or danger of resistance or rescue.

4. That the laws for the suppression of the African slave trade, and especially those prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States, ought to be made effectual, and ought to be thoroughly executed; and all further enactments necessary to those ends ought to be promptly made.

The following substitute was afterward offered to the preamble of the resolutions by Mr. Crittenden :

the bond. I am willing, and I hope the State I represent is willing, to look this matter all over fairly, calmly, and dispassionately, and if there be any thing that can be demanded of that State consistent with the dignity that belongs to a free State, and the regard that she owes to the Constitution, I have no doubt that she will render and perform it to the letter and to the spirit. But I say, with all deference, that I think these new compacts and these amendments are the mere daubing of the wall with untempered mortar. They are not what is required to sustain the fabric of our Government.

"Sir, I do not know that this Congress can do any thing; but this controversy will not he settled here. It has been well said, it will be done by the States; but, sir, the enlightened tribunal of the public opinion of Christendom

divisions existing in Congress, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for that body to concur in both its branches by the requisite majority so as to enable it either to adopt such measures of legislation, or to recommend to the States such amendments to the Constitution, as are deemed necessary and proper to avert that danger; and whereas in so great an emergency the opinion and judgment of the people ought to be heard, and would be the best and surest guide to their representatives: Therefore,

Resolved, That provision ought to be made by law without delay for taking the sense of the people and submitting to their vote the following resolutions as the basis for the final and permanent settlement of those disputes that now disturb the peace of the country and threaten the existence of the Union.

The annexed table, made out from the report of the Commissioner of Public Lands, shows that the division of territory proposed by adopting the line of 36° 30', would give to both the North and the South a quantity very nearly in proportion to their respective populations-to the North 1,795,965 square miles for a population of nineteen millions, and to the South 1,203,711 square miles for a population of twelve millions.

will utter its voice, and I tell you there is no power on God's earth that can stand before that."

The Vice-President, in announcing the Committee of Thirteen on Mr. Powell's resolution, remarked that the Chair had found a great deal of difficulty in fratning the committee, but had tried to compose it in the spirit which he believed actuated the Senate in ordering its appointment. It will be observed that upon this committee were two Senators from one State. This was unavoidable. "Of course the author of the resolutions becomes the chairman of the cominittee; and I am sure the Senate will, for many reasons, recognize the fact that it was proper that the eminent senior Senator from Kentucky should also be a member of that committee. The Secretary will read it."

The Secretary read the committee, as follows: Mr. Powell, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Seward, Mr. Toombs, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Collamer, Mr. Davis, Mr. Wade, Mr. Bigler, Mr. Rice, Mr. Doolittle, and Mr. Grimes.

Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, was excused from serving on the committee, upon his own request. He said:

"The position which I am known to occupy, and the position in which the State I represent now stands, render it altogether impossible for me to serve upon that committee with any prospect of advantage."

Subsequently a motion to reconsider the vote excusing Mr. Davis was carried, upon which he rose and said:

"If, in the opinion of others, it be possible for me to do any thing for the public good, the last moment while I stand here is at the command of the Senate. If I could see any means by which I could avert the catastrophe of a struggle between the sections of the Union, my past life, I hope, gives evidence of the readiness with which I would make the effort. If there be any sacrifice which I could offer on the altar of my country to heal all the evils, present or prospective, no man has the right to doubt my readiness to do it. Therefore, when Senators, entertaining the same opinions with myself, came to me and expressed regret that I had refused to serve, I could but tell them that I had only obeyed what I believed to be propriety in the case, not desiring to shrink from the performance of a duty, still less to indulge in personal feeling. I therefore answer the request of the Senator from Florida, knowing also that it is made after consultation with others, that if the Senate choose that I should be placed upon the committee, and continue to serve there, I shall offer no further opposition."

The motion to excuse the Senator was then withdrawn.

On the 31st of December, the committee reported as follows >

The Committee of Thirteen, appointed by order of the Senate, of the 20th instant, have agreed upon the following resolution, and report the same to the Benate:

Resolved, That the committee have not been able to agree upon any general plan of adjustment, and report that fact to the Senate, together with the journal of the committee.

On a subsequent day the report of the committee and the resolutions of the Senator from Kentucky were taken up; also a brief resolution of nearly similar import offered by Senator Johnson, of Tennessee; also resolutions of Senator Lane, of Oregon.

Mr. Douglas addressed the Senate. He commenced by saying that no act of his public life had ever caused him so much regret as the necessity of voting in the special committee of thirteen for the resolution reporting to the Senate their inability to agree upon any general plan of adjustment, which would restore peace to the country and insure the integrity of the Union. If we wish to understand the real causes which have produced such wide-spread and deep-seated discontent in the slaveholding States, we must go back, he said, beyond the recent Presidential election, and trace the origin and history of the slavery agitation from the period when it first became an active element in Federal politics.

Having traced the agitation down, he ascribed the present crisis to the fact that the Southern people have received the result of the recent election as furnishing conclusive evidence that the dominant party of the North, which is soon to take possession of the Federal Government under that election, are determined to invade and destroy their constitutional rights. What shall be done, he asked, in the case of South Carolina? Our right of jurisdiction over that State for Federal purposes, according to the Constitution, had not been destroyed or impaired by the ordinance of secession, or any act of the convention, or of the de facto government. The right remains; but the possession is lost, for the time being. "How shall we regain the possession?" is the pertinent inquiry. It may be done by arms, or by a peaceable adjustment of the matters in controversy.

After examining many incidental questions relating to the mode of adjustment, he said:

"I repeat, then, my solemn conviction, that war means disunion-final, irrevocable, eternal separation. I see no alternative, therefore, but a fair compromise, founded on the basis of mutual concessions, alike honorable, just, and beneficial to all parties, or civil war and disunion. Is there any thing humiliating in a fair compromise of conflicting interests, opinions, and theories, for the sake of peace, union, and safety? Read the debates of the Federal convention, which formed our glorious Constitution, and you will find noble examples, worthy of imitation; instances where sages and patriots were willing to surrender cherished theories essential to the best form of society, for the and principles of government, believed to be sake of peace and unity."

On another day Mr. Crittenden called up his

resolution, which was now so modified by himself as to make it a question of referring the matter to the people as an amendment to the Constitution. He had already perceived that there was no party in the Senate in favor of compromise sufficiently strong to pass his resolution in its original form. With a degree of melancholy natural to one who had spent so large a portion of his life in endeavors to promote the prosperity and glory of his country, and who now sees a gigantic catastrophe about to overwhelm her, he addresses the Sen

ate:

"Mr. President, if I could indulge myself with the hope that the resolution which I have proposed for amendments to the Constitution could obtain that majority in this Senate which would recommend it to the States for their adoption, by convention or by Legislature, I should never have made this motion for a reference of the question to the people. It is the extraordinary condition of the country, the extraordinary circumstances by which we are now surrounded, and the peculiar situation in which Congress itself is placed, that has induced me to attempt so extraordinary a resort. We believe that amendments to the Constitution are requisite to give that permanent secarity which is necessary to satisfy the public mind and restore quiet to the country. Those amendments cannot be recommended, nor can we proceed in the measure of amendment, unless it be by a two-thirds majority. I have feared that that majority could not be hoped for here; and it is in this last extremity that I have proposed that we should invoke the judgment of the people upon the great question on which their Government depends. It is not an ordinary question; it is no question of party; it is no question of policy; it is a question involving the existence of the Union, and the existence of the Government. Upon so momentous a question, where the public counsels themselves are so divided and so distracted as not to be able to adopt, for the want of the requisite majority, those means that are supposed to be necessary for the safety of the country and the people, it has seemed to me not improper that we should resort to the great source of all political authority-the people themselves. This is their Government; this is their Union; we are but their representatives. I speak in no feeling of flattery to the people, sir. No; I call upon them to pronounce their judgment, and do their duty to their country. If we cannot save the country, and they will not save the country, the country is gone. I wish to preserve it by all the means, ordinary and extraordinary, that are within our possible reach. That is the whole feeling, and that is the entire principle upon which I have acted in making this proposition. I see nothing improper in it.'

After examining all the points bearing on the proposition for compromise in a most conciliatory spirit, and urging with all the elo

quence he could command, the importance to the future welfare of the country that this course should be adopted, he closed, and the Senator from Georgia followed. Nothing could be more complete than the contrast between their views.

Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, said: "The success of the Abolitionists and their allies, under the name of the Republican party, has produced its logical results already. They have for long years been sowing dragons' teeth, and have finally got a crop of armed men. The Union, sir, is dissolved. That is an accomplished fact in the path of this discussion that men may as well heed. One of your confederates has already, wisely, bravely, boldly, confronted public danger, and she is only ahead of many of her sisters because of her greater facility for speedy action. The greater majority of those sister States, under like circumstances, consider her cause as their cause; and I charge you in their name to-day, "Touch not Saguntum." It is not only their cause, but it is a cause which receives the sympathy, and will receive the support, of tens and hundreds of thousands of honest patriotic men in the non-slaveholding States, who have hitherto maintained constitutional rights, who respect their oaths, abide by compacts, and love justice. And while this Congress, this Senate, and this House of Representatives are debating the constitutionality and the expediency of seceding from the Union, and while the perfidious authors of this mischief are showering down denunciations upon a large portion of the patriotic men of this country, those brave men are coolly and calmly voting what you call revolution-ay, sir, doing better than that-arming to defend it. They appealed to the Constitution, they appealed to justice, they appealed to fraternity, until the Constitution, justice, and fraternity were no longer listened to in the legislative halls of their country, and then, sir, they prepared for the arbitrament of the sword; and now you see the glittering bayonet, and you hear the tramp of armed men from your capital to the Rio Grande. It is a sight that gladdens the eyes and cheers the hearts of other millions ready to second them. Inasmuch, sir, as I have labored earnestly, honestly, sincerely, with these men to avert this necessity so long as I deemed it possible, and inasmuch as Ï heartily approve their present conduct of resistance, I deem it my duty to state their case to the Senate, to the country, and to the civilized world."

The claims of the Southern States and their views of the Constitution have been already stated so often, that it will not be necessary to repeat the argument of the Senator from Georgia.

On a subsequent day Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, offered the following resolutions, designing to move them as an amendment to the resolutions of Mr. Crittenden :

Resolved, That the provisions of the Constitution

A bill was afterwards introduced by Mr. Bigler, of Pennsylvania, to provide for taking the sense of the people of the several States on the proposed amendments to the Constitution offered by Mr. Crittenden.

Subsequently Mr. Crittenden called up his resolutions, when a motion was made to postpone their consideration to a future day, by Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, because the Pacific Railroad bill, and the bill for the admission of Kansas were set down for previous days. To this the venerable Senator, Mr. Crittenden, replied:

"I do think that this may well be considered as trifling with the greatest subject that can possibly be before this Senate, if we consent to such a postponement, and make the reason for it the pendency of this or that bill. I cannot consent to it; and I hope, if the Senate are disposed to treat the subject at all with the solemnity that belongs to it, that we shall at least show respect enough to the subject to manifest a temper and disposition to act upon it decidedly and promptly. I want this question acted upon; and from this dilatory sort of proceedings, it seems to me it is evident gentlemen are trying to postpone this subject, and give it no consideration.'

After further discussion the motion to postpone was lost, 19 Republicans to 25. Another debate arose on questions of order, and the session of the day closed, by the Senator from Kentucky withdrawing his call.

On the next day, when the Senator called for his resolutions again, they were set aside, as the Pacific Railroad bill had been set down as a special order.

Mr. Lane, of Oregon, thus expressed his disapprobation of the course which had been taken :

"I was very sorry this morning to see the most important measure that has been introduced into this Senate, or can be introduced into it during this or any other session, set aside to take up this bill. I allude to the proposition introduced by the venerable Senator from Kentucky. It was a proposition presented with the hope of saving the final dissolution of this Union. The measures proposed by him,

if sanctioned by the people, if approved by the Northern States, would in all human probability-and I know there is no man in this Union more anxious for it than myself-delay the movements which are now going on, that are to result ultimately in the entire dissolution of the Union. At such a time, when every gentleman knows that the country cannot be held together unless something shall be promptly done, I thought it was not proper to take up a bill involving the country in obligations amounting to hundreds of millions, for the making of two railroads, in preference to adopting some measures by which this Union may be held together; some plan that may afford security and protection, and guarantee the rights of all the States of the Confederacy."

Later in the day Mr. Crittenden alluded to the same action on the part of the Senate, and expostulated with them, saying:

"I cannot think, Mr. President, of voting for the Pacific Railroad bill while this other measure is undetermined. It has been said of old that men build as if they never expected to die. We seem to be acting as a nation upon that hypothesis; we are proposing to build railroads, providing roads for future generations, when the very existence of our country is in danger. When the Union itself is reeling about like a drunken man, we are making provision for futurity and for posterity. I cannot vote for any such measure at any such time. Build up the Union first; then talk about building up a railroad. Then I will vote for this measure. I want my friends from California to understand that, although I voted to-day for the indefinite postponement of this bill, I am not its enemy. I am prepared to vote for it when you make the Union stable enough to afford the faintest promise that the work can be executed, and that we shall have a nation to enjoy the benefits of it. It seemed to me very solemn trifling before this people, that the Senate should sit here legislating upon the making of roads for future generations, and for a nation, when that nation is trembling upon a point between life and death. Yet the Senate preferred to act upon a railroad, rather than to act on these measures calculated to give permanence to the Union itself. I ask my friends to consider what sort of intelligence is this to go out of a country that is now trembling with anxiety upon the question of peace or war, existence or nonexistence as a nation, that they should sit here and with quiet indifference to the state of the country take up a railroad bill?"

On another day the resolutions were taken up and the amendments of Mr. Powell, of Kentucky, and Mr. Clark of New Hampshire, were adopted. This amendment of Mr. Clark looked so much like war, that on the motion to reconsider the vote on the next day, it was reconsidered and postponed.

On the 28th of January, Senator Iverson, of Georgia, withdrew from the Senate. His communication to that body was as follows: