ful speech of Senator Jefferson Davis, in which he CH. XXVI. lays down the issue without reserve, at the same time dealing in such vague and intangible complaints as showed intention and desire to remain unanswered and unsatisfied. He said he believed the danger to be that a sectional hostility had been substituted for the general fraternity, and thus the Government rendered powerless for the ends for which it was instituted.

The hearts of a portion of the people have been perverted by that hostility, so that the powers delegated by the compact of union are regarded not as means to secure the welfare of all, but as instruments for the destruction of a part—the minority section. How, then, have we to provide a remedy? By strengthening this Government? By instituting physical force to overawe the States, to coerce the people living under them as members of sovereign communities to pass under the yoke of the Federal Government? . . .

Then where is the remedy, the question may be asked. In the hearts of the people is the ready reply; and therefore it is that I turn to the other side of the Chamber, to the majority section, to the section in which have been committed the acts that now threaten the dissolution of the Union... These are offenses such as no people can bear; and the remedy for these is in the patriotism and the affection of the people, if it exists; and if it does not exist, it is far better, instead of attempting to preserve a forced and therefore fruitless union, that we should peacefully part, and each pursue his separate course... States in their sovereign capacity have now resolved to judge of the infractions of the Federal compact and of the mode and measure of redress. . . I would not give the parchment on which the bill would be written which is to secure our constitutional rights within the limits of a State where the people are all opposed to the execution of that law. It is a truism in free governments that laws rest upon public opinion, and fall powerless before its determined. opposition.

"Globe,"

Dec. 10, 1860, p. 29.

CH. XXVI.

To all that had so far been said, Senator Wade, of Ohio, made, on the 17th day of December, a frank and direct as well as strong and eloquent reply, which was at once generally accepted by the Republican party of the Senate and the country as their well-considered and unalterable position on the crisis. Said he:

I have already said that these gentlemen who make these complaints have for a long series of years had this Government in their own keeping. They belong to the dominant majority. . . Therefore, if there is anything in the legislation of the Federal Government that is not right, you and not we are responsible for it. . . You have had the legislative power of the country, and you have had the executive of the country, as I have said already. You own the Cabinet, you own the Senate, and I may add, you own the President of the United States, as much as you own the servant upon your own plantation. I cannot see then very clearly why it is that Southern men can rise here and complain of the action of this Government. . . Are we the setters forth of any new doctrines under the Constitution of the United States? I tell you nay. There is no principle held to-day by this great Republican party that has not had the sanction of your Government in every department for more than seventy years. You have changed your opinions. We stand where we used to stand. That is the only difference. . . Sir, we stand where Washington stood, where Jefferson stood, where Madison stood, where Monroe stood. We stand where Adams and Jackson and even Polk stood. That revered statesman, Henry Clay, of blessed memory, with his dying breath asserted the doctrine that we hold to-day. . . As to compromises, I had supposed that we were all agreed that the day of compromises was at an end. The most solemn compromises we have ever made have been violated without a whereas. Since I have had a seat in this body, one of considerable antiquity, that had stood for more than thirty years, was swept away from your statute books. . . We nominated our candidates for President and Vice-President, and you

did the same for yourselves. The issue was made up and CH. XXVI. we went to the people upon it; . . . and we beat you upon the plainest and most palpable issue that ever was presented to the American people, and one that they understood the best. There is no mistaking it; and now when we come to the capitol, I tell you that our President and our Vice-President must be inaugurated and administer the government as all their predecessors have done. Sir, it would be humiliating and dishonorable to us if we were to listen to a compromise [only] by which he who has the verdict of the people in his pocket should make his way to the Presidential chair. When it comes to that you have no government. . . If a State secedes, although we will not make war upon her, we cannot recognize her right to be out of the Union, and she is not out until she gains the consent of the Union itself; and the chief magistrate of the nation, be he who he may, will find under the Constitution of the United States that it is his sworn duty to execute the law in every part and parcel of this Government; that he cannot be released from that obligation. . . Therefore, it will be incumbent on the chief magistrate to proceed to collect the revenue of ships entering their ports precisely in the same way and to the same extent that he does now in every other State of the Union. We cannot release him from that obligation. The Constitution in thunder tones demands that he shall do it alike in the ports of every State. What follows? Why, sir, if he shuts up the ports of entry so that a ship cannot discharge her cargo there, or get papers for another voyage, then ships will cease to trade; or, if he undertakes to blockade her, and thus collect it, she has not gained her independence by secession. What must she do? If she is contented to live in this equivocal state, all would be well perhaps; but she could not live there. No people in the world could live in that condition. What will they do? They must take the initiative and declare war upon the United States; and the moment that they levy war, force must be met by force; and they must, therefore, hew out their independence by violence and war. There is no other way under the Constitution, that I know of, whereby a chief magistrate of any politics could be released from this duty. If this

CH. XXVI. State, though seceding, should declare war against the United States, I do not suppose there is a lawyer in this body but what would say that the act of levying war is treason against the United States. That is where it results. We might just as well look the matter right in the face.

"Globe," Dec. 17, 1860, pp. 100-104.

Ibid., Dec. 20, 1860, p. 158.

I say, sir, I stand by the Union of these States. Washington and his compatriots fought for that good old flag. It shall never be hauled down, but shall be the glory of the Government to which I belong, as long as my life shall continue. . . It is my inheritance. my protector in infancy, and the pride and glory of my riper years; and although it may be assailed by traitors on every side, by the grace of God, under its shadow I will die.

It was

The Senate Committee of Thirteen was duly appointed on December 20 as follows: Lazarus W. Powell and John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky; R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia; Wm. H. Seward, of New York; Robert Toombs, of Georgia; Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois; Jacob Collamer, of Vermont; Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi; Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio; William Bigler, of Pennsylvania; Henry M. Rice, of Minnesota; James R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and James W. Grimes, of Iowa.

It was a strong and representative committee, chosen from the four great political parties to the late Presidential election, and embracing recognized leaders in each. We shall see in a future chapter how this eminent committee failed to report a compromise, which was the object of its appointment. But compromise was impossible, because the conspiracy had resolved upon disunion, as already announced in the proclamation of a Southern Confederacy, signed and published a week before by Jefferson Davis and others.

CHAPTER XXVII

W

THE HOUSE COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE

Compare

Boteler's of origin

statement

HILE this discussion was going on in the CH. XXVII. Senate, very similar proceedings were taking place in the House of Representatives, except that declarations of revolutionary purpose were generally of a more practical and decisive character. The President's message had no sooner been received and read, and the usual formal motion made to refer and print, than the friends of compromise, representing here, as in the Senate, the substantial sentiment of the border slave States, made a sincere effort to take control and bring about the peaceable arrangement and adjustment of what they assumed to be the extreme differences between the South and the North. Mr. Boteler, of Jan. 10,1861, Virginia, seizing the momentary leadership, moved to amend by referring so much of the message "as relates to the present perilous condition of the country" to a special committee of one from each State. The Union being at that time composed of thirty-three States, this committee became known as the Committee of Thirty-three. Several other amendments were offered but objected to, and the previous question having been ordered, the amendment was agreed to and the committee raised by a

of his resolution, "Globe,"

p. 316.

"Globe." Dec. 4, 1860,

p. 6.