The withdrawal of the malcontents began on the 12th of January. The representatives of Missouri were the first to retire, which they did on the ground that their State had seceded from the Union, and that they approved the measure. On the 14th of the same month, one of the Senators from Mississippi relinquished his seat; but his colleague, the celebrated Jefferson Davis, remained until the 21st, on account of ill-health. He was not content to go without making a speech, and the intention of that speech was to justify his State in seceding, and the Southern States generally in separating themselves from the rest of the Union. He drew a great distinction between Nullification and Secession, which he described as antagonistic principles. "Nullification," he continued, "is the remedy which is to be sought and applied, within the Union, against an agent of the United States, when that agent has violated Constitutional obligations, and the State assumes action for itself, and appeals to other States to support it. But when the States themselves, and the people of the States, have so acted as to convince us that they will not regard our Constitutional rights, then, and then for the first time, arises the question of Secession in its practical application." Secession was to be justified on the basis that the States were sovereign. Mr. Davis said he remembered well when Massachusetts was arraigned before the Senate, and that he had then said that if Massachusetts took the last step which separated her from the Union, the right to do so was hers, and that he would vote neither one dollar nor one man to coerce her, but that he would say to her "God speed!" The equality spoken of in the Declaration of Independence was, in the opinion of Mr. Davis, the equality of a class in political rights, and had no reference to the question of slavery. The step recently taken by Mississippi, and by other Southern States, was not taken with any hostility, or any desire to injure other sections of the country, nor even for pecuniary benefit; but simply with a view to defending and protecting rights inherited by the people, and transmitting them unshorn to their posterity. "I therefore feel," pursued Mr. Davis, "that I but express their desire when I say they hope for those peaceful relations with you that may be mutually beneficial to us in the future. There will be peace, if so you will it; and you may bring disaster on every part of the country, if you thus will have it. And if you will have it thus, we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the paw of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in God, and in our own firm hearts and strong

arms, we will vindicate and defend the rights we claim." "'* With an apparently earnest disavowal of any angry feeling towards his opponents in Congress, and the tender of an apology for anything he might have done in the Senate calculated to wound the feelings of others, Mr. Jefferson Davis took his leave.

The Senators from Alabama and Florida also withdrew on the 21st. On the 28th of January, these Secessionists were followed by Senator Iverson of Georgia, who, in the course of some remarks which he made by way of farewell, expressed the unalterable resolution of the South to establish her independence. "You may possibly,' he said, "overrun us, desolate our fields, burn our dwellings, lay our cities in ruins, murder our people, and reduce us to beggary; but you cannot subdue or subjugate us to your government or your will. Your conquest, if you gain one, will cost you a hundred thousand lives, and more than a hundred million dollars. Nay, more, it will take a standing army of a hundred thousand men, and millions of money annually, to keep us in subjection. will rise again and again, to vindicate our right to liberty, and to throw off your oppressive and cursed yoke; we will never cease the mortal strife until our whole white race is extinguished, and our fair land given over to desolation. You may have ships of war, and we may have none. You may blockade our ports and lock up our commerce. We can live, if need be, without commerce. But when you shut out our cotton from the looms of Europe, we shall see whether other nations will not have something to say, and something do, on that subject. 'Cotton is king!' and it will find means to raise your blockade and disperse your ships."

We

It was not until the 4th of February that John Slidell and Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, withdrew from the Senate. Both made speeches ; but, while Slidell's was defiant, Benjamin's was temperate and well-considered. In the House of Representatives there was but one farewell oration -that of Mr. Miles Taylor, of Louisiana, who warned Northern politicians of the peril of offending the cotton interest. It was a very prevalent opinion in the Southern States that England and France would break any blockade that might be instituted, for the purpose of obtaining the products of the South; and a strong disposition to do so was afterwards felt in some circles of both countries, when the stringency of the blockade interfered seriously with commerce. The other members of the House followed the more decent

Rebellion Record, Vol. I.

THAT no terms of compromise were effected in Congress, was the fault of the extreme pro-slavery and the extreme anti-slavery parties, both of whom desired disunion, that each might be delivered from association with the other. Wendell Phillips publicly announced that he wished to see the Southern States out of the Union, so that the Northern half of the country might be saved from the sin and curse of helping to support slavery; and this was probably the feeling of most Abolitionists. But the blame of failure in these Congressional attempts at reconstruction must lie mainly with the Southern members, since, had they coalesced with the more moderate men, the extreme Republicans would have been in a minority. Mr. Crittenden's resolutions would have been carried on the first occasion of their being brought forward, if the six abstaining members had elected to vote for them. Yet, as soon as they were rejected, these very members telegraphed to the South, "We cannot get any compromise." The amendment of Mr. Clark, as already stated, was carried in the place of Mr. Crittenden's propositions; but it might have been defeated by a majority of four, had the Southern senators exercised their powers, and even after the withdrawal of the Secessionists it was negatived on reconsideration. of the venerable senator

When the suggestions When the suggestions from Kentucky were

Lecture in the Music Hall, Boston, Jan. 20th, 1861.

reconsidered, on the 2nd of March, they were defeated only by a bare majority of one-20 to 19 -and would have been affirmed, had the senators from the seceded States remained, and given their support to the compromise. Mr. Toombs, however, characterised Crittenden and his associates as "political fossils" for talking about the Union, and asked whether his State was to lie down and submit, because of such proposals. because of such proposals. This was the feeling of all the rebellious senators, and it is the real explanation why Congress effected nothing in the way of compromise. The disposition of the majority, even after the withdrawal of the Southerners, to leave slavery untouched as far as it was already established, is manifest from the two-thirds vote by which Congress deprived itself for ever of all power to interfere with that institution in the States.

Whether the Union was worth saving at the price of a perpetual recognition of slavery, is another question. It may be that it was far better that the mortal struggle should come at once, and the evil be violently expelled, since it could be removed no other way, than that the disease should be fostered for an indefinite period. But the main obstacles in the way of conciliation came from the South, and it was an outrage on plain facts to say, as the advocates of Secession afterwards did, that all conciliation was refused by the supporters of the Union. It is nevertheless true that some influential politicians were opposed to effecting any compromise while the South continued in a posture

might be the merit of the various propositions then before Congress, the President-elect said he should regard any concession in the face of menace as the destruction of the Government itself, and a consent on all hands that the political system of the United States should be brought down to a level with the disorganised state of Mexico. If the people desired to call a convention to remove any grievances complained of, or to give new guarantees for the permanence of vested rights, he would make no opposition; but it was for the people themselves to decide.

The attempts at negotiation were not yet over

Labour States, seven Slave Labour States. Some were appointed by the State Legislatures, others were selected by the Governors; but not one owed his post to popular election. Virginia, in soliciting the other States to meet her in convention, stated that she would be satisfied with the Crittenden Compromise, so modified as to apply to all the territory of the Republic south of latitude 36° 30', to secure efficient protection for the human property of the slave-owner, and to establish the right of slaveowners to take their negroes "between and through the non-slaveholding States and Territories." This, of course, did not bind the other States, and the

the chief position on the death of General Harrison, he had done the work of the Democratic party as thoroughly as one of their own candidates could have accomplished it. He was therefore regarded with confidence by Southern politicians, and, enjoying moreover a general reputation for statesmanship and extensive knowledge, he was now

chosen as the principal of this important convention.

After the formation of a committee for considering all propositions for the adjustment of the existing difficulties, Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, the chairman of the committee, made a report, wherein several amendments to the Constitution were 'suggested, of which the general effect was to secure the alleged rights of the slave-owners in their own States, in the Territories south of the Missouri Compromise line, in all States to be afterwards created (provided the people themselves desired it), and in the Free Labour States, as far as concerned the rendition of fugitive negroes. It was further provided that these amendments should not be altered or abolished without the consent of all the States; and the foreign slave-trade was to be prohibited for ever. Several other propositions were brought forward in opposition to those of Mr. Guthrie, and rejected after debate; and ultimately, on the 26th of February, the chairman's report was taken up, considered by sections, and adopted with some modifications. A proposal, originating with Mr. T. E. Franklin, of Pennsylvania, to declare that no State of the Union had any constitutional right to secede therefrom, or absolve the citizens of such State from their allegiance to the Federal Government, was indefinitely postponed by the votes of ten States against seven. Another motion, made by Mr. Seddon, of Virginia, to the effect that secession from the Union should be recognised as a legal right, was simply laid on the table. A preamble to Mr. Guthrie's propositions having been agreed to, Mr. Tyler was requested to present the plan of adjustment to Congress. Although the formal business of the convention was now at an end, Mr. Reverdy Johnson, one of the representatives of Maryland, asked and obtained leave to place on record in the proceedings of the convention a resolution deploring the action of the seceding States; expressing a hope that they might soon see cause to resume "their honoured places in the Confederacy of States;" setting forth the opinion of the convention that the Union was formed by the assent of the people of the respective States, that the Republican institutions guaranteed to each ought not to be maintained by force, and that therefore the convention deprecated any effort of the Federal Government to coerce the seceders; and lastly invoking abstinence from all counsels and measures of compulsion towards them. Mr. Reverdy Johnson may have loved the Union much; but it is evident that he loved the right of secession

on the 27th of February, in honour of the compromise to be proposed to Congress in the name of the convention. People were for the moment in a glow of hope, soon to be dashed by the stern. realities of the time. It was thought that some common ground had at last been discovered; but in truth the crisis was advancing with rapid strides, and the end had been pre-determined by the steps already taken. A copy of the proposed amendments to the Constitution was sent to Vice-President Breckinridge, who on the 2nd of March laid the matter before the Senate. It was referred to a committee of five, and the report of the committee was discussed in connection with the original Crittenden Compromise, when that plan came up for reconsideration. Finally, it was decided to postpone the suggestions of the convention, which put an end to the scheme elaborated by the representatives of the States sitting under the presidency of Mr. Tyler. By the motion ultimately adopted, the Legislature bound itself so to amend the Constitution as to prohibit any interference with slavery in any of the States; and it was held that this was as much as could, under the circumstances, be granted. It was a great deal less, however, than the South desired, and Mr. Tyler was not even satisfied with the proposals of the conference. He reported to the Virginian Legislature that those proposals were a delusion and a sham, an insult and an offence to the South; although, in his final speech to the convention, he had remarked that the result at which they had arrived was probably the best that, as matters then stood, could be expected, and that he would recommend its adoption as far as in him lay. The party which Mr. Tyler represented was not likely to accept any compromise whatever. It is of the very nature of a compromise to concede somewhat on both sides; to abate extreme pretensions, and strike a balance of gain and loss. But the South aimed at complete predominance, and would be content with nothing less. If the North, for the sake of peace, had been willing to give up everything to make provision for the endless and unrestricted extension of slavery, and for the complete identification of the Federal Government with the interests of the slave-owner-the seceding States might have been very glad to return; but, short of that, they preferred a separate existence, with all the liabilities of a ruinous and sanguinary

war.

more.