Nor, themselves to be, such a result far transcended their power. Had they not found auxiliaries out of the South ready to lend their aid, they would never have ventured upon the rash experiment. Nor were they the time-serving politicians alone who gave them the needed courage. The sympathy of such men as Price, Wood, Seymour, and Pierce was indeed gladly received; but far more welcome were their assurances that there was "a Spartan band in every Northern State" true to their interests, "a million of Democrats in the North" who would stand like a wall of fire to beat back the Black Republicans should they attempt to "march upon the South." it is to be presumed, would these men have felt justified in giving such assurances, but for the popular sentiment around them, where far more was said of "the madness of Northern Abolitionism" than of the sin of Southern slavery, of the wickedness of violating the compromises of the Constitution in the interests of humanity by a handful of earnest Abolitionists than of systematic violation of all law human and Divine by every slaveholding State for two generations, and where press, platform, and pulpit were far more resonant of apologies for the slaveholder than of pleas for the slave. In the day when inquisition shall be made for blood, when simple truth shall take the place of special pleading, when the responsibility shall be fastened where it really belongs, the North as well as the South will be found to have had its share, and the numbers who actually aided in bringing on the dreadful struggle will be seen to be larger than has been sometimes imagined. CHAPTER VI. CRITTENDEN RESOLUTIONS. Resolutions introduced. - Debate. - Mr. Crittenden's speech and explanation. — Compromise. Question of the Constitution. - Extreme sentiments of Mr. Toombs. His demands. — Powell's amendment. - Clarke's amendment. Eloquent speech of Simmons. - Anthony. - Amendment adopted. - Extreme opinions of Bigler. Cameron. - Wilson. John Brown. Final vote and - rejection. AMONG the attempts to conciliate and compose the differences that distracted and threatened to disrupt the nation which occupied so much of the time and attention of the closing session of the XXXVIth Congress, the most notable and well remembered are the resolutions offered by the senior Senator of Kentucky, commonly called the Crittenden Compromise. Their purport and the discussion to which they gave rise, amendments offered and votes thereon, their final rejection and the reasons therefor, revealed the feelings and purposes of the two sections more clearly than any measure perhaps ever introduced into the national legislature. Assigning in his preamble the reasons for his propositions, the Senator referred to the "serious and alarming dissensions concerning the rights and security of the rights of the slaveholding States, and especially their rights in the common territory," and the desirableness that "dissensions which now threaten the very existence of the Union should be permanently quieted and settled by constitutional provisions which shall do equal justice to all sections." The amendment of the Constitution he proposed consisted of six articles. By the first, slavery should be prohibited in all territory of the United States "now held or hereafter acquired" north of latitude 36°30', and be permitted and "recognized as existing" in all territory south of such line, but without the clause "now held or hereafter acquired," and when any part of such territory should be admitted as a State, it should be received "with or without slavery, as the constitution of such new State may provide"; the second withheld from Congress the "power to abolish slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction and situate within the limits of States that permit the holding of slaves"; the third prohibited Congress from abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, so long as it existed in the States of Virginia and Maryland, nor should it then, without the consent of the owners, nor without "just compensation"; the fourth denied to Congress "the power to hinder or prohibit the transportation of slaves from one State to another"; the fifth provided that the United States should be held responsible for the payment for all fugitive slaves whose recovery by their owners should in any case have been obstructed and successfully prevented; the sixth provided that no amendment of the Constitution should ever be made allowing Congress to abolish or interfere with slavery "in any of the States by whose laws it is, or may be, allowed." In addition to these proposed amendments, as if they were not sufficiently humiliating and repressive, and as alleged, "to remove all just cause for the popular discontent and agitation," he proposed four resolutions recommending further legislative enactments in the same direction: the first designed to render "the laws now in force for the recovery of fugitive slaves" more effective by enacting additional statutes for the punishment of those who should be guilty of violating their provisions; the second calling upon Congress to recommend to the several States the repeal of all "personal-liberty" laws found on their statute-books; the third proposing certain amendments of "the act of the 18th of September, 1850, commonly called the Fugitive Slave Law"; and the fourth affirming that the laws against the African slave-trade "ought to be made effectual and ought to be thoroughly executed." Such was the famous Crittenden Compromise, of which so much has been said, for which so many Northern men, even some members of the Republican party, were willing to vote, and on account of which so many harsh censures were cast on those who were unwilling to give it their support; so intensely Southern it hardly exhibited the pretence even of providing for other interests and feelings than those of the slaveholder. Though styled a "compromise," it was, like all the pretended compromises of the slavery question, entirely onesided and unfair. Even the seeming concession to the demands of humanity in proposing a more rigorous execution of the laws against the African slave-trade can only appear in its true light when viewed in connection with the demand for a constitutional amendment to protect more perfectly the interState slave-trade, and the fact that it was the avowed policy of the border States to oppose the foreign trade because of its interference with their own more infamous domestic traffic; while the prohibition of slavery in the territory north of 36°30′ was measurably neutralized, if not by climatic considerations, by the provision that any State formed thereof might come into the Union with or without slavery "as the constitution of such State may provide." Mr. Sumner, in an address in New York the winter following their introduction, speaks of them as "this great surrender to slavery," as a proposition "to change the Constitution in a manner revolting to the moral sense; to foist into the Constitution the idea of property in man; to protect slavery in all present territory south of 36°30', and to carry it into all territory hereafter acquired south of that line, and thus to make our beautiful Stars and Stripes in their Southern march the flag of slavery; to give new constitutional securities to slavery in the national capital, and in other places within the exclusive Federal jurisdiction; as also to the transit of slaves from State to State, opening the way to the roll-call of slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill or the gates of Faneuil Hall." The resolutions were introduced on the 18th of December, 1860, but were not made the order of the day until the 2d of January. Though Mr. Crittenden introduced the discussion by explaining his resolutions, the debate on that day proceeded upon another series, introduced a few days previous by Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, also proposing amendments of the Constitution, on which Baker of Oregon and Benjamin of Louisiana made very eloquent and forcible speeches. On the 7th Mr. Crittenden called up his resolutions again, and made a long, elaborate, and very earnest argument in their behalf. In a colloquy between himself and Mr. Toombs of Georgia was revealed a marked feature of the debates of that session, already referred to, that, whatever might be the specific topic, the general tenor of the discussion was the same. Alluding to the understanding that Mr. Toombs was expected to speak on another resolution, he said that it was "so entirely analogous to it that his remarks would be applicable" to the one as well as to the other, a remark substantially repeated by Mr. Toombs himself. There was also pressing for consideration, at the same time, the bill for the admission of Kansas as a State. Mr. Crittenden prefaced his speech with the remark that he spoke not for slavery, but for the Union. He appealed to the new party which, elated with victory, had just come into power, to exhibit both forbearance and magnanimity in relation to the feeling of anxiety and alarm which, right or wrong, pervaded the Southern States. For this purpose he had proposed an amendment to the Constitution, which could alone, he contended, pacify them. Concerning the first article pertaining to the territory of the United States, he remarked that it was "a very little thing," as it only recognized a fact already existing. It might be called a compromise, and perhaps it was, but it was "a fair compromise." "All human life," he said, "is a compromise. From the cradle to the grave every step is a compromise between man and society." He based an argument on the fact that both the North and South shared in the cost of blood and treasure with which that territory had been purchased, and that therefore both sections should have an equal share in its possession and use. He claimed that in regard to political principles there was no more reason for excluding slaves than any other kind of property; and that it would be adopting the same principle to exclude slavery on moral grounds, that it would be to make a discrimination between Presbyterians and Congregationalists in settling a territory of the United States. In a word, he ignored all scruples of conscience, and made it entirely a constitutional |