A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Part 52

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN:--I have an amendment which I intend to offer at some time, and I may as well propose it now. The people of the free States have complained, and not without good reason, that one clause in the Const.i.tution is not carried into effect in some of the slaveholding States. Their complaints are similar to those made on the part of the South, which it is the purpose of the seventh section to remove. If there have been instances at the North where mobs and riotous a.s.semblies have obstructed the administration of justice in the case of fugitive slaves, so there have been instances at the South where mobs and riots have disregarded the rights of citizens of Northern States. I propose to deal fairly by all sections. Let us remove both causes of complaint. I move to amend the seventh section by adding thereto the following words:

"Congress shall provide by law for securing to the citizens of each State the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

Mr. GUTHRIE:--I repeat my objection to all these amendments. If our work here is to have any efficacy, we must adhere to the report. Why bring in another bone of contention?

Mr. ORTH:--Will you not extend the same protection to free citizens which you do to slaveholders?

The question was taken on the motion of Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN, with the following result:

AYES.--Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Ma.s.sachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Kansas--16.

NOES.--Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia--4.

So the amendment was adopted.

Mr. ROMAN dissented from the vote of Maryland.

Mr. AMES:--I move an amendment which will make the section more explicit. I move to strike out the word "force," and to insert instead thereof the words "violence or intimidation."

The motion was agreed to without objection.

Mr. ORTH:--I move to amend the seventh section by adding at the close thereof the following words:

"And such fugitives, after such payment, shall then be discharged from such service."

I am opposed to this whole business of making compensation for fugitive slaves; but if this section is to be adopted, and the Government pays the owner the whole value of the fugitive, upon every principle of equity and justice the fugitive should be discharged, and the master should have no right to reduce him again to slavery. You make the measure of the owner's damages in such a case the value of the slave. Do you intend, after he has secured that, he shall still have the right of capture--that after the damages have been fully paid, he may still call on the courts of law for the slave's surrender? This would be a double compensation indeed. I shall insist upon this amendment, and ask a vote by States.

Mr. ROMAN:--I have not hitherto addressed the Conference, but I should do myself injustice if I remained silent any longer. I came here in good faith, encouraged with the hope that this Conference would do something which would indicate a purpose to protect and acknowledge the rights of the slaveholding States. I have patiently attended your sittings, and little by little that hope has faded, until to-night it has almost pa.s.sed away. What good can come of these deliberations, when upon every question which is presented the lines of sectionalism are tightly drawn, and with one or two exceptions every northern State is arrayed against us? Suppose these proposals of amendment as reported by the committee are adopted, there is evidently a purpose manifested here by a large delegation from the free States, to prevent their adoption by the people. I know the opposition which in any event will be arrayed against them. It is an opposition which nothing but unanimity among the moderate conservative men of the country can overcome. Believe it or not, gentlemen, I a.s.sure you we are in earnest, in our determination to have our rights under the Const.i.tution defined and guaranteed. Our safety, as well as our self-respect, requires this. I have not been satisfied with the majority report, but if I had been disposed to accept it--if the South would accept it now, you will not concede even that. You insist upon weakening its provisions by amendments, and by amendments which are insulting to us.

It is now seriously proposed under the Const.i.tution, by an express provision, to deprive us of our property in slaves against our consent, and to emanc.i.p.ate them by making compensation. What other effect can be given to such an amendment? One of our slaves escapes into a free State. He is arrested by the marshal and discharged by a mob. Does this act discharge him from his service? Does this lawless violence make him free? And if the town or city where the mob occurs is made to pay a slight penalty, does this also divest the owner of his right? This is nothing but an inducement to mobs and riots. Pa.s.s this provision, and no fugitive slave will ever again be returned from a free State. There will always be abolitionists enough to pay for a slave, and this payment will set the slave free, and will const.i.tute the only penalty for this violence. For one, I would prefer to have no provision at all on the subject than to have one enc.u.mbered with such an amendment.

I have but little more to say. If the peace of this country is to be hereafter established on a permanent basis, and the Union is to be preserved, you, gentlemen of the North, must recognize our rights, and cease to interfere with them. You have nothing to do with this question of slavery. It is an inst.i.tution of our own. If it is a crime, we are responsible for it, and will bear the responsibility. We have never interfered with your inst.i.tutions. You must now let us alone.

Mr. ORTH:--The objection of the gentleman from Maryland may be answered in a word. It is for the owner to elect whether or not to accept compensation and set his slave free. If he still chooses to pursue him, he need not accept compensation; but if he does not, and receives payment for him, the slave should go free. As to mobs and riots, we punish men at the North who engage in them.

Mr. CRISFIELD:--I entirely agree with my colleague in this respect. We could not accept the section if such an amendment was adopted. The report of the committee is the very least that will satisfy our people. Do not destroy it by such amendments as these.

The vote was then taken upon the amendment proposed by Mr. ORTH, with the following result:

AYES.--Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kansas--10.

NOES.--Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia--11.

And the amendment was rejected.

Mr. CLAY:--I move to amend the report by adding a section to be numbered Section 8, as follows:

"The second paragraph of the second section of fourth article of the Const.i.tution shall be so construed that no State shall have the power to consider and determine what is treason, felony, or crime, in another State; but that a person charged in any State with treason, felony, or 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."

I do not think discussion necessary upon such an amendment as this. It is well known to the Conference that great difficulties have been found to exist in carrying into effect this provision of the Const.i.tution. So far as the slave States are concerned, it is a perfect nullity. Unless it is amended it may as well be stricken from the instrument. I believe the tenor of the decisions at the North has been to permit the executive upon whom the requisition is made, to determine whether the offence charged is a crime under the law of the State to which the person charged has fled. If it is a crime, the fugitive is delivered up. If not a crime in that sense, he is discharged. The decisions of the courts have been to the same effect; whenever the fugitive has been brought upon _habeas corpus_, the decision has been the same. It is obvious that under this construction of the Const.i.tution no fugitive will be hereafter returned for an offence in which the question of slavery is involved. This is only one of the many evasions of the Const.i.tution which have been practised in the free States. I deem the amendment very important.

Mr. BRONSON:--The gentleman from Kentucky is entirely mistaken in his statement of the decisions of the northern courts or northern governors. The decisions are uniform so far as I know, that where the offence charged is either a crime at common law, or under the statutes of the State from which the fugitive has fled, he has been delivered up.

Mr. CLAY:--Did not the Executive of New York refuse to deliver up a fugitive on the demand of the Governor of Virginia?

Mr. BRONSON:--In that case I think there was no evidence that the offence charged was a crime under the statutes of Virginia, and it certainly was not at common law.

The vote was taken upon Mr. CLAY'S amendment, and resulted as follows:

AYES.--Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia--5.

NOES.--Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Ma.s.sachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Kansas--16.

And the amendment was rejected.

And on motion, at two o'clock A.M., the Conference adjourned.

EIGHTEENTH DAY.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, TUESDAY, _February 26th, 1861._

The Conference, pursuant to adjournment, was called to order at eleven o'clock.

Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. GURLEY.

The PRESIDENT informed the Conference that in consequence of the length of the Journal of yesterday, the Secretary had not been able to write it out, and that it would be necessary to omit the reading thereof this morning.

Mr. McCURDY:--There was a vote taken in the confusion near the close of the session last evening, in which Connecticut, according to the minutes of the Secretary, appears to have voted in the negative. It was upon the amendment of Mr. ORTH, declaring that the slave should be free whenever his master had accepted payment for him. On that amendment the vote of Connecticut was Yea. As the vote is recorded Nay by mistake, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was rejected.

Mr. BRONSON:--The motion to reconsider is not necessary. Connecticut can record her vote as she wishes to have it stand. It will not change the result.

The PRESIDENT:--I think the motion is in order, if made by Connecticut.

Mr. BATTELL:--I will move to reconsider. I voted with the majority.

Mr. MOREHEAD, of North Carolina:--No individual delegate can make such a motion. States vote here, not individuals. I submit that the motion is out of order, unless made by a majority of the delegation.

Mr. BALDWIN:--The question is not complicated at all; neither is the motion out of order. A majority of the delegation from Connecticut cast the vote of that State in favor of Mr. ORTH'S amendment. By mistake that vote was recorded against the amendment. The same majority whose vote is made to do them injustice by a mistake for which its members are not responsible, now moves to reconsider the vote.

The question was then taken upon Mr. McCURDY'S motion, and resulted as follows:

AYES.--Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Ohio, Vermont and Kansas--11.

NOES.--Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia--10.