A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Part 74

Besides, sir, what else can I do? As I sit down, let me ask Senators upon every side, what else can any of us do? Shall we sit here for three months, when pet.i.tion, resolution, public meeting, speech, acclamation, tumult, is heard, seen, and felt on every side, and do nothing? Shall State after State go out, and not warn us of danger?

Shall Senators and Representatives, patriotic, eloquent, venerable, tell us, again and again, of danger in their States, and we condescend to make no reply?

Sir, there is other business to be done here besides the mere ordinary business of the Government; besides the voting of supplies, and the raising of means by which to buy them. We have questions here to-day, as I believe, of peace and war, and I have waited long to see some mode of their solution. I repeat, I go for this proposition, and agree to submit it to the vote of the people, not because I believe it the best that can be done. I believe, however, that, to-day being two days from the close of this session, it is all I can do. When my people ask me, on my return, "Sir, have not States gone out?" I will say, "Yes."

"Do not more threaten it?" if that is the word (I trust it is not the best one), I say, "Yes." They say, "Sir, do you believe they will do it?" "On my honor and on my conscience," I say, "if something is not done, yes." They then ask, "What have you done?" Mr. President, what have we done? I believe that is the question the country will ask of us; and I, for one, will vote for this proposition, that I may be able to respond.

Mr. GREEN:--Mr. President, I regard the consideration of this question as one of the most important which has ever been presented to the Senate since I have been a member of it. The Union is in danger; the fate of the country is at stake; and whatever the Senate or the House of Representatives or Congress combined can do, ought to be done to save the country. I have very little faith or hope, and I would express the reason why. But as little as there is, I will cling to the last remaining straw, and sink with it grasped fast in my hands, if I have no other resource. This country is of too much importance to me, to my family, to my friends, to my State, to my a.s.sociates everywhere, to give up without a struggle. That struggle may prove to be fruitless; it may prove to be unavailing. The taunts and jeers thrown out are calculated to stir up ire and ill-feeling; I shall pa.s.s them by with disregard. I choose to sacrifice my feelings, and to make myself a burnt-offering on the altar, if I can do any thing to save the country.

What, then, shall we do? These propositions, presented by what is called the Peace Conference, are not to be compared to the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky; and I will not vote for a single one of them, while I will vote for his. They amount to a sacrifice of my honor, and a destruction of the rights of my State. I am permitted to say that the representatives from my State in the Peace Conference condemned them all, while they are willing to go for the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky. We cannot stand by this, and we will not.

Let us not deceive each other; let us not undertake to practice a system of deception which will sound pleasant to the ear, but will be bitter to the taste. I will not do it. Here is a positive prohibition of slavery north of 36 30', and then a doubtful question whether it is recognized south of 36 30'. The Senator from Kentucky thinks it is; but I will not act upon a doubt. We have had too many doubts heretofore, and out of those doubts have grown many difficulties. I shall never permit, so far as my action is concerned, another question of doubt.

Mr. CRITTENDEN:--Will the gentleman allow me to interrupt him? Did he understand me as admitting that it was a doubtful recognition of slavery?

Mr. GREEN:--Not at all. I said expressly that the Senator from Kentucky contended that it did amount to a recognition, but others denied it, and that made it a question of doubt. I will not misrepresent anybody if I know it. Now, sir, I will not act upon a question which admits of doubt. We have pa.s.sed along in our career for so many years that we have arrived at a point when we must understand each other distinctly and unequivocally, and I will not leave a single point open to equivocation. It must be expressly settled, and settled not only in express words, not only in unmistakable language; but I go further than that; it must emanate from the hearts of a people disposed to stand by it; and if they will not stand by it, I will not a.s.sociate with them.

I want to preserve this Union; I want to maintain the const.i.tutional rights of all cla.s.ses, North and South; but to give me a mere written guarantee on parchment, and file it in the office of the Secretary of State, with a predetermination in the hearts and minds of the northern people inculcated and instructed to violate it, I cannot live with, and I will not. I would rather go where I naturally belong, with southern men; but if the true-hearted, the patriotic, and the honorable portion of the North will reverse this inculcated spirit of hostility to southern inst.i.tutions, and bring them up to the mark where they will recognize const.i.tutional guarantees, then I say, "Hail, thou my brother, we can go together;" but never till that comes to pa.s.s. We have approached that period in our country's history when there should be no cheating or attempt to cheat. We must understand each other, and make a permanent, lasting Union, or a permanent, lasting, peaceful separation.

This proposition presented by the Peace Conference, as it is called, I think the merest twaddle--and I use the term with entire respect to the members--the merest twaddle that ever was presented to a thinking people. The proposition of the Senator from Kentucky has some sense in it. If he chooses to desert his own, I shall not complain of him; for I know that warm, patriotic impulses move him in all his action; but I cannot accept the other, and I shall vote against every one of its provisions. When it is said to me that the territory south of 36 30'

has adopted slavery--that New Mexico has--I must reply to Senators that they misunderstand the law. New Mexico has never adopted slavery.

New Mexico has done this: she has provided remedies for redress of wrongs, including wrongs affecting slave property; but she has never established slavery; nor has Utah. Utah has never even recognized it by implication. Utah pa.s.sed a law of this character: apprentices bound to service for a period of years may be held there; but when their servitude has expired, according to their articles of apprentices.h.i.+p, they are free; so that the law of Utah absolutely, if it has any effect, prohibits slavery.

Senators overlook these facts. I take the broad and the bold and the unmistakable ground, not that the Const.i.tution establishes slavery anywhere, but that the Const.i.tution, extending over a Territory, will protect me in all my rights not prohibited by a local competent authority; that my rights are to take any property which I own in any part of the Union, Yankee clocks from the North, polar bears from the Rocky Mountains, mules from the Middle States, and slaves from the South; and that, unless there is a competent local authority to prohibit my rights in these respective cla.s.ses of property, I am to be protected. The second step is that there can be no local authority as long as the territorial condition remains, competent to prohibit slavery in any Territory.

These are my positions; and hence, so far from this extraordinary position that slavery is local being true, the reverse is true. It may be local in the United States, but so far from its being local to the Territory in the United States, the reverse is true. Talk about freedom being national, and slavery local! I have a right to pa.s.s through Pennsylvania, and my right of transit is as perfect this day as it was when Pennsylvania was a slave State....

I have been anxious from the beginning of this session to stave off public action, to hold the public pulse still, and give an opportunity for reaction of northern sentiment. I want no reaction south. It has been my only hope, and my last hope, and that hope has failed....

These resolutions are intended to lull old Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, until we are hand-cuffed and tied fast, and then action is to commence. They are all designed simply to lull us into a fancied security; but if we are wise betimes, and look forward to coming events, we will at once strike the blow, and separate from a Confederation which denies us peace, denies us protection, denies us our const.i.tutional rights, and seek them in some other a.s.sociation of States....

Now, Mr. President, I want all these propositions voted down, and I hope my friend from Kentucky will revive his propositions and bring them up again. There is some vitality in them; there is some point in them; but as for these wishy-washy resolutions, that amount to nothing, it is impossible that any Senator here will, for a moment, entertain the idea of supporting them. The Peace Conference! And the smallest peace that ever I have heard of. Let the Senator adhere to his original propositions; let the Senator bring them up and press them upon the attention of the Senate. That is as far backing down as I will go. It is a little more than I want; but still, as a last effort to save the Union, I would go that far. Talk about these measures! These measures that have no vitality--these measures that amount to a total surrender of every principle--I never will vote for; and let the consequences of the future be what they may, I stake my faith and reputation upon the vote I intend to cast.

Mr. WADE:--I move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. LANE:--I hope the Senator will give me the floor before he makes that motion.

Mr. TRUMBULL:--I ask the Senator from Oregon to yield to me a moment.

Mr. LANE:--For a motion to adjourn, I will.

Mr. TRUMBULL:--Yes, sir; I desire the floor with a view to make that motion. It is apparent that no good is to come out of the discussion of the proceedings of this Peace Conference. It is a proposition got up for the purpose of satisfying the Border States; and the Border States, Missouri and Virginia, say they will have none of it. The first section is a proposition establis.h.i.+ng slavery--

Mr. MASON:--I rise to a question of order.

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--The Senator from Illinois will pause. The Senator from Virginia rises to a question of order, which he will state.

Mr. MASON:--I understand the motion to adjourn has been made.

Mr. TRUMBULL:--I have not made the motion yet. I stated that I would make that motion, and I was merely going to give the reason. The Senator from Oregon will have the floor to-morrow. I was stating the reason why I should make the motion to adjourn, which I intend to make in the course of a minute, and I merely made that statement to show that there was no object in sitting here and punis.h.i.+ng ourselves in regard to resolutions which manifestly cannot command the a.s.sent of this body. I now move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. DOUGLAS:--I call for the yeas and nays on that motion.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

And the Senate refused to adjourn, and, for special business, the peace propositions were set aside. The same day they were introduced, as follows:

Mr. LANE:--Mr. President, my object in getting the floor, was to give the reason why I cannot vote for the resolution now before the Senate.

You are aware, sir, that I did vote for the propositions of the Senator from Kentucky to amend the Const.i.tution, with the hope, if they could be adopted, that peace, perhaps, might be restored to the country; but those propositions have been superseded, and the Senator from Kentucky himself says that he is willing to sacrifice, on the altar of his country, as he terms it, his own propositions, and take the amendments which are proposed to the Const.i.tution presented by the Peace Congress to the Senate. The resolutions proposed by the distinguished Senator from Kentucky were as low down as I could go.

They did not secure to every State that right they have under the Const.i.tution, as I understand it; but the resolution now before the Senate, to speak modestly, as I look at it, with all due respect to the great men who met here to consider this matter, who deliberated for many days, and presented this as the result of their deliberations, is a cheat, a deception, a humbug--nothing that any State can take as a final settlement of the questions that are now giving trouble to this country, nothing that can settle permanently those difficulties. We must have something more definite, something more certain, or there can be no Union even of the States that now remain in the Union, as I believe.

Mr. GREEN:--Mr. President--

The PRESIDING OFFICER:--Does the Senator from Oregon give way?

Mr. LANE:--Only for an adjournment.

Mr. GREEN:--I rise to make that motion, that the Senate do now adjourn.

So the motion was agreed to; and the Senate by a vote--23 to 22--adjourned.

_March 2d._--Senator LANE having secured the floor, made the following speech on the report of the Peace Conference:

Mr. LANE:--Mr. President, I hope I shall be permitted to proceed without interruption, and I trust not to consume much time. While I had the floor yesterday, I stated some of my objections to the proposed amendments to the Const.i.tution which are now before us. They are: that they do not do justice to the whole country--that they do not do justice to all the States. I have always held that the territory is common property; that it belongs to all the States; that every citizen of every State has an equal right to emigrate to, and settle in, the common Territories; and that any species of property, recognized as such in any State of the Confederacy, should have a like recognition in the Territories, and be guaranteed, protected, and secured in its full integrity, to the owner thereof. That this should be so, was the intent of the revolutionary fathers who shaped and framed the Const.i.tution; and it was this principle, more, perhaps, than any other, which called into being that n.o.ble compact, which has so long been a bond of Union and goodness between all the States. It is the very life-blood and vitality of the Const.i.tution. It is the ligament that has held us together heretofore, and which, if cut now, will result only in hopeless and immutable disruption. I have never deviated a single iota from this correct doctrine. Had we lived up to this equitable principle--the foundation upon which the Const.i.tution rests, upon which only this Union can be maintained--we should have had no trouble in this country to-day. It is not my fault that trouble and dissatisfaction prevail; it is not my fault that secession has taken place, and that further secession will take place, unless Congress shall recognize this great principle of justice, of right, and of equality. That is the doctrine upon which this Union rests; and it must be maintained, or the connection will be severed.

While upon this question, Mr. President, I may be permitted to allude to my course in the Senate last session, and I shall do so very briefly, upon a series of resolutions introduced by the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. DAVIS]--a series of resolutions that were considered in this body, after having been previously maturely and deliberately adopted by a caucus composed of the Democratic Senators, and agreed upon by them, as setting forth the principles necessary to be maintained in order to secure the existence and perpetuity of this Confederacy. It has been charged upon this floor that, on the 25th day of May last, I voted against the right of protection to slave property in the Territories. In order that the Senate may know how I voted, and that I may show you and every other man that I stood then as I stand to-day, and as I have always stood upon this question, I will read some short extracts from the discussion upon this series of resolutions. The fourth resolution was in these words:

"_Resolved_, That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect and unfriendly nature, possesses the power to annul or impair the const.i.tutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common Territories, but it is the duty of the Federal Government there to afford for that, as for other species of property, the needful protection; and if experience should at any time prove that the judiciary does not possess power to insure adequate protection, it will then become the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency."

Now mark! this resolution states that all the property of all the people of any State, whether slave or otherwise, has an equal right to protection; and if experience should at any time prove that the courts had not the power to afford that protection, then it was the duty of Congress to enact such laws as were necessary to protect every man in his legal and rightful property, no matter of what description or characteristic. Sir, not long since, upon this floor, a Senator was hardy enough to say that I voted against protecting property in Territories; and he desired to know what had happened that States should be concerned; what had occurred to alarm the States that were seceding from the Union? I will show you, sir, very briefly, what I said upon that question then; and I will repeat it now, for I have never changed my sentiments on this subject. No living man can a.s.sert, and in so doing tell the truth, that I ever uttered a word against the equality of the States, and their equal right in the common territory of our common country; and any charge that I voted then to refuse protection to property in the territory _is false_. I have always held that the territory belonged to all; that it was acquired, as I knew, at the expense of the Southern States as well as of the Northern; and upon the battle-fields where I had witnessed the good conduct of Northern and Southern troops, I found the soldier from the Southern States pouring out his blood as freely, and certainly in very much larger quant.i.ty--for there were very many more from the Southern States who partic.i.p.ated in the battles of our country in the war which resulted in the acquisition of territory, than there were from the Northern States. Then, so far as the acquisition is concerned, it is joint, and it was for the joint benefit of all portions of the country. Consequently, I have held, and I hold now, that the Territories should be so appropriated. And when those resolutions were up last winter, I said what I will now read:

"I only desire to say, in relation to the series of resolutions, a portion of which I have already voted in favor of, that I shall vote in favor of the rest; for the whole of them together meet with my hearty approbation. They a.s.sert the truth; they a.s.sert the great principle that the const.i.tutional rights of the States are equal; that the States have equal rights in this country under the Const.i.tution; and, as I understand it, they must be maintained in that equality. These resolutions only a.s.sert that principle; and I say that it is a misfortune to the country, in my opinion, that the principles laid down in these resolutions had not been a.s.serted sooner. They ought to have been a.s.serted by the Democratic party in plain English ten years ago. If they had been, you would have had no trouble in this country to-day; the Democratic party would have been united and strong, and the equality and const.i.tutional rights of the States would have been maintained in the territory, and in all other things; squatter-sovereignty would not have been heard of, and to-day we should be united. It is the fault of the Democratic party in dodging truth, in dodging principle, in dodging the Const.i.tution itself, that has brought the trouble upon the country and the party that is experienced to-day."

I believe, if we had a.s.serted and maintained these great truths ten years ago, and placed ourselves upon them boldly, as it was our duty to have done, we would have no trouble in this country to-day; but instead of declaring the great truths enunciated in these resolutions, we went off upon issues unbecoming the Democratic party. A portion of our leaders wandered and went astray, and a.s.serted that the people of a Territory had the right to prohibit slavery whenever, in their judgment, it ought to be prohibited; a power which Congress even does not possess, and consequently cannot confer upon a Territorial Legislature, unless the creature becomes greater than the creator. It was this kind of trouble, and this sort of heresy introduced into the Democratic party, that has broken it up, and brought the disasters upon our country which we experience to-day. I say, then, let the blame fall upon the guilty; I am innocent of it; for I have held but one doctrine upon this question from the beginning to the present hour, and I shall hold that doctrine to the end. In the speech from which I have already read, I also used the following language:

"Sir, it appears to me to be very singular indeed, that any man can hold that the territory of this country belongs to a portion of the people, and that the people of one portion of the Union can go there and enjoy their property, when the people of another portion cannot enjoy the right of property in that territory--territory common to the whole country; territory that was earned or acquired by the common blood and common treasure of all; territory that is sustained by the common treasure of all; and to say that all shall not have an equal right there, is to deny a fact so plain, a principle so just, a right so manifest, that I can hardly see how any man who professes to be a Democrat can deny it, or how he can attempt to embarra.s.s the adoption of the correct principles announced in these resolutions. I shall therefore vote against all the amendments, and every thing that is offered to obstruct their pa.s.sage, upon the ground that they a.s.sert justice, that they a.s.sert truth, that they a.s.sert the equality and const.i.tutional rights of all the States, which principle must be maintained, or this Union cannot be preserved."

That was my doctrine then, it is the doctrine which I have held and advocated for twenty years. It is the doctrine I hold now; and I so notified the Senator from Tennessee, who arraigned me here as voting against protecting property, and who did me willful and gross injustice in it--for I voted for it and he voted against it. That is to say, I voted against the resolution introduced by Mr. CLINGMAN, declaring "that slave property did not need protection in the Territories," while the Senator from Tennessee voted for it; and when the motion was made to reconsider the vote adopting it in lieu of the fourth resolution of the DAVIS series, I voted to reconsider, and the Senator from Tennessee voted against it, showing clearly that he was against affording that protection to slave property which the fourth resolution provided for. Did I not maintain the truth? Was I not prophetic in the announcement that I made in this Senate Chamber then?

I said, that unless this great principle of justice, of equality, of the right of every man to the common territory should be maintained, this Union would be broken up. This great principle has not been maintained, but the Union has been destroyed.

But, sir, to go to the votes. It will be borne in mind, and every Senator on this floor will bear me out in my statement, that while the DAVIS resolutions--the series of which I speak--were up, various propositions were made to amend them, and I voted against all amendments. There are Senators here at this moment who will sustain me when I say that, when in caucus and we had under consideration this series of resolutions, I said, and said it boldly and in plain terms, that if every man from every Southern State of this Union would come here and say, for the sake of peace, if you please, or any other reason, he was willing to abandon his equality, his right in the common territory, then, if alone, I would stand and protest against it; protest that he had no right to surrender a const.i.tutional right; that none but a coward would do it; that every man had a right in the common territory; that it was his privilege, and he should never surrender it with my permission. On the other hand, I said that if every Northern man in the Senate Chamber--nay, but even every Northern citizen--expressed a desire to surrender his right, his equality, his privilege, to go to the common Territories with his property, I should enter my solemn protest against it, and insist that he had a const.i.tutional right to go there, which he should never surrender with my consent. Then, how any man could a.s.sert that I ever entertained the opinion that slavery did not need protection from aggression, is to me the strangest, falsest thing in nature. I said, as I have shown you, that I had voted against all amendments, and would continue to vote against all amendments, or any attempt whatsoever calculated to obstruct the pa.s.sage of the resolutions; for they a.s.serted the right of the people to go to the Territories, a.s.serted the power of the court to protect them in the possession of their property, and that if the court failed to protect them, Congress should afford the necessary authority to do so.

But, sir, allow me to observe, there was a resolution that I never voted for, and that no man can charge me with ever having voted for.

Senators will recollect--and whoever has read the proceedings of the Senate will recollect--that an amendment was offered as a subst.i.tute to the fourth resolution, in these words:

"That the existing condition of the Territories does not require the intervention of Congress for the protection of property in slaves."

I did not vote for that resolution; but the Senator from Tennessee did. That amendment was adopted in lieu of the fourth resolution of the series that I have read, which insured protection to slave property in the Territories. It was adopted not entirely by Democratic votes; and that there may be no mistake, I will read what the Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts said when he moved a reconsideration:

"I wish simply to say that I voted for that resolution because I believed the condition of the Territories requires no such law now or ever, and I do not believe in the enactment of any such law; but my friends on this side of the Chamber have put that resolution in the series; and for myself, I do not wish to be responsible for any portion of these resolutions, and I therefore wish the vote to be reconsidered."