A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Part 12

Mr. JOHNSON here read the article of the Const.i.tution providing for amendments, and continued:

One is where two-thirds of Congress deem it advisable to propose amendments; the other is where the States themselves propose them. My learned brother would have us believe that the members of Congress, acting under their official oaths, must each be satisfied that each amendment proposed is proper to be incorporated in the instrument, before they should propose them; and he maintains that there is a difference, in fact, in the two methods prescribed. What right has this body, if there is any force in this objection, to submit _his_ proposition to the States? If what we propose is revolutionary, then what he proposes is revolutionary. I reply to him, with all respect for his legal ability, and with all the humility which becomes me, and insist that he is wrong. He refers to the opinion of Judge COLLAMER. I hold Judge COLLAMER in much respect, and his opinion in great honor here, but his statements are at war with the objections made by the gentleman from Connecticut. Judge COLLAMER maintains that it is the duty of Congress _to propose_ amendments, not to _recommend_ them. It would be entirely proper, according to his opinion, for Congress to propose amendments which they would not adopt themselves. I go somewhat farther, and insist that it is the duty of Congress to propose amendments whenever desired by any State or any considerable section of the Union. If we have no right to suggest a line of action to Congress, no right to pet.i.tion Congress, no right to ask Congress to propose amendments, as the gentleman insists, we had better go home, or rather, I should say, we should never have come here.

There are twenty States represented in this Conference. I have no doubt other States would have been here, but for the shortness of the time. But how and why are we here? We have come here on the invitation of Virginia; her resolutions are our const.i.tution. We have come here at her instance. For what purpose did she ask us to come here? under what circ.u.mstances did she pa.s.s these resolutions? Virginia saw that the country was going to ruin--that one State had already seceded, and several others were about to follow. She saw there were circ.u.mstances affecting the condition of the South which aroused her to frenzy--not madness, but the frenzy which falls on every patriotic mind when it witnesses a country going to destruction. She saw the country was going to ruin with rapid steps, and that its ruin must be accomplished unless her friends in the free States would come forward, and consent to put into the Const.i.tution additional guarantees which would satisfy the people of the slave States that their rights were secure. See what she did--what she said. She expresses it as her deliberate opinion, "that unless the unhappy controversy which now divides the States of this Confederacy shall be satisfactorily adjusted, a permanent dissolution of the Union is inevitable; and the General a.s.sembly, representing the wishes of the people of the Commonwealth, is desirous of employing every reasonable means to avert so dire a calamity, and determined to make a final effort to restore the Union and the Const.i.tution, in the spirit in which they were established by the fathers of the Republic."

Therefore she invites all States, whether slaveholding or non-slaveholding, who were willing to unite with her in an earnest effort to adjust the unhappy controversies in the spirit of the Const.i.tution, to come together to secure that adjustment. She asks us to agree to some suitable adjustment. She does not leave us to suggest what that adjustment shall be. She tells us herself. She requests us to adopt it, and to submit it to Congress. She does not ask that Congress should call a convention, for Congress could not. Try, if we can, says Virginia, to come to some settlement of these unhappy controversies, and send that settlement to Congress, that Congress may submit it to the country.

Virginia invited you here. She told you just what she wanted. She says if you cannot consent to that, then let her commissioners come home and report the result. If this cannot be done, if the mode of adjustment indicated by her cannot be substantially carried out, then our whole authority is at an end.

This matter of amending the Const.i.tution is not as intricate and difficult a work as gentlemen imagine. Are there not twelve amendments to the Const.i.tution already? Were they submitted to the people by each member of Congress acting under his official oath? Or were they submitted in the very way the gentleman would avoid? Were they not brought into the Const.i.tution by outside pressure?

The Const.i.tution has been amended. I wish to mark how it was done, and then note why it was done.

There was a time when fears were entertained that wrongs might be done to different sections of the Union under the Const.i.tution as it then stood. Congress listened to those fears, and did not hesitate to propose amendments suggested from outside its own body--to submit them to the people for adoption. It was necessary, in the judgment of Congress, to do this, in order to restore confidence. It was done, and confidence was restored. Is not that precisely our case now? Is not confidence lost in the North and in the South?--not exactly lost, perhaps, but shaken. The credit of the Government is gone. Even our naval commanders are unable to negotiate Government bills abroad--are reduced to the degrading alternative of asking the endors.e.m.e.nt of foreign States, in order to such negotiation. Some brilliant individuals have suggested that we have already become so poor that our widows and wives must bring out their stockings.

Our last loan was negotiated at twelve per cent. discount. The present loan is not to be taken at any rate, unless the Government descends to the humiliating alternative of securing State endors.e.m.e.nts. Our credit is going lower and lower every day, and it will soon come to the point where our bonds will be worth no more than Continental money was.

Suppose we do nothing here. Are gentlemen blind to the consequences?

Gentlemen, honest and patriotic as I know you are, have you no love for this Union?--have you no care for the preservation of this Government? G.o.d forbid that I should say you have none! I know you too well. My relations have been too intimate with you, and have existed too long, for me to suppose it. You do love the Union. I speak for the South and to the South. I know that we can still labor to keep this Government together. If we follow the plain dictates of our judgment, any other course would be impossible.

The Virginia Convention is even now in session, and what a convention it is! Disguise as we may, deceive ourselves as we will, it is a convention which proposes to consider the question of withdrawing the State from the Union. Kentucky and Missouri, if we do nothing, will soon follow. If there ever was a time in the history of the Government for conciliation, for patriotic concession, that time is now. The time has come when parties must be forgotten. Let not the word party be mentioned here. It is not worthy of us. Representatives of the States, you are above party--high above. The cords that bind you together are a hundred times as strong as those which ever bound any party. Unless we do something, and something very quickly, before the incoming President is inaugurated, in all human probability he will have only the States north of Mason and Dixon to govern--that is, if he is to govern them in peace.

I think there is no right of secession; such is my individual opinion.

But there is a right higher than all these--the right of self-defence, the right of revolution. It is recognized by the Const.i.tution itself. The Const.i.tution was adopted by nine of the States only. What right had those nine States to separate from the other four?

Mr. SEDDON:--The right of secession.

Mr. JOHNSON:--I won't dispute about terms. In all such discussions, Heaven save me from a Virginia politician!

The opinions of Mr. MADISON upon the Const.i.tution are certainly ent.i.tled to value. He had more to do with making it than any other statesman of the time. I desire to read an opinion of his, which will be found in number forty-two of the Federalist:

"Two questions of a very delicate nature present themselves on this occasion:--1. On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it? 2. What relation is to subsist between the nine or more States ratifying the Const.i.tution, and the remaining few who do not become parties to it?

"The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case, to the great principle of self-preservation, to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's G.o.d, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political inst.i.tutions aim, and to which all such inst.i.tutions must be sacrificed."

Now, apply these principles to the present condition of the country.

The cases are exactly parallel. Mr. MADISON says in substance, that if one section of the Union refuses to recognize and protect the rights of another--in other words, if the free States now refuse to guarantee the rights of the South, that there is a right of self-preservation, a law of nature and nature's G.o.d, which is above all Const.i.tutions. I am not here to inquire whether the South has a right to go out if these guarantees are not given. That is a question which I will not argue.

Some of the States have already gone. I hold that to be a fact established.

Now, I put it to my friends of the North: Do you want us to go out?

You are a great people, a great country--a powerful people, a rich country. No threat or intimidation shall ever come from me to such a people. I ask you in all sadness whether, in the light of all our glory, of all our happiness and prosperity, whether you will, by withholding a thing that it will not harm you to grant, suffer us, compel us to depart? Let me read what was said by the same great man of Virginia, in antic.i.p.ation of the existence of the present state of things:

"I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you will never suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or however fas.h.i.+onable the error on which they may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and perilous scene into which the advocates for disunion would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice, which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, respectable, and flouris.h.i.+ng empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys. The kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defence of their sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rending us in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties, and promote our happiness."

Grant us then, gentlemen of the North, what we are willing to stand upon--what we will try to stand upon, and what we believe we can. At least, this will save the rest of the States to yourselves and to us.

The States that are now in the Union will continue there.

What is it we ask you to do? It is to settle this question as to our present territory. To settle it--how? By dividing it. And how by dividing it? By the line of 36 30'. Apparently, you think we are asking the North to yield something. I tell you it is we who are yielding. By the decision of the Supreme Court we have the right to go North of this line with our slaves. Now, all we ask you to give us here is the territory south of that line; and even as to that, we give you the right to destroy slavery there whenever a State organized out of it chooses to do so. We are, in fact, yielding to you. We abandon our rights North. Will you not let us retain what is already ours, South?

Is it quite certain that the territory south of the line will be slave territory? Those who repealed the Missouri Compromise, believed that Kansas would be a slave State. It did not turn out so. All we ask is, that you should leave the territory south of the line where it has been left by the decision of the Supreme Court. We freely yield you all the rest.

I do not propose to discuss all the amendments proposed. I confine myself to the single one which, if satisfactorily disposed of, will settle all our troubles.

In conclusion, I ask, oppressed by a consciousness which almost overmasters me--which renders me unfit to do any thing but feel--will you not settle this question here? I feel, and I cannot escape the feeling, that on your decision hangs the question, whether we shall be preserved an united people, or be broken to atoms. The States now remaining in the Union may possibly get on for a few years with something like prosperity; but if this question is not settled in some way, man must change his nature or _war_ in the end will come. War!

What a word to be used here! War between whom? There is not a family at the South which has not its a.s.sociations with the North--not a Northern family which has not its Southern ties! War in the midst of such a people! G.o.d grant that the future, that the events which must inevitably follow dissension here, may at least spare this agony to ourselves, our families, and our posterity.

Mr. SEDDON:--It is very clear to me that I ought not to make a prolonged address upon a question which I favor. The only question now before us is: Shall this amendment be made plain? We should deal honestly among ourselves; there should be no cheat--no uncertainty--no delusion here. Our language should be so clear that it will breed no new nests of trouble.

But the address of the gentleman from Maryland requires a brief notice from me. I listened with sadness to many parts of it. I bemoan that tones so patriotic could not rise to the level of the high ground of equality and right upon which we all ought to stand.

I appeal not to forbearance--I ask not for pity. I feel proud to represent the grand old commonwealth of Virginia here, and prouder still that I only come here to demand right and justice in her behalf.

Aye! and it is more complimentary to you to have it so. I ask for such guarantees only as Virginia needs, and as she has the right to demand.

It is far more complimentary to you to appeal to your sense of justice, to your sense of right, than to your forbearance or pity.

Virginia comes forward in a great national crisis. When support after support of this glorious temple of our Government has been torn away, she comes--proud of her memories of the past--happy in the part she had in the construction of this great system--she comes to present to you, calmly and plainly, the question, whether new and additional guarantees are not needed for her rights; and she tells you what those guarantees ought to be.

Nor does she stand alone. She is supported by all her border sisters.

The propositions she makes are familiar to the country. They were made by a patriot of the olden time, a time near to that of the foundation of our Government. They were such as he thought suited to the exigencies of his time. They have since then received a larger meed of approval, north and south, than any other plan of arrangement.

My State offers these resolutions of her Legislature as a basis for our action here, with certain modifications acceptable to her people.

One of these modifications has since been accepted by the mover of these resolutions himself. Most important among them is the provision as to future territory. The gentleman seems to think that Virginia would not insist on this provision as applicable to territory we may never have. It behooves not me to answer such a momentous question. I am only the mouthpiece of Virginia. She insists on the provision for future territory. She and her sister States plant themselves upon it.

What right have I to strike out a clause which she makes specific?

What right have I to esteem it of so little weight that it may be thrown aside and disregarded? I do not propose to give my reasons, though they would not be troublesome to give. It was an element in the Missouri Compromise that it should apply to future as well as to existing territory.

Does not the gentleman a.s.sert that under the laws as they now stand, we have the right to go north of the compromise line with our slaves?

What, then, is our position? Under the decision of the Supreme Court we are ent.i.tled to partic.i.p.ate in _all_ the territory of the United States. We are offering to give up the great part and the best part of it, and in payment we are to take the naked chance of getting a little piece of the worthless territory south of the proposed line! Such an idea was never entertained by those who made the Compromise. The idea which governed their action was, beyond all doubt, not that present territory alone should be thus divided, but that the question should be removed from doubt and difficulty for all time, and to give us at the South a chance whatever change might come.

Shall we be rewarded for all we give up, and find full compensation in a clause which itself prevents the acquisition of future territory?

The statement is in itself a sufficient answer to the question.

But there was another element in the propositions of the Legislature of Virginia. That, was security against the principles of the North, and her great and now dominant party; it was intended to put an end to the discussions that have convulsed the country and jeopardized our inst.i.tutions.

It was the policy of our fathers to settle these questions. They determined to make a final and decisive line of demarkation, and to let that be conclusive. But this young people could not be restrained, and when new territory was acquired the same question arose again. It now comes up once more. Virginia early saw the seeds of trouble in it, because she saw that the tide of emigration would continue to press toward the fertile lands of the South. She saw and she acted. In consequence of her action we are here. Would it not be wise and well as statesmen and as patriots, that you should do what you can for adjustment? do what you can to bring back your sisters of the South who have departed? It is the part of wisdom to settle. Virginia was wise to ask it.

There is another thing. A great and mighty party has arisen at the North that is determined to exclude the inst.i.tution of slavery, not only from all future, but from all _present_ territory. We know that in all ways this party has declared that it would not consent to let slavery go where it does not now exist. More heated zealots, also animated and sustained by this same party, have determined that this natural and patriarchal inst.i.tution of the South should be surrounded by a cordon of free States, and in the end be extinguished altogether.

Is it not wise in Virginia, that she should see that this project of surrounding the South with free States should be guarded against--most effectually guarded against now and in time to come, and so preserve her dignity and power?

This amendment adopted, and the proposition to Virginia will be a farce. Gentlemen, we hold that as the soul is to man, so is honor to a nation. Honor is the soul of nations. Without it, no nation can have a place in history or among the nations. We of Virginia must have in this Confederation the position of an equal. Equal in dignity--equal in right. In the Congress of the States of this Union, we insist on this as our right. We must have the same protection as the States of the North. Otherwise we are a dishonored people. We might live for a time otherwise, but we should be unworthy a place among the nations.

We hold _property_, yes, _our property in slaves_, as rightful and as honorable as any property to be found in the broad expanse between ocean and ocean.

We feel that in the existence, the perpetuity, the protection of the African race, we have a mission to perform, and not a mission only, but a right and a duty.

Upon this subject I have a word to say in all seriousness. Think not, gentlemen of the North, that we propose to deceive or mislead you. We of the South are earnest in what we say. This is a question which we answer to ourselves. We hold that these colored barbarians have been withdrawn from a country of native barbarism, and under the benignant influence of a Christian rule, of a Christian civilization, have been elevated, yes, _elevated_ to a standing and position which they could never have otherwise secured. In respect to the colored race we challenge comparison with San Domingo, with the freed regions of Jamaica, with those who have been transferred to the coast of Africa.

Ask the travellers who have visited those distant sh.o.r.es to contrast the condition of the colored people there with that of those on our Southern plantations, and they will give you but one answer--they will say, we have redeemed and kept well our high and our holy trust.

But this is a matter with our own consciences, not with yours. We appeal to you to leave it where it is, to leave the colored people where they are. Why should you undertake to interfere with the policy of a neighboring State concerning a people about which you know nothing? We feel, we know that we have done that race no wrong. Deep into the Southern heart has this feeling penetrated. For scores of years we have been laboring earnestly in our mission. In all this time we have contributed far more to the greatness of the North than to our own. Yet all this time we have been a.s.sailed, attacked, vilified and defamed, by the people of the North, from the cradle to the grave, and you have educated your children to believe us monsters of brutality, l.u.s.t and iniquity.

I tell you, that from the time the abolition societies aroused the latent anti-slavery spirit of the North until now, nothing but evil has come of the excitement and discussion. It has spread a horrid influence far and wide; it has for years distilled, and is now distilling its poison and venom all over the land.