THE HOUSE COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE
[Sidenote] Compare Boteler's statement of origin of his resolution,
"Globe," Jan. 10, 1861, p. 316.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 6.
While this discussion was going on in the Senate, very similar
proceedings were taking place in the House of Representatives, except
that declarations of revolutionary purpose were generally of a more
practical and decisive character. The President's message had no sooner
been received and read, and the usual formal motion made to refer and
print, than the friends of compromise, representing here, as in the
Senate, the substantial sentiment of the border slave-States, made a
sincere effort to take control and bring about the peaceable
arrangement and adjustment of what they assumed to be the extreme
differences between the South and the North. Mr. Boteler, of Virginia,
seizing the momentary leadership, moved to amend by referring so much
of the message "as relates to the present perilous condition of the
country" to a special committee of one from each State. The Union being
at that time composed of thirty-three States, this committee became
known as the Committee of Thirty-three. Several other amendments were
offered but objected to, and the previous question having been ordered,
the amendment was agreed to and the committee raised by a vote of 145
yeas to 38 nays; the negative vote coming, in the main, from the more
pronounced anti-slavery men.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 4, 1860, p. 7.
[Sidenote] Ibid.
[Sidenote] Ibid.
[Sidenote] Ibid.
[Sidenote] Ibid.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 4, 1860. p. 7.
[Illustration: JUSTIN S. MURPHY.]
Though this was the first roll-call of the session, the disunion
conspirators, one after another, made haste to declare the treasonable
attitude of their States. Pending the vote, Mr. Singleton declined
recording his name for the reason that Mississippi had called a
convention to consider this subject. He was not sent here for the
purpose of making any compromise or to patch up existing difficulties.
Mr. Jones, of Georgia, said he did not vote on this question because
his State, like Mississippi, had called a convention to decide all
these questions of Federal relations. Mr. Hawkins, of Florida, said his
people had resolved to determine, in convention in their sovereign
capacity, the time, place, and manner of redress. It was not for him to
take any action on the subject. His State was opposed to all and every
compromise. The day of compromise was past. Mr. Clopton, of Alabama,
declined voting because the State of Alabama is proceeding to consider
in a convention what action is required to maintain her rights, honor,
and safety. Believing that a State has the right to secede, and that
the only remedy for present evils is secession, he would not hold out
any delusive hope or sanction any temporizing policy. Mr. Miles, of
South Carolina, said "the South Carolina delegation have not voted on
this question because they conceive they have no interest in it. We
consider our State as already withdrawn from the confederacy in
everything except form." Mr. Pugh, of Alabama, said: "As my State of
Alabama intends following South Carolina out of the Union by the 10th
of January next, I pay no attention to any action taken in this body."
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 36, 37.
These proceedings occurred on the second day of the session, December
4; two days later the Speaker announced the committee, placing at the
head, as chairman, Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, and appointing such members
from the different States as to make it of marked influence and
ability; the disunion faction being distinctly recognized by several
extreme representatives. The names were announced on Thursday, December
6;[1] and at the close of the day's session the House adjourned to the
following Monday, the 10th, on which day the general discussion was
fairly launched on the request of Mr. Hawkins, of Florida, to be
excused from serving on the committee. He said he had asked the
opinions of many Southern Members, and, with one or two exceptions,
they most cordially agreed with the course he had taken. To serve on
the committee would place him in a false position. Florida had taken
the initiative; her Legislature had ordered an election to choose
members to a convention to be convened on the 3d day of January, 1861.
The committee was a Trojan horse to gain time and demoralize the South;
he regretted that it emanated from a Virginia Representative. He would
tell the North that Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South
Carolina were certain to secede from the Union within a short period.
Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were certain to follow within the
ensuing six months.
Three Democratic Representatives responded to this outburst, the
Republican members of the House, as in the Senate, remaining discreetly
silent. These Democratic speakers alleged an unfair composition of the
committee, and joined in denouncing the Republican party. But upon the
vital and practical question of disunion their utterances were widely
divergent. As the name of each of them will assume a degree of
historical prominence in the further development of the rebellion,
short quotations from their remarks made at that early period will be
read with interest. Daniel E. Sickles, of New York, said:
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, pp. 40, 41.
The city of New York will cling to the Union to the last; while
she will look upon the last hour of its existence as we would upon
the setting sun if we were never to see it more, yet when the call
for force comes--let it come when it may--no man will ever pass
the boundaries of the city of New York for the purpose of waging
war against any State of this Union which, through its constituted
authorities and sustained by the voice of its people, solemnly
declares its rights, its interests, and its honor demand that it
should seek safety in a separate existence.... The city of New
York is now a subjugated dependency of a fanatical and puritanical
State government that never thinks of the city except to send its
tax-gatherers among us or to impose upon us hateful officials,
alien to our interests and sympathies, to eat up the substance of
the people by their legalized extortions.... Nothing has prevented
the city of New York from asserting her right to govern herself,
except that provision of the Federal Constitution which prohibits
a State from being divided without its own consent.... When that
restraint shall no longer exist, when the obligation of those
constitutional provisions, which forbid the division of a State
without its own consent, shall be suspended, then I tell you that
imperial city will throw off the odious government to which she
now yields a reluctant allegiance; she will repel the hateful
cabal at Albany, which has so long abused its power over her, and
with her own flag sustained by the courage and devotion of her own
gallant sons, she will, as a free city, open wide her gates to the
civilization and commerce of the world.
Doubtless the secessionists drew hopeful auguries and fresh inspiration
from this and other visionary talk frequent amid the unsteady political
thought of that day. But, if so, it would have been wiser to ponder
deeply the significance of the following utterances coming from a
different quarter, and representing a more persistent influence, a more
extended geographical area, and a greater numerical force. Clement L.
Vallandigham, of Ohio, said:
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 38.
I speak now as a Western man; and I thank the gentleman from
Florida heartily for the kindly sentiments towards that great West
to which he has given utterance. Most cordially I reciprocate
them, one and all. Sir, we of the North-west have a deeper
interest in the preservation of this Government in its present
form than any other section of the Union. Hemmed in, isolated, cut
off from the seaboard upon every side; a thousand miles and more
from the mouth of the Mississippi, the free navigation of which
under the law of nations we demand and will have at every cost;
with nothing else but our other great inland seas, the lakes, and
their outlet, too, through a foreign country--what is to be our
destiny? Sir, we have fifteen hundred miles of Southern frontier,
and but a little narrow strip of eighty miles, or less, from
Virginia to Lake Erie bounding us upon the East. Ohio is the
isthmus that connects the South with the British possessions, and
the East with the West. The Rocky Mountains separate us from the
Pacific. Where is to be our outlet! What are we to do when you
shall have broken up and destroyed this government? We are seven
States now, with fourteen Senators and fifty-one Representatives,
and a population of nine millions. We have an empire equal in area
to the third of all Europe, and we do not mean to be a dependency
or province either of the East or of the South; nor yet an
inferior or secondary power upon this continent; and if we cannot
secure a maritime boundary upon other terms, we will cleave our
way to the seacoast with the sword. A nation of warriors we may
be; a tribe of shepherds never.
No less outspoken were the similar declarations of John A. McClernand,
of Illinois, who said the question of secession disclosed to his vision
a boundless sea of horrors.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, p. 39.
Peaceable secession, in my judgment, is a fatal, a deadly
illusion.... If I am asked, Why so? I retort the question. How can
it be otherwise? How are questions of public debt, public archives,
public lands, and other public property, and, above all, the
questions of boundary to be settled? Will it be replied that, while
we are mutually unwilling now to yield anything, we will be
mutually willing, after awhile, to concede everything? That, while
we mutually refuse to concede anything now for the sake of national
unity, we will be mutually ready to concede everything by and by
for the sake of national duality? Who believes this? What, too,
would be the fate of the youthful but giant Northwest in the event
of a separation of the slave-holding from the non-slave-holding
States? Cut off from the main Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico on
one hand, or from the eastern Atlantic ports on the other, she
would gradually sink into a pastoral state, and to a standard of
national inferiority. This the hardy and adventurous millions of
the North-west would be unwilling to consent to. This they would
not do. Rather would they, to the last man, perish upon the
battlefield. No power on earth could restrain them from freely and
unconditionally communicating with the Gulf and the great mart of
New York.
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 10, 1860, p. 59.
No further noteworthy discussion occurred for a time, except the
declaration of Mr. Cobb, of Alabama, that if anything were done to save
his State it must be done immediately. The election for delegates to
the convention would take place on the 24th of that month, and the
convention would meet on the 7th of the next month. His State would not
remain in this Confederacy longer than the 15th of January unless
something were done.
[Sidenote] Ibid.
The House refused to excuse the several objecting members from serving
on the committee; and the temper in which they proceeded to the
discharge of their duty is perhaps best illustrated by the remarks of
Representative Reuben Davis, of Mississippi. He said he could "but
regard this committee as a tub thrown out to the whale, to amuse only,
until the 4th of March next, and thus arrest the present noble and
manly movements of the Southern States to provide by that day for their
security and safety out of the Union. With these views I take my place
on the committee for the purpose of preventing it being made a means of
deception by which the public mind is to be misled and misguided; yet
intending honestly and patriotically to entertain any fair proposition
for adjustment of pending evils which the Republican members may
submit."
On Wednesday, December 12, the morning hour was by agreement set apart
for receiving all bills and resolutions to be submitted to the
Committee of Thirty-three. They were duly read and referred, without
debate, to the number of twenty-three.[2] They came principally from
Northern members, though all four parties of the late Presidential
campaign were represented, the attitude of which they mainly reflected.
In substance, therefore, they embodied the same medley of affirmations
and denials, of charges and countercharges, of evasions and subterfuges
which party discussion had worn threadbare.
These twenty-three propositions, which were by subsequent additions
increased to forty or fifty, exhibit such a variety of legislative
plans that it is impossible to subject them to any classification. They
give us an abstract of the divergent views which Members of Congress
entertained concerning the cause of the crisis and its remedy. They
range in purport from a mere assertion of the duty of preserving and
administering the government as then existing, in its simple form and
symmetrical structure, to proposals to destroy and change it to a
complex machine, fantastic in proportion and impracticable in its
workings. They afford us evidence of the bewilderment which beset
Congress as well as the outside public, and not so much the absence of
reasonable political principles as the absence of a simple and direct
political will, which would resolutely insist that recognized
principles and existing laws should be respected and obeyed.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 12, 1860, p. 77.
[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 78.
Among the propositions submitted then and afterwards were several wild
and visionary projects of government. Thus Mr. Jenkins, a Virginia
member, proposed an arrangement requiring separate sanction of the
slave-holding interest to each and every operation of government; a
dual executive; a dual senate, or dual majority of the senate, or other
advisory body or council. Mr. Noell, of Missouri, proposed to abolish
the office of President, create an executive council of three members,
from districts of contiguous States, give each member the veto power,
and establish equilibrium between the free and the slave-States in the
Senate by voluntary division of some of the slave-States.
[Sidenote] Ibid., Dec. 13, 1860, pp. 82, 83.
Stronger minds were not entirely free from the infection of this mania
for innovation and experiment. On the 13th of December, 1860, Andrew
Johnson, of Tennessee, afterwards President of the United States,
submitted to the Senate a proposal to amend the Constitution in
substance as follows: That the Presidential election should take place
in August; that a popular plurality in each district should count as
one vote; that Congress should count the votes on the second Monday of
October; that the President chosen in 1864 be from a slave-holding
State, and the Vice-President from a free-State; and in 1868 the
President be from a free-State and the Vice-President from a slave
State, and so alternating every four years. Senators to be elected by
vote of the people. Federal judges to be divided so that one-third of
the number would be chosen every fourth year; the term of office to be
twelve years; also all vacancies to be filled, half from free and half
from slave States, the Territories to be divided, establishing slavery
south and prohibiting it north of a fixed line, and providing that
three-fifths representation and inter-State slave trade shall not be
changed.
[Sidenote] "Globe," Feb. 7, 1861, pp. 794, 795.
Perhaps the most complicated project of government was that gravely
suggested in the House on the 7th of February, 1861, by Clement L.
Vallandigham, of Ohio, who, not content with the clogs of a dual form,
proposed the following absurd quadruple machinery: The Union to be
divided into four sections: North, West, Pacific, and South. On demand
of one-third of the Senators from any section, for any action to which
the concurrence of the House of Representatives may be necessary,--except
on adjournment,--a vote shall be by sections, and a majority of
Senators from each section shall be necessary to the validity of such
action. A majority of all the electors in each of the four sections to
be necessary to choice of President and Vice-President; they should
hold the office six years; not to be eligible to reëlection except by
vote of two-thirds of the electors of each section; or of the States of
each section whenever the choice devolved upon the Legislature;
Congress to provide for the election of President and Vice-President
when electors failed. No State might secede without consent of the
Legislatures of all States of that section, the President to have power
to adjust differences with seceding States, the terms of agreement to
be submitted to Congress; neither Congress nor Territorial Legislatures
should have power to interfere with citizens immigrating--on equal
terms--to the Territories, nor to interfere with the rights of person
or property in the Territories. New States to be admitted on an equal
footing with old ones.
The adoption of any or all of the legislative nostrums which were
severally suggested, presupposed a willingness on the part of the South
to carry them out and be governed thereby. The authors of these
projects lost sight of the vital difficulty, that if the South refused
obedience to laws in the past she would equally refuse obedience to any
in the future when they became unpalatable. It was not temporary
satisfaction, but perpetual domination which she demanded. She did not
need an amendment of the fugitive-slave act, or a repeal of personal
liberty bills, but a change in the public sentiment of the free-States.
Give her the simple affirmation that slaves are property, to be
recognized and protected like other property, embody the proposition in
the Constitution, and secure its popular acceptance, and she would snap
her fingers at an enumeration of other details. Fugitive-slave laws,
inter-State slave trade, a Congressional slave code, right of transit
and sojourn in the free States, compensation for runaways, new slave
States, and a majority in the United States Senate would follow, as
inevitably as that the well planted acorn expands by the forces of
nature into roots, trunk, limbs, twigs, and foliage. This was what
Jefferson Davis formulated in discussing his Senate resolutions of
February, 1860,[3] and the doctrine for which Yancey rent the
Charleston Convention in twain. This is what Jefferson Davis would
again demand of the Senate Committee of Thirteen; and, knowing the
North would never concede it, he would, even prior to the demand, join
in instigating and proclaiming secession.
----------
[1] The following were members of the Committee of Thirty-three:
Messrs. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio; John S. Millson, of Virginia; Charles
F. Adams, of Massachusetts; Warren Winslow, of North Carolina; James
Humphrey, of New York; William W. Boyce, of South Carolina; James H.
Campbell, of Pennsylvania; Peter E. Love, of Georgia; Orris S. Ferry,
of Connecticut; Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland; Christopher Robinson,
of Rhode Island; William G. Whiteley, of Delaware; Mason W. Tappan, of
New Hampshire; John L.N. Stratton, of New Jersey; Francis M. Bristow,
of Kentucky; Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont; Thomas A.R. Nelson, of
Tennessee; William McKee Dunn, of Indiana; Miles Taylor, of Louisiana;
Reuben Davis, of Mississippi; William Kellogg, of Illinois; George S.
Houston, of Alabama; Freeman H. Morse, of Maine; John S. Phelps, of
Missouri; Albert Rust, of Arkansas; William A. Howard, of Michigan;
George S. Hawkins, of Florida; Andrew J. Hamilton, of Texas; Cadwalader
C. Washburn, of Wisconsin; Samuel E. Curtis, of Iowa; John C. Burch, of
California; William Windom, of Minnesota; and Lansing Stout, of
Oregon.--"Globe," December 6, 1860, page 22.
[2] Below are brief extracts of the salient points of twenty-one of
them; the other two, are given in the text:
1. By Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts: No further acquisition of
territory. No Congressional legislation about slavery. Presidential
electors to be chosen by districts.
2. By John Cochrane, of New York: Divide the Territories on the line of
36º 30', prohibiting slavery north and permitting it south. No
prohibition of inter-State slave trade. Unrestricted right of transit
and sojourn with slaves in free States. Personal liberty laws to be
null and void.
3. By Garnett B. Adrain, of New Jersey: Non-intervention by Congress.
Repeal of personal liberty laws. Fraternity, conciliation, and
compromise.
4. By Edward Joy Morris, of Pennsylvania: To investigate personal
liberty laws, and suggest amendments to fugitive-slave law.
5. By James A. Stewart, of Maryland: Investigation to secure
constitutional rights of States in the Union. If this be impracticable,
to investigate best mode of separation.
6. By Shelton F. Leake, of Virginia: No constitutional power to abolish
slavery or slave-trade in the States, Territories, or District of
Columbia. Protection to slavery in Territories, and in transit through
or sojourn in free-States. Fugitive slaves lost through State
legislation, or by act of State authorities, to be paid for.
7. By William Smith, of Virginia: Declare out of the Union every State
which shall by her legislation aim to nullify an act of Congress.
8. By Samuel S. Cox, of Ohio: Punishment of executives, judges,
attorney-general, or other officers who obstruct the execution of the
fugitive-slave law.
9. By John Hutchins, of Ohio: Laws against kidnaping, lynching, or
unreasonable search or seizure.
10. By John Sherman, of Ohio: Laws to enforce all obligations imposed
by the Constitution. Division of all Territory into States, and their
prompt admission into the Union.
11. By John A. Bingham, of Ohio: Laws to suppress rebellion, to protect
United States property against unlawful seizure and citizens against
unlawful violence.
12. By Robert Mallory, of Kentucky: Prohibit slavery north and protect
it south of the line of 30º 36'. Admit States with or without slavery.
No prohibition or abolition of the inter-State slave trade or slavery
in the District of Columbia, or in arsenals, dockyards, etc., of the
United States.
13. By John W. Stevenson, of Kentucky: Declare resistance to
fugitive-slave law, or rescue of slaves from custody of officers,
felony.
14. By William H. English, of Indiana: Divide Territories. Congress
shall not impair right of property in slaves. Double compensation from
cities, counties, or townships for slaves rescued by mob violence or
State legislation.
15. By David Kilgore, of Indiana: Trial by jury and writ of error under
fugitive-slave law. Criminal prosecution against forcible hindrance or
rescue of fugitives. Payment by the United States for fugitives rescued
by force.
16. By William S. Holman, of Indiana: The Constitution is a compact of
mutual and permanent obligation. No right of secession. Laws should be
enforced in good faith and with temperate firmness. Ample legal
provision against any attempt to nullify the laws.
17. By William E. Niblack, of Indiana: Payment by offending cities,
counties, or districts for fugitive slaves rescued.
18. By John A. McClernand, of Illinois: Indemnity for fugitive slaves
rescued. A special Federal police to execute United States laws, and
suppress unlawful resistance thereof.
19. By Thomas C. Hindman, of Arkansas: Right of property in slaves in
slave-States. No interdiction of inter-State slave trade. Protection of
slavery in all Territories. Admission of States with or without
slavery. Right to hold slaves in transit through free-States. Deprive
States enacting personal liberty laws of representation in Congress.
Give slave-holding States an absolute negative upon all action of
Congress relating to slavery. States to appoint the officers exercising
Federal functions within their limits. Make these provisions, together
with three-fifths representation, unrepealable.
20. By Charles H. Larrabee, of Wisconsin: A convention to amend
Constitution.
21. By Thomas L. Anderson, of Missouri: Submit to the Supreme Court of
the United States the questions at issue between the slave-holding and
non-slave-holding States. Carry into effect by law the opinion of said
Court as a final settlement. (Submitted Dec. 13.)--"Globe," Dec. 12 and
13, 1860, pp. 76-79, and 96.
[3] "We want nothing more than a simple declaration that negro slaves
are property, and we want the recognition of the obligation of the
Federal Government to protect that property like all other." Senate
Speech, "Globe," May 17, 1860, p. 2155.