Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65: its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to exhibit especially its moral and political phases with the drift and progress of American opinion respecting human slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. Volume I.

[384] the Territories to Free Labor. Thus: Mr. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, having submitted a series of propositions, which were, in substance, the Breckinridge platform, without waiting a vote or any decisive action thereon, made haste to telegraph to Georgia, for effect upon her approaching election, as follows:

Washington, Dec. 23, 1860.

I came here to secure your constitutional rights, and to demonstrate to you that you can get no guarantee for those rights from your Northern confederates.

The whole subject was referred to a Committee of thirteen in tie Senate. I was appointed on the Committee, and accepted the trust. I submitted propositions, which, so far from receiving a decided support from a single member of the Republican party of the Committee, were all treated with derision and contempt.

A vote was then taken in the Committee on amendments to the Constitution, proposed by Hon. J. J. Crittenden; and each and all of then were voted against, unanimously, by the Black Republican members of the Committee.

In addition to these facts, a majority of the Black Republican members of the Committee declared distinctly that they had no guarantees to offer; which was silently acquiesced in by the other members.

The Black Republican members of the Committee are representative men of the party and section, and, to the extent of my information, truly represent them.

The Committee of thirty-three on Friday adjourned for a week, without coming to any vote, after solemnly pledging themselves to vote on all the propositions then before them, that day. It is controlled by the Black Republicans, your enemies, who only seek to amuse you with delusive hopes until your election, that you may defeat the friends of Secession.

If you are deceived by them, it shall not be my fault. I have put the test fairly and frankly. It is decisive against you now. I tell you, upon the faith of a true man, that all further looking to the North for security for your constitutional rights, ought to be instantly abandoned.

It is fraught with nothing but ruin to yourselves and to your posterity. Secession, by the 4th day of March next, should be thundered from the ballot-box by the unanimous voice of Georgia, on the 2d day of January next. Such a voice will be your best guarantee for liberty, tranquillity, and glory.

R. Toombs.

Though it is neither essential nor practicable here to record all the abortive projects of “ conciliation” submitted to Congress at this fruitlessly fruitful session, that presented by Mr. C. L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, deserves notice, as the fullest and most logical embodiment yet made of Mr. Calhoun's subtle device for enabling a minority to obstruct and baffle the majority under a political system preserving the forms of a republic.

Mr. V., after a preamble, setting forth “the tendency of stronger governments to enlarge their powers and jurisdiction at the expense of weaker,” “and of majorities to usurp and abuse power, and oppress minorities ;” also affirming that “sectional divisions can no longer be suppressed,” etc., etc., proposed¹ that Congress should recommend to the States a radical change of the Federal Constitution, by adding thereto as follows:

article XIII: Sec. 1. The United States are divided into four sections, as follows:

The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania ; and all new States annexed and admitted into the Union or formed or erected within the jurisdiction of said States, or by the junction of two or more of the same or of parts thereof, or out of territory acquired north of said States, shall constitute one section, to be known as the North.

The States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Kansas, and all new States annexed or admitted into the Union, or erected within the jurisdiction of any of said States, or by the junction of two or more of the same, or of parts thereof, or out of territory now held or hereafter acquired north of latitude 36° 30′ and east of the crest of the Rocky Mountains, shall constitute another section, to be known as the West.

The States of Oregon and California, and