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the 27th of December, Charles Francis Adams, a distinguished citizen of Massachusetts, whose people were the chief offenders of the Oligarchy, offered in the House Committee of Thirty-three a resolution, “That it is expedient to propose an amendment to the Constitution, to the effect that no future amendments of it in regard to Slavery shall be made unless proposed by a Slave State, and ratified by all the States.”
It was passed with only three dissenting voices in the Committee.1 It offered a broad and sufficient basis for a perfect reconciliation of feeling concerning the Slavery question, and would have been accepted as such, had not that Slavery question been the mere pretext of the conspirators, who had resolved that no terms of pacification should be agreed upon.
They were bent on revolution, and utterly discarded the counsels of Honor, Justice, and even Prudence.
The legend on their shield in political warfare was “Rule or ruin.”
2
1 This resolution was adopted by the House of Representatives by a vote of one hundred and thirty-three against sixty-five, or more than two-thirds in its favor. The Senate passed it by a vote of twenty-four against twelve.
2 In an able speech in the Senate on the 21st of February, Henry Wilson said:--“What a saddening, humiliating, and appalling spectacle does America now present to the gaze of mankind I Conspiracies in the Cabinet and in the halls of legislation; conspiracies in the Capital and in the States; conspiracies in the Army and in the Navy; conspiracies everywhere to break the unity of the Republic; to destroy the grandest fabric of free government the human understanding ever conceived, or the hand of man ever reared. States are rushing madly from their spheres in the constellation of the Union, raising the banners of revolt, defying the Federal authority, arming men, planting frowning batteries, arming fortresses, dishonoring the National flag, clutching the public property, arms, and moneys, and inaugurating the reign of disloyal factions. . . . This conspiracy against the unity of the Republic, which, in its development, startles and amazes the world by its extent and power, is not the work of a day; it is the labor of a generation.... This wicked plot for the dismemberment of the Confederacy, which has now assumed such fearful proportions, was known to some of our elder statesmen. Thomas H. Benton ever raised his warning voice against the conspirators. I can never forget the terrible energy of his denunciations of the policy and acts of the nullifiers and secessionists. During the great Lecompton struggle, in the winter of 1858, his house was the place of resort of several members of Congress, who sought his counsels, and delighted to listen to his opinions. In the last conversation I had with him, but a few days before he was prostrated by mortal disease, he declared that ‘the disunionists had prostituted the Democratic party ’ --that they ‘had complete control of the Administration;’ that ‘these conspirators would have broken up the Union, if Colonel Fremont had been elected;’ that ‘the reason he opposed Fremont's election [he was his son-in-law] was, that he knew these men intended to destroy the Government, and he did not wish it to go in pieces in the hands of a member of his family.’ I expressed some doubt of the extent and power of such a conspiracy to dismember the Union or to seize the Government; to which he replied, that ‘he knew their purposes to be a Southern Confederacy, for efforts were early made to enlist him in the wicked scheme;’ that ‘so long as the people of the North should be content to attend to commerce and manufactures, and accept the policy and rule of the disunionists, they would condescend to remain in the Union; but should the Northern people attempt to exercise their just influence in the nation, they would attempt to seize the Government, or disrupt the Union; but,’ said he, with terrible emphasis, ‘ God and their own crimes will put them in the hands of the people!’ ” How solemnly that prophecy of the great leader of the Democratic party in its days of genuine strength has been fulfilled!
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