Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

“ [220] thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.” ¹--“I most cheerfully accord to the Senator from Kentucky purity of motive and patriotic intentions and purposes,” said Henry. Wilson, one of the most active and vigilant men in the Senate. “While I believe every pulsation of his heart throbs for the unity and perpetuity of this Republic; while I cherish for him sentiments of sincere respect and regard, I am constrained to say here, and now, that his policy has been most fatal to the repose of the country, if not to the integrity of the Union and the authority of the Government. Whether his task be self-imposed, or whether it be imposed upon him by others, he has stood forth, day by day, not to sustain the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the laws; not to rebuke seditious words and treasonable acts; but to demand the incorporating into the organic law of the nation of irrepealable, degrading, and humiliating concessions to the dark spirit of slavery.” ²

It was plainly perceived that Jefferson Davis, one of the most cold, crafty, malignant, and thoroughly unscrupulous of the conspirators, had embodied the spirit of Crittenden's most vital propositions in a more compact and perspicuous form, in a resolution offered in the Senate on the 24th of December,

1860.

saying, “That it shag be declared, by amendment of the Constitution, that property in slaves, recognized as such by the local law of any of the States of the Union, shall stand on the same footing, in all constitutional and Federal relations, as any other species of property so recognized; and, like other property, shall not be subject to be divested or impaired by the local law of any other State, either in escape thereto or by the transit or sojourn of the owner therein. And in no case whatever shall such property be subject to be divested or impaired by any legislative act of the United States, or any of the territories thereof.” ³ In other words, the Constitution was to be made to recognize property in man, and slavery as a national institution. Speaking for the Oligarchy, Senator Wigfall, in a speech on the Crittenden Compromise, exclaimed:--“We say that man has a right to property in man. We say that our slaves are our property. We say that it is the duty of every government to protect its property everywhere .... If you wish to settle this matter, declare that slaves are property, and, like all other property, entitled to be protected in every quarter of the globe, on land and on sea. Say that to us, and then the difficulty is settled.” Because the majority of the people of the United States would not consent to abase their Constitution, and make it subservient to the cause of injustice and inhumanity, the Oligarchy rebelled and kindled a horrible civil war!

We have observed that a Committee of Thirteen was chosen by the Senate, and another of Thirty-three by the House of Representatives, to receive, consider, and report upon plans for pacification.⁴ These committees labored sedulously, but at every step they were met by evidence that the conspirators would not be satisfied with any thing that might be offered. These men were holding their seats in Congress, and committing perjury every hour, for no other purpose than to further their plans for the destruction of the Republic; and when they could be no longer useful there, they