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‘ [346] are with the Republican party.’ （Douglas in appendix to Cong. Globe, p. 41.) The speeches and votes of these two Southern senators confirmed the statement made by the distinguished Illinois senator and justified the declaration made by Senator Pugh, of Ohio, and other Northern statesmen that ‘if the Crittenden Compromise had been passed early in the session it would have saved all the States except South Carolina.’ A dark hour befell the country on the reading in the Senate December 31, 1860, of the following report of the Committee: ‘The Committee of Thirteen appointed by the order of the Senate on the 20th inst. have agreed on the following resolution and report the same to the Senate: Resolved, That the committee have not been able to agree upon any general plan of adjustment and report that fact to the Senate together with the journal of the Committee.’ It is unnecessary to follow the action of Congress on the renewed efforts made to pass the Crittenden Compromise in any form, it being enough to record in advance that on the 16th of January, 1861, three days before the secession of Georgia, the whole question was dealt with in cruel frivolity by a strict party vote on a motion to strike out the entire preamble and resolution of Mr. Crittenden and insert as a substitute a preamble and resolutions of a directly opposite character and in accordance with the Chicago platform on which Mr. Lincoln had been elected. (Con. Globe, 409.) It was the spirit and purpose of such action as this which forced further secession and the consequent confederation of seceded States.
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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