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‘ [355] to the task of rescuing one's country from danger!’ Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, opened the important business of the body by moving the appointment of a committee composed of one member from each State to consider all propositions and to report on or before Friday. The committee was appointed, but unfortunately delayed its report ten days, which at last was unanimously agreed to, and was contested in the main body. The first resolution provided for the adoption of the old Missouri Compromise line, absolutely prohibiting slavery north of the line 36°30′ and leaving its existence in territories south of that line subject to judicial cognizance in Federal courts according to the course of the common law. This proposition received the votes of four Northern States, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. On the other hand, it was objected to on the first vote by three Southern States, Virginia, North Carolina, and Missouri; Virginia and North. Carolina objecting because of the clause which referred the legal status of slavery south of the line to the decisions of Federal courts, while the first clause made prohibition absolute without such reference; while Missouri disliked it because of its old hostility to the dividing line. On the second vote the section was adopted, with New England against it. Important sections of the report which related to the jurisdiction of Congress over slavery in the States and District of Columbia, and to compensate the owners of fugitive slaves where their property could not be repossessed, together with other minor sections of the series, were discussed and variously determined until finally seven sections were passed and presented to the Senate of the United States. The plan differed in several features from the Crittenden resolutions, being still more favorable, as Mr. Buchanan states, to the North, yet the distinguished senator from Kentucky promptly accepted it as a substitute for his own proposition, and eloquently urged its adoption. But the arrogance of a
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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