Mr.
Crittenden, Who Proffered His Compromise To The Senate In December,
1860, Was At That Time One Of The Two Senators From Kentucky, A
Slave State.
He now sits in the Lower House of Congress as a
member from the same State.
Kentucky is one of those border States
which has found it impossible to secede, and almost equally
impossible to remain in the Union. It is one of the States into
which it was most probable that the war would be carried - Virginia,
Kentucky, and Missouri being the three States which have suffered
the most in this way. Of Mr. Crittenden's own family, some have
gone with secession and some with the Union. His name had been
honorably connected with American politics for nearly forty years,
and it is not surprising that he should have desired a compromise.
His terms were in fact these - a return to the Missouri compromise,
under which the Union pledged itself that no slavery should exist
north of 36.30 degrees N. lat., unless where it had so existed
prior to the date of that compromise; a pledge that Congress would
not interfere with slavery in the individual States - which under
the Constitution it cannot do; and a pledge that the Fugitive Slave
Law should be carried out by the Northern States. Such a
compromise might seem to make very small demand on the forbearance
of the Republican party, which was now dominant. The repeal of the
Missouri compromise had been to them a loss, and it might be said
that its re-enactment would be a gain. But since that compromise
had been repealed, vast territories south of the line in question
had been added to the union, and the re-enactment of that
compromise would hand those vast regions over to absolute slavery,
as had been done with Texas. This might be all very well for Mr.
Crittenden in the slave State of Kentucky - for Mr. Crittenden,
although a slave owner, desired to perpetuate the Union; but it
would not have been well for New England or for the West. As for
the second proposition, it is well understood that under the
Constitution Congress cannot interfere in any way in the question
of slavery in the individual States. Congress has no more
constitutional power to abolish slavery in Maryland than she has to
introduce it into Massachusetts. No such pledge, therefore, was
necessary on either side. But such a pledge given by the North and
West would have acted as an additional tie upon them, binding them
to the finality of a constitutional enactment to which, as was of
course well known, they strongly object. There was no question of
Congress interfering with slavery, with the purport of extending
its area by special enactment, and therefore by such a pledge the
North and West could gain nothing; but the South would in prestige
have gained much.
But that third proposition as to the Fugitive Slave Law and the
faithful execution of that law by the Northern and Western States
would, if acceded to by Mr. Lincoln's party, have amounted to an
unconditional surrender of everything.
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