"'NAYS-Messrs. Anthony, Bingham, Chandler, Clark, Dixon,
Doolittle, Durkee, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Harlan, King,
Morrill, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Wade, Wilkinson and Wilson--20.
"'If these Seceding Southern senators had remained, there would
have passed, by a large vote (as it did without them), an
amendment, by a two-third vote, forbidding Congress ever
interfering with Slavery in the States. The Crittenden Proposition
would have been indorsed by a majority vote, the subject finally
going before the People, who have never yet, after consideration,
refused Justice, for any length of time, to any portion of the
Country.
"'I believe more, Mr. President, that these gentlemen were acting
in pursuance of a settled and fixed plan to break up and destroy
this Government.'
"When we had it in our power to vote down the amendment of the
Senator from New Hampshire, and adopt the Crittenden Resolutions,
certain Southern Senators prevented it; and yet, even at a late day
of the session, after they had Seceded, the Crittenden Proposition
was only lost by one vote. If Rebellion and bloodshed and murder
have followed, to whose skirts does the responsibility attach?
"What else was done at the very same session? The House of
Representatives passed, and sent to this body, a Proposition to
amend the Constitution of the United States, so as to prohibit
Congress from ever hereafter interfering with the Institution of
Slavery in the States, making that restriction a part of the
Organic law of the Land.
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