Hopes were
still cherished that the Northern leaders would appreciate the impending
peril, would cease to treat the warnings, so often given, as idle
threats, would refrain from the bravado, so often and so unwisely
indulged, of ability "to whip the South" in thirty, sixty, or ninety
days, and would address themselves to the more manly purpose of devising
means to allay the indignation, and quiet the apprehensions, whether
well, founded or not, of their Southern brethren. But the debates of
that session manifest, on the contrary, the arrogance of a triumphant
party, and the determination to reap to the uttermost the full harvest
of a party victory.
Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, the oldest and one of the most honored
members of the Senate,[20] introduced into that body a joint resolution
proposing certain amendments to the Constitution--among them the
restoration and incorporation into the Constitution of the geographical
line of the Missouri Compromise, with other provisions, which it was
hoped might be accepted as the basis for an adjustment of the
difficulties rapidly hurrying the Union to disruption. But the earnest
appeals of that venerable statesman were unheeded by Senators of the
so-called Republican party. Action upon his proposition was postponed
from time to time, on one pretext or another, until the last day of the
session--when seven States had already withdrawn from the Union and
established a confederation of their own--and it was then defeated by a
majority of one vote.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125