ruit
was a proposed amendment to the Constitution: "That no amendment shall
be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the
power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic
institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service
by the laws of said State." In the expiring hours of the Thirty-sixth
Congress this was passed by the House, and then by the Senate, and was
signed by the President. Lincoln, in his inaugural address, said of it:
"Holding such a provision to be now constitutional law, I have no
objection to its being made express and irrevocable." This view of it
was correct; it had no real significance, and the ill-written sentence
never disfigured the Constitution; it simply sank out of sight,
forgotten by every one.

Collaterally with the sitting of this House committee, a Committee of
Thirteen was appointed in the Senate. To these gentlemen also "a string
of Union-saving devices" was presented, but on the last day of the year
they reported that they had "not been able to agree upon any general
plan of adjustment."

The earnest effort of the venerable Crittenden to Affect a compromise
aroused a faint hope. But he offered little else than an extension
westward of the Missouri Compromise line; and he never really had the
slightest chance of effecting that consummation, which in fact _could
not be_ effected. His plan was finally defeated on the last evening of
the session.

Collaterally with these congressional debates there were also proceeding
in Washington the sessions of the Peace Congress, another futile effort
to concoct a cure for an incurable condition. It met on February 4,
1861, but only twenty-one States out of thirty-four were represented.
The seven States which had seceded said that they could not come, being
"Foreign Nations." Six other States[120] held aloof. Those Northern
States which sent delegates selected "their most conservative and
compromising men," and so great a tendency towards concession was shown
that Unionists soon condemned the scheme as merely a deceitful cover
devised by the Southerners behind which they could the more securely
carry on their processes of secession. These gentlemen talked a great
deal and finally presented a report or plan to Congress five days before
the end of the session; the House refused to receive it, the Senate
rejected it by 7 ayes to 28 nays. The only usefulness of the gathering
was as eviden