Kentucky, his propositions
would have had short consideration. They were of a character not
to be entertained by a free people. They dealt wholly in the
finding of new guaranties for slavery, without attempting to intimate
the possible necessity of new guaranties for freedom. Perhaps the
most vicious feature in this whole series of proposed amendments
to the Constitution was the guaranty of slavery against the power
of Congress in all territory of the United States south of 36 deg. 30'.
This offered a premium upon the acquisition of territory, and was
an encouragement to schemes of aggression against friendly powers
south of the United States, which would always have had the sympathy
and support of one-half the Union, and could hardly have been
resisted by any moral power of the General Government. It would
have opened anew the old struggle for equality between free States
and slave States, and would in all probability have led the country
to war within three years from its adoption,--war with Mexico for
the border States of that Republic, war with Spain for the acquisition
of Cuba. This would have followed as matter of policy with Southern
leaders, whether they intended to abide in the Union, or whether
they intended, at some more advantageous and opportune moment, to
secede from it. If they concluded to remain, their political power
in the National Government would have been greatly increased from
the acquisition of new States. If they desired to secede, they
would have acquired a much more formidable strength and vastly
larger area by the addition of Southern territory to which the
Crittenden propositions would not only have invited but driven them.

While these propositions were under discussion, Mr. Clark of New
Hampshire offered as a substitute the resolution with which Messrs.
Washburn and Tappan had closed their report in the House,--a
resolution of which Mr. Clark was the author, and which he had
previously submitted to the consideration of the Senate. The test
question in the Senate was whether Mr. Clark's resolution should
be substituted for the Crittenden proposition, and this was carried
by a vote of 25 to 23. The twenty-five were all Republicans; the
twenty-three were all Democrats, except Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky
and Mr. Kennedy of Maryland, who had been supporters of Mr. Bell
in the Presidential election. It is a fact worthy of note that
six senators from the extreme Southern States sat in t