Senator told us
that the adoption of the Clark amendment to the Crittenden
Resolutions defeated the settlement of the questions of
controversy; and that, but for that vote, all could have been peace
and prosperity now. We were told that the Clark amendment defeated
the Crittenden Compromise, and prevented a settlement of the
controversy. On this point I will read a portion of the speech of
my worthy and talented friend from California [Mr. Latham]; and
when I speak of him thus, I do it in no unmeaning sense I intend
that he, not I, shall answer the Senator from Delaware. * * * As
I have said, the Senator from Delaware told us that the Clark
amendment was the turning point in the whole matter; that from it
had flowed Rebellion, Revolution, War, the shooting and
imprisonment of people in different States--perhaps he meant to
include my own. This was the Pandora's box that has been opened,
out of which all the evils that now afflict the Land have flown. *
* * My worthy friend from California [Mr. Latham], during the last
session of Congress, made one of the best speeches he ever made. *
* * In the course of that speech, upon this very point he made use
of these remarks:

"'Mr. President, being last winter a careful eye-witness of all
that occurred, I soon became satisfied that it was a deliberate,
wilful design, on the part of some representatives of Southern
States, to seize upon the election of Mr. Lincoln merely as an
excuse to precipitate this revolution upon the Country. One
evidence, to my mind, is the fact that South Carolina never sent
her Senators here.'

"Then they certainly were not influenced by the Clark amendment.

"'An additional evidence is, that when gentlemen on this floor, by
their votes, could have controlled legislation, they refused to
cast them for fear that the very Propositions submitted to this
body might have an influence in changing the opinions of their
constituencies. Why, Sir, when the resolutions submitted by the
Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Clark], were offered as an
amendment to the Crittenden Propositions, for the manifest purpose
of embarrassing the latter, and the vote taken on the 16th of
January, 1861, I ask, what did we see? There were fifty-five
Senators at that time upon this floor,