this
proposed amendment. It was needless, and, if adopted, would have
taken no power from Congress, which any respectable party had ever
claimed it possessed, but the amendment was tendered to answer the
false cry that slavery in the slave States was in danger from
Congressional action.

(What a contrast between this proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution and the Thirteenth Amendment adopted four years later!
The former proposed to establish slavery forever; the latter
abolished it _forever_.)

The resolutions of John J. Crittenden in the Senate proposed various
amendments to the Constitution, among others to legalize slavery
south of 36 deg. 30'; to admit States from territory north of that
line, with or without slavery; to prohibit the abolition of slavery
in the States and also in the District of Columbia so long as it
existed in Virginia or Maryland, such abolition even then to be
only with the consent of the inhabitants of the District and with
compensation to the slave owners; to require the United States to
pay for fugitive slaves who were prevented from arrest or return
to slavery by violence and intimidation, and to make all the
provisions of the Constitution, including the proposed amendments,
unchangeable forever. The Crittenden resolutions, at the end of
much debate, and after various votes on amendments proposed thereto,
failed (19 to 20) in the Senate, and therefore were never considered
in the House.(115)

It was claimed at the time that had the Congressmen from the Southern
States remained and voted for the Corwin and Crittenden propositions
the Constitution might have been amended, giving slavery all these
guarantees.

(114) Joint resolution of ratification, _Ohio Laws_, 1861, p. 190.

(115) _Hist. of Rebellion_ (McPherson), pp. 57-67.

XXVI
PEACE CONFERENCE--1861

By appointments of governors or legislatures, commissioners from
each of twenty States, chosen at the request of the Legislature of
Virginia, met in Washington, February 4, 1861, in a "_Peace
Conference_."(116) Ex-President John Tyler of Virginia was made
President, and Crafts J. Wright of Ohio Secretary.(117)

It adjourned February 27th, having agreed to recommend to the
several States amendments to the Constitution, in substance: That
north of 36 deg. 30' slavery in the Territories shall be, and south of
that line it shall not be, prohibited; that neither Congress nor
a Territorial Legislature shall pass any l