, at the end
of the first Section, the words:

"No Slave shall be Emancipated by this Article unless the owner thereof
shall be first paid the value of the Slave or Slaves so Emancipated."

This likewise was rejected, on a yea and nay vote, by 2 yeas (Davis and
Powell) to 34 nays; when Mr. Davis moved another amendment, viz.: to add
at the end of Section 2 of the proposed Article, the following:

"And when this Amendment of the Constitution shall have taken effect by
Freeing the Slaves, Congress shall provide for the distribution and
settlement of all the population of African descent in the United States
among the several States and Territories thereof, in proportion to the
White population of each State and Territory to the aggregate population
of those of African descent."

This met a like fate; whereupon the Senate adjourned, but, on the
following day, the matter came up again for consideration:

Hale, of New Hampshire, jubilantly declared that "this is a day that I
and many others have long wished for, long hoped for, long striven for.
* * * A day when the Nation is to commence its real life; or, if it is
not the day, it is the dawning of the day; the day is near at hand * * *
when the American People are to wake up to the meaning of the sublime
truths which their fathers uttered years ago, and which have slumbered,
dead-letters, upon the pages of our Constitution, of our Declaration of
Independence, and of our history."

McDougall, of California, on the other hand,--utterly regardless of the
grandly patriotic resolutions of the Legislature of his State, which had
just been presented to the Senate by his colleague--lugubriously
declared:

"In my judgment, it may well be said of us:

'Let the Heavens be hung in black
And let the Earth put mourning on,'

for in the history of no Free People, since the time the Persians came
down upon Athens, have I known as melancholy a period as this day and
year of Our Lord in our history; and if we can, by the blessing of God
and by His favor, rise above it, it will be by His special providence,
and by no act of ours."

The obstructive tactics were now resumed, Mr. Powell leading off by a
motion to amend, by adding to the Judiciary Committee's proposed
Thirteenth Article of the Constitution, the following:

"ART. 14.--The President and Vice-President shall hold their Offices for
the term of four--[Which he subsequently modified to: 'six