great dignity--a "fossil convention," the _Tribune_
called it--whose proceedings, because of the desire in the public mind
to avoid civil war, attracted wide attention. David Dudley Field
represented New York on the committee on resolutions, which proposed
an amendment of seven sections to the Constitution. On February 26,
these were taken up in their order for passage. The first section
provided for the restoration of the Missouri Compromise line under the
then existing conditions, provided that whenever a new State was
formed north or south of that line it should be admitted with or
without slavery, as its constitution might declare. This was the
important concession; but, though it was less favourable to the South
than the Crittenden compromise, it failed to satisfy the radical
Republicans, who had from the first opposed the convention.
Accordingly, the vote, taken by States, stood eight to eleven against
it, New York being included among the noes. The next morning,
however, after agreeing to a reconsideration of the question, the
convention passed the section by a vote of nine to eight, New York,
divided by the absence of David Dudley Field, being without a voice in
its determination. Field never fully recovered from this apparent
breach of trust.[654] In committee, he had earnestly opposed the
proposed amendment, talking almost incessantly for three weeks, but,
at the supreme moment, when the report came up for passage, he
withdrew from the convention, without explanation, thus depriving his
State of a vote upon all the sections save one, because of an evenly
divided delegation.

[Footnote 654: See New York _Tribune_, March 23, 1861, for Field's
statement in defence of his action. Also _Tribune_, March 7, for John
A. King's charges.]

The convention, however, was doomed to failure before Field left it.
Very early in its life the eloquent New Yorker, assisting to rob it of
any power for good, declared his opposition to any amendment to the
Constitution. "The Union," he said, "is indissoluble, and no State can
secede. I will lay down my life for it.... We must have the
arbitration of reason, or the arbitrament of the sword." Amaziah B.
James, another New Yorker, possessed the same plainness of speech.
"The North will not enter upon war until the South forces it to do
so," he said, mildly. "But when you begin it, the government will
carry it on until the Union is restored and its enemies put
down."[655] If any str