but such as it is, the decision is binding upon this Conference and the people.

Mr. JOHNSON here read a portion of the opinion of Judge TANEY delivered in the Dred Scott case, and continued:

You perceive that Judge TANEY turns the question upon the construction of the word "the." Had the word "any" been used in its place, he must have held that the provision applied to future, as well as the then existing territory.

Knowing that it was the purpose of the majority of the committee to exclude future territory from the operation of this proposition, and that it was due to the committee and the Convention that their purposes should be carried out, I offer my amendment as applicable to the sixth line of the proposition as well as the first.

In discussing the merits of this report, in its application to the existing condition of the country, I have to say a word to my Southern friends. You have sought to extend this provision to territory which shall be hereafter acquired. You have had a decisive vote and have been beaten in this Conference. The fight has been a fair one; the question has been thoroughly understood. We ought to acquiesce in the decision of the majority. We cannot change this decision if we would; and if we could change it, the proposition amended as you would prefer to have it, would never pass Congress. The repeated action of that body, during its present session, shows this conclusively. Accepting this decision then, as definitive, can we not settle the question with reference to existing territory? Shall we settle it? Settle it fairly-recognizing and acknowledging the rights of all, and remain brethren forever with the Free States! From my very heart, I say yes. (Applause.) The proposition as it now stands. covers all the territory we have. The whole ground, the whole trouble, which has brought this country into its present lamentable condition-has arisen over this question. I believe if it had been disposed of or settled in some way before, many States would have been kept in the Union that have now gone out. And why should we not settle it?

We have now a territory extensive enough to sustain two hundred millions of people-embracing almost every climate, fruitful in almost every species of production-rich in all the elements of

national wealth, and governed by a Constitution that has raised us to an elevation of grandeur that the world has never before witnessed. That we should separate to the destruction of such a Government, on account of territory we have not got, and territory that we do not want, is not, I believe, the patriotic sense of the South.

But this proposition does not stand by itself alone. It is connected, and must be construed, with the provision relating to the acquisition of future territory. The second section of the committee's proposition provides that territory shall not be acquired by the United States, unless by treaty, nor, with unimportant exceptions, unless such treaty shall be ratified by four-fifths of all the members of the Senate. Is not that guaranty enough for us ? Should we not act unreasonably if we required further guaranty in this respect? For myself, I should have preferred that the consent of two-thirds of the Senate only should be required, and that that two-thirds should comprise a majority both from the free and slave States.

Mr. RUFFIN:-At the proper time I shall move such an amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON:-If such an amendment is proposed I shall vote for it. I know there will be objections raised to it, but they will be far outweighed by the advantages it will give to the South.

But the objection of Mr. BALDWIN is opposed here, and it is one which must be answered. He says this is the wrong way to propose amendments to the Constitution-that our action is inconsistent with that instrument. He does not claim that it is prohibited by the letter, but by the spirit of the Constitution. Where does he get the spirit but from the letter? There are two methods of proposing amendments to the Constitution provided by that instrument. Let us see what they are.

Mr. JOHNSON here read the article of the Constitution providing for amendments, and continued:

One is where two-thirds of Congress deem it advisable to propose amendments; the other is where the States themselves propose them. My learned brother would have us believe that the members of Congress, acting under their official oaths, must each be satisfied that each amendment proposed is proper to be incorporated in the instrument, before they should propose them; and he maintains that there is a difference, in fact, in the two meth

ods prescribed. What right has this body, if there is any force in this objection, to submit his proposition to the States? If what we propose is revolutionary, then what he proposes is revolutionary. I reply to him, with all respect for his legal ability, and with all the humility which becomes me, and insist that he is wrong. He refers to the opinion of Judge COLLAMER. I hold Judge COLLAMER in much respect, and his opinion in great honor here, but his statements are at war with the objections made by the gentleman from Connecticut. Judge COLLAMER maintains that it is the duty of Congress to propose amendments, not to recommend them. It would be entirely proper, according to his opinion, for Congress to propose amendments which they would not adopt themselves. I go somewhat farther, and insist that it is the duty of Congress to propose amendments whenever desired by any State or any considerable section of the Union. If we have no right to suggest a line of action to Congress, no right to petition Congress, no right to ask Congress to propose amendments, as the gentleman insists, we had better go home, or rather, I should say, we should never have come here.

There are twenty States represented in this Conference. I have no doubt other States would have been here, but for the shortness of the time. But how and why are we here? We have come here on the invitation of Virginia; her resolutions are our constitution. We have come here at her instance. For what purpose did she ask us to come here? under what circumstances did she pass these resolutions? Virginia saw that the country was going to ruin-that one State had already seceded, and several others were about to follow. She saw there were circumstances affecting the condition of the South which aroused her to frenzy-not madness, but the frenzy which falls on every patriotic mind when it witnesses a country going to destruction. She saw the country was going to ruin with rapid steps, and that its ruin must be accomplished unless her friends in the free States would come forward, and consent to put into the Constitution additional guarantees which would satisfy the people of the slave States that their rights were secure. See what she did-what she said. She expresses it as her deliberate opinion," that unless the unhappy controversy which now divides the States of this Confederacy shall be satisfactorily adjusted, a permanent dissolu

tion of the Union is inevitable; and the General Assembly, representing the wishes of the people of the Commonwealth, is desirous of employing every reasonable means to avert so dire a calamity, and determined to make a final effort to restore the Union and the Constitution, in the spirit in which they were established by the fathers of the Republic."

Therefore she invites all States, whether slaveholding or nonslaveholding, who were willing to unite with her in an earnest effort to adjust the unhappy controversies in the spirit of the Constitution, to come together to secure that adjustment. She asks us to agree to some suitable adjustment. She does not leave us to suggest what that adjustment shall be. She tells us herself. She requests us to adopt it, and to submit it to Congress. She does not ask that Congress should call a convention, for Congress could not. Try, if we can, says Virginia, to come to some settlement of these unhappy controversies, and send that settlement to Congress, that Congress may submit it to the country.

Virginia invited you here. She told you just what she wanted. She says if you cannot consent to that, then let her commissioners come home and report the result. If this cannot be done, if the mode of adjustment indicated by her cannot be substantially carried out, then our whole authority is at an end.

This matter of amending the Constitution is not as intricate and difficult a work as gentlemen imagine. Are there not twelve amendments to the Constitution already? Were they submitted to the people by each member of Congress acting under his official oath? Or were they submitted in the very way the gentleman would avoid? Were they not brought into the Constitution by outside pressure?

The Constitution has been amended. I wish to mark how it was done, and then note why it was done.

There was a time when fears were entertained that wrongs might be done to different sections of the Union under the Constitution as it then stood. Congress listened to those fears, and did not hesitate to propose amendments suggested from outside its own body-to submit them to the people for adoption. It was necessary, in the judgment of Congress, to do this, in order to restore confidence. It was done, and confidence was restored. Is not that precisely our case now? Is not confidence lost in the North and in the South?-not exactly lost, perhaps, but shaken. The credit

of the Government is gone. Even our naval commanders are unable to negotiate Government bills abroad-are reduced to the degrading alternative of asking the endorsement of foreign States, in order to such negotiation. Some brilliant individuals have suggested that we have already become so poor that our widows and wives must bring out their stockings.

Our last loan was negotiated at twelve per cent. discount. The present loan is not to be taken at any rate, unless the Government descends to the humiliating alternative of securing State endorsements. Our credit is going lower and lower every day, and it will soon come to the point where our bonds will be worth no more than Continental money was.

Suppose we do nothing here. Are gentlemen blind to the consequences? Gentlemen, honest and patriotic as I know you are, have you no love for this Union ?-have you no care for the preservation of this Government? God forbid that I should say you have none! I know you too well. My relations have been too intimate with you, and have existed too long, for me to suppose it. You do love the Union. I speak for the South and to the South. I know that we can still labor to keep this Government together. If we follow the plain dictates of our judgment, any other course would be impossible.

The Virginia Convention is even now in session, and what a convention it is! Disguise as we may, deceive ourselves as we will, it is a convention which proposes to consider the question of withdrawing the State from the Union. Kentucky and Missouri, if we do nothing, will soon follow. If there ever was a time in the history of the Government for conciliation, for patriotic concession, that time is now. The time has come when parties must be forgotten. Let not the word party be mentioned here. It is not worthy of us. Representatives of the States, you are above party -high above. The cords that bind you together are a hundred times as strong as those which ever bound any party. Unless we do something, and something very quickly, before the incoming President is inaugurated, in all human probability he will have only the States north of Mason and Dixon to govern-that is, if he is to govern them in peace.

I think there is no right of secession; such is my individual opinion. But there is a right higher than all these the right of