[53] one pretext or another, until the last day of the session—when seven states had already withdrawn from the Union and established a confederation of their own—and it was then defeated by a majority of one vote.1 Meantime, among other propositions made in the Senate were two introduced early in the session, which it may be proper specially to mention. One of these was a resolution offered by Powell of Kentucky, which, after some modification by amendment, when finally acted upon, had taken the following form:
Resolved, That so much of the Presdent's message as relates to the present agitated and distracted condition of the country, and the grievances between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States, be referred to a special committee of thirteen members, and that said committee be instructed to inquire into the present condition of the country, and report by bill or otherwise.The other was a resolution offered by Green of Missouri, to the following effect:
Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to inquire into the propriety of providing by law for establishing an armed police force at all necessary points along the line separating the slaveholding States from the nonslave-holding States, for the purpose of maintaining the general peace between those States, of preventing the invasion of one State by citizens of another, and also for the efficient execution of the fugitive-slave laws.In the discussion of these two resolutions I find, in the proceedings of the Senate on December 10th, as reported in the Congressional Globe, some remarks of my own, the reproduction of which will serve to exhibit my position at that period—a position which has since been often misrepresented:
Mr. President, if the political firmament seemed to me dark before, there has been little in the discussion this morning to cheer or illumine it. When the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky was presented—not very hopeful of a good result—I was yet willing to wait and see what developments it might produce. This morning, for the first time, it has been considered; and what of encouragement have we received? One Senator proposes, as a cure for the public evil impending over us, to invest the Federal Government with such physical power as properly belongs to monarchy alone; another announces that his constituents cling to the Federal Government, if its legislative favors and its Treasury secure works of improvement and the facilities which they desire; while another rises to point out that the evils of the land are of a party character. Sir, we have fallen upon evil times indeed, if the great convulsion which now shakes the body-politic
