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  1. Overview: The Road to Civil War
  2. Full Record: The Road to Civil War
  3. Committee:Senate Special Committee of Thirteen on the Condition of the Country
  4. Session: 1860-12-22 10:00:00
  5. Event type: CREATE

The Road to Civil War

Senate Special Committee of Thirteen on the Condition of the Country

A committee formed through a resolution submitted by Mr. Powell on December 6, 1860 and adopted on December 18, 1860. The role of the committee was to examine the conflict between slaveholding and non-slaveholding States and provide solutions and concessions to avoid secession.

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Document introduced in:

Session 14174: 1860-12-22 10:00:00

Mr. Davis enters the Committee. Mr. Toombs, Mr. Crittenden, and Mr. Davis submit propositions.

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Joint Resolution Proposing Amendments to the Constitution: Crittenden Compromise

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JOINT RESOLUTION proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Whereas serious and alarming dissensions have arisen between the northern and southern States, concerning the rights and security of the rights of the slaveholding States, and especially their rights in the common territory of the United States; and whereas, it is eminently desirable and proper that those dissensions, which now threaten the very existence of this Union, should be permanently quieted and settled by constitutional provisions, which shall do equal justice to all sections, and thereby restore to the people that peace and good will which ought to prevail between all the citizens of the United States: Therefore,

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two thirds of both houses concurring, That the following articles be and are hereby, proposed and submitted as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of said Constitution, when ratified by conventions of three fourths of the several States.

Article 1. In all the territory of the United States now held or hereafter acquired, situate north of latitude thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is prohibited, while such territory shall remain under territorial government. In all the territory south of said line of latitude slavery of the African race is hereby recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Congress; but shall be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government during its continuance; and when any Territory, north or south of said line, within such boundaries as Congress may prescribe, shall contain the population requisite for a member of Congress, according to the then federal ratio of representation of the people of the United States, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without slavery, as the constitution of such new State may provide.

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