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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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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

Shown with amendment 'Joint Resolution Proposing Amendments to the Constitution: Crittenden Compromise Fifth Article' (e896489)

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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 5. That, in addition to the provisions of the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, Congress shall have power to provide by law, and it shall be its duty so to provide, that the United States shall pay to the owner who shall apply for it the full value of his fugitive slave, in all eases, when the marshal or other officer whose duty it was to arrest said fugitive was prevented from so doing by violence or intimidation, or when, after arrest, said fugitive was rescued by force, and the owner thereby prevented and obstructed in the pursuit of his remedy for the recovery of his fugitive slave, under the said clause of the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof. And in all such cases, when the United States shall pay for such fugitive, they shall have the right, in their own name, to sue the county in which said violence, intimidation, or rescue was committed, and to recover from it, with interest and damages, the amount paid by them for said fugitive slave. And the said county, after it has paid said amount to the United States, may, for its indemnity, sue and recover from the wrong-doers, or rescuers, by whom the owner was prevented from the recovery of his fugitive slave, in like manner as the owner himself might have sued and recovered.

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