of political success." Two months later, when Cameron had been reinvited and was safely installed in Lincoln's Cabinet, Wilmot was elected by more than a three-fourths majority to fill the vacant chair thus left in the United States Senate.

The legislature's choice of Judge Wilmot to fill Cameron's unexpired term (two years) was received by Horace Greeley with a moderated approval, tinctured perhaps a little more strongly by the sense of recent differences than by memory of earlier agreements. March 14, 1861, the Tribune reported the results of the caucus, with the observation that "election, we presume, will follow of course," and added:

The nomination of Judge Wilmot will be received with delight by many. For years, having been chosen to a judgeship, he has been measurably out of the political arena, but he is remembered by the Republicans as the modern author, or reviver, of the Jeffersonian Proviso respecting Slavery in territories. Hunkerism insisted on his retirement from the House years ago; we thank it, for this gave us Galusha A. Grow in his stead; and now Mr. Wilmot returns to Congress to fill a higher post and (we trust) pursue a course of wider usefulness than before. We have differed with him recently on some points-perhaps through misapprehension on our part-but we hail with gladness his return to Congress and thus to political life.

The Harrisburg Telegraph, a leading paper of the State capital, was less restrained in its approval. March 15, 1861, it said:

We have the proud satisfaction to-day to announce the election of Hon. David Wilmot as United States Senator, to supply the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Gen. Cameron. Mr. Wilmot left the Democratic party when it was at the height of its glory and powerful in patronage, for the purpose of asserting the principles which he considered just and right, and essential for the welfare of Pennsylvania. When he left the powerful Democratic party he represented the strongest Democratic congressional district in the State; and through his personal efforts

it has now become the Gibraltar of Republicanism. He has ever since been sorely persecuted by the proslavery party, who have used all dishonorable means to detract from his personal character and influence, and in the present canvass he was made the target for their weapons. We are, therefore, rejoiced, not only that David Wilmot is elected a United States Senator, but also that the claims of the noble North have been duly recognized in his election.

It might be said of Greeley's comment, that a man who had organized the republican party in his State, drawn the first republican platform at Philadelphia, headed the Fremont campaign in Pennsylvania, made a whirlwind (if sacrifice) canvass for the governorship to consolidate and continue the new party, and played an important part in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, had not been even "measurably" out of the political arena, in spite of the judgeship. And during the interval between the senatorial caucuses of January and March, 1861, Wilmot had been engaged in another public service, now historic, even though at the time fruitless and thanklessparticipation in the "Peace Conference" of February, 1861. Its story belongs to the following chapter.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

IN an editorial published shortly after the close of the Chicago convention, Horace Greeley suggested a basic difference between the concepts underlying the platform written by Wilmot for the Fremont campaign of 1856, and those actuating the convention that nominated Lincoln, in 1860. "The republican party at Philadelphia, in 1856, confronted a possible temporary evil; in 1860, it stands face to face with an organized despotism which announces its malgovernment and misgovernment to be founded on immutable principles of uniform application. Whereas, therefore, the platform of 1856 is mainly devoted to the question of Kansas, the platform of 1860 covers a broader ground, and rests on the deep-rooted principles of a true democratic government."

A more concentrated study of the source of the two platforms favors the supposition that their differences were due to the personal equation rather than to any progressive change in national political conditions. Wilmot had no delusions as to the purpose or permanence of the interests he was fighting; but to him, the slavery-extension issue seemed so overwhelmingly important that he dismissed as untimely, and indeed inexpedient, any discussion or declaration of other matters until the one great point was won.

Nevertheless, Greeley interpreted correctly the mind of a large part of the Union. Multitudes saw, as he did, a formal mobilization of forces on opposite sides of a decisive conflict; and nowhere was this vision more definite or action upon it more direct than in the South. Secession, which had been predicted, or threatened, in case of Fremont's accession to the 1 New York Tribune, May 28, 1860.

Presidency, was voted almost as soon as Lincoln had been elected to carry out the republican program formulated at Chicago. South Carolina passed the ordinance of secession December 20, 1860. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana followed in January, and Texas joined them February 1, 1861. The long-feared dissolution of the Union had begun.

2

It was a process which a certain class of southern politicians -the "Hotspurs of the South," in the phrase of the day—had waited with almost uncontrollable impatience. But in marked contrast to their joy stood the agonized anxiety of the more serious element, North and South, in Congress and out of it, who recoiled from the preliminary tremors of dismemberment and sought to forestall its further progress. The House had scarcely convened for the second session of the Thirtysixth Congress when Boteler, of Virginia, moved (December 4, 1860) "that so much of the President's message as relates to the present perilous condition of the country be referred to a special committee of one from each State, with leave to report at any time." This "Committee of Thirty-three" was appointed two days later; and on the same day, December 6, 1860, Powell, of Kentucky, gave notice in the Senate of his intention to introduce a similar motion for the appointment of a "Committee of Thirteen to whom should be referred so much of the President's message as relates to the present agitated and disturbed condition of the country and the grievances between the slaveholding and the nonslaveholding States." The function of this Senate committee was to be "to initiate measures to save the country from the present perilous conditions"; but Senator Powell's resolutions disclosed the southern psychology in the emphasis placed upon the attention which should be given to legislation, or even a constitutional amendment, assuring "certain, prompt and full protection to the rights of property of the citizens of any State or territory of the United

2 Cong. Globe, Thirty-sixth Congress, 2nd session, pp. 6, 22.

States" that is, protect slave owners and their institution wherever they might be.

The most important concrete proposal brought before either committee or taken up for discussion in the press and throughout the country generally, came from Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky. Like Clay's Compromises of 1850, it was an attempt to combine and balance all the dangerous problems of the hour in such a way that they might help to neutralize one another; and it became the basis or standard to which all other schemes of adjustment were referred. Briefly, the Crittenden resolutions proposed to renew the Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30', prohibiting slavery north of it, and protecting slavery south; to admit new States with or without slavery, as their constitutions might provide; to prohibit the abolition of slavery by Congress in the States; to prohibit its abolition in the District of Columbia so long as it continued to exist in either Maryland or Virginia; to permit the traffic in and transportation of slaves between the States, while prohibiting the foreign slave-trade; to provide for payment for fugitive slaves when rescued; to seek the repeal of all Personal Liberty Laws in the northern States; and to prohibit future amendments to the Constitution repealing any of these provisions, or any existing sections recognizing or protecting slavery, without the consent of all the States. The Crittenden resolutions, offered December 18, 1860, were called up March 2, 1861, and rejected by the Senate, March 3, by a vote of 20 to 19.

Meantime, an independent attempt was launched by the State of Virginia to reach a solution outside of the halls of Congress or rather, to bring into coöperation with Congress a body of the most eminent men from every State of the Union. An invitation was extended by the general assembly of Virginia to all the States, whether slaveholding or not, which were willing to unite with her in "an earnest effort to adjust the present unhappy conditions," to appoint commissioners to meet in Washington, February 4, 1861, "to consider and, if practicable, agree upon some suitable adjustment." The con