A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Part 81

Mr. BOTELER:--I vote "ay," to introduce these propositions, because I believe it to be my duty to do every thing, consistent with honor, to preserve the peace and save the Union of my country.

Mr. c.o.x:--I desire to ask a question of the Chair.

The SPEAKER:--The Chair will hear you.

Mr. c.o.x:--I desire to know whether or not it will be in order to move to suspend the rules to enable me to have my vote recorded?

Mr. SPEAKER:--No, sir.

Mr. c.o.x:--I would like very much to have it recorded in favor of these peace propositions. I vote "ay," if there is no objection.

Mr. HINDMAN:--Consent is not given to the gentleman from Ohio to have his vote recorded.

The SPEAKER:--It is not received.

Mr. ROBINSON, of Rhode Island:--Believing that this is a test vote, I change my vote, and vote "no."

Mr. JOHN COCHRANE:--I wish to know whether the vote of my colleague, CLARK B. COCHRANE, is recorded.

The SPEAKER:--It is not.

Mr. JOHN COCHRANE:--I think he has retired from the House on account of sickness in his family; and I believe he is laboring for the Union in other quarters.

Mr. MILLSON:--I desire to vote.

Objection was made.

Mr. MILLSON:--I am ent.i.tled to vote, having been absent upon a committee of conference. I vote "ay."

Mr. HINDMAN:--Is the gentleman ent.i.tled to vote under the rules of the House?

Mr. BARR:--Objection comes too late.

The SPEAKER:--It has been usual to allow gentlemen to vote under such circ.u.mstances.

Mr. HICKMAN:--Do the rules allow him to vote?

The SPEAKER:--The Chair supposes that is the rule of the House.

Mr. HINDMAN:--I ask to have the rule read.

Mr. MILLSON:--No rule of the House could take away the right of a member to vote when he is absent by order of the House. If the rules deprived a member of the right to vote under such circ.u.mstances, it would be void.

The result was announced as above recorded.

Mr. McCLERNAND:--This vote divides the Republican party, and sounds its death knell.

No. V.

REPORTS OF DELEGATES TO STATES.

_Report of the Peace Commissioners to the Legislature of Virginia._

_To His Excellency_ JOHN LETCHER, _Governor of Virginia:_

The undersigned Commissioners, in pursuance of the wishes of the General a.s.sembly, expressed in the resolutions of the 19th day of January last, repaired in due season to the City of Was.h.i.+ngton. They there found, on the 4th day of February, the day suggested in the overture of Virginia for a Conference with the other States, Commissioners to meet them from the following States, viz.: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. Subsequently, during the continuance of the Conference, at different periods, appeared likewise Commissioners from Tennessee, Ma.s.sachusetts, Missouri, New York, Maine, Iowa, and Kansas. So that before the close twenty-one States were represented by Commissioners, appointed either by the Legislatures or Governors of the respective States.

The undersigned communicated the resolutions of the General a.s.sembly to this Conference, and, both before its committee appointed to recommend a plan of adjustment, and the Conference itself, urged the propositions known as the CRITTENDEN resolutions, with the modification suggested by the General a.s.sembly of Virginia, as the basis of an acceptable adjustment.

They were not adopted by the Conference, but in lieu thereof, after much discussion, and the consideration of many proposed amendments, the article with seven sections, intended as an amendment to the Const.i.tution, was adopted by sections (not under the rules, being voted on as a whole), and by a vote of the Conference (not taken by States), was directed to be submitted to Congress, with the request that it should be recommended to the States for ratification, which was accordingly done by the President of the Conference.

The undersigned regret that the Journal showing the proceedings and votes in the Conference has not yet been published or furnished them, and that consequently they are not able to present it with this report. As soon as received it will be communicated to your Excellency.

In the absence of that record it is deemed appropriate to state that on the final adoption of the first section, two of the States, Indiana and Missouri, did not vote, and New York was divided, and that the votes by States was, ayes 9, nays 8--Virginia, by a majority of her Commissioners, voting in the negative.

The other sections were adopted by ranging majorities (not precisely recollected), and on the fifth and seventh sections the vote of Virginia was in the negative. The plan, when submitted to Congress, failed to receive its recommendation, and as that body, having adjourned, can take no further cognizance of it, the undersigned feel the contingency has arrived on which they are required to report, as they herein do, the result of their action.

Respectfully,

JOHN TYLER, G.W. SUMMERS, W.C. RIVES, JAS. A. SEDDON.

The above report having been read and ordered to be printed, Mr.

SUMMERS stated that the reason it was not signed by Judge BROCKENBROUGH, the other Virginia Commissioner, was because that gentleman was not in Richmond. Mr. SUMMERS presented a communication in which Judge BROCKENBROUGH stated his views at length on the propositions adopted by the Convention, and it was printed, by vote of the Legislature, in connection with the report.

After reviewing the different sections of the propositions adopted by the Peace Conference, Judge BROCKENBROUGH, in his letter, states that the said propositions, _as an entirety_, would have received his vote, and therefore the vote of Virginia, in the Peace Conference, if it had been submitted to a vote in that form.

_Reports of the New York Commissioners to the Legislature of that State._

MAJORITY REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS TO THE PEACE CONVENTION.

_March 23d, 1861._

_To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York:_

The Report of the Commissioners appointed by the Legislature of the State of New York to meet Commissioners from other States in the City of Was.h.i.+ngton on the fourth day of February, 1861, upon the call of the State of Virginia, by resolutions pa.s.sed by the General a.s.sembly of that State on the nineteenth day of January, 1861.

A copy of the Journal of the Convention is submitted herewith, from which it will be seen that prior to the presence of the Commissioners from New York, that body had been completely organized, rules of order adopted which excluded all persons other than members from witnessing its deliberations, forbidding any publication or other communication of its proceedings, and the taking of any entry from its Journal without leave; in short, requiring all its debates and acts to be kept secret. A committee had also been organized of one from each State to be appointed by the Commissioners from such State, to which the Virginia resolutions were referred, "with all other propositions for the adjustment of existing differences between the States, with authority to report what they might deem right, proper, and necessary to restore harmony and preserve the Union;" and this committee had been in session two days before your Commissioners were enabled to appoint any one of their number upon it. This was done on the eighth of February by the appointment of Mr. Field.

William E. Dodge, one of your Commissioners, took his seat in the Convention on the seventh day of February, 1861, and Messrs. Field, Noyes, Wadsworth, Corning, King, and Wool, on the eighth of February, Mr. Smith on the eleventh, and Judges James and Bronson on the twelfth day of February, and Mr. Granger, who was appointed in the place of Judge Gardiner, who declined, on the eighteenth day of February, 1861.

It was deemed advisable by your Commissioners that the proceedings of the Convention should be open to the public and the press, and hence they advised and concurred in resolutions introduced for that purpose, which were laid on the table on the motion of a Commissioner from the State of New Jersey. On a subsequent day they also concurred in a resolution authorizing the employment of a stenographer, to "preserve accurate notes of the debates and other proceedings of 'the Convention,' which notes should not be communicated to any person, nor shall copies thereof be taken, nor shall the same be made public until after the final adjournment of this Convention, except in pursuance of a vote authorizing their publication;" but this was refused, and the resolution laid on the table on motion of a Commissioner from the State of Pennsylvania, by a vote of eleven to eight, all the Slave States represented voting against it, with the addition of the States of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Before the Convention closed its session, the following states, twenty-one in all, were represented in the Convention: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Missouri, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Maine, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, Vermont, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Kansas. With the concurrence of a majority of your Commissioners, Mr. Field offered in the committee of one from each State, on the fourteenth of February, the following proposition:

"Each State has the sole and exclusive right, according to its own judgment, to order and direct its domestic inst.i.tutions, and to determine for itself what shall be the relation to each other of all persons residing or being within its limits;"

but it was rejected by a majority of the committee, and formed no part of its report.