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Mr. English and Mr. Florence present resolutions on the Crittenden Compromise. The Committee of Thirty-Three reports.
Joint Resolutions declaratory of the opinion of Congress in regard to certain questions now agitating the Country, and of measures calculated to reconcile existing differences.
JOINT RESOLUTIONS proposing certain amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
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.
ART.rticle 13. That iIn all the territory now held byof the United States now held or hereafter acquired, situate north of latitude 36° 30'the southern boundary of Kansas and the northern boundary of Now Mexico, slavery or involuntary servitude, except in theas a punishment for crime, is prohibited, while such territory shall remain under a territorial government; that i. In all the territory now held south of said line, neither Congress nor any Territorial Legislatuow held or hereafter acquired, shall hindlavery or preventf the emigration to said territory of personAfrican race is held to service from any State of this Union, when treby recognized as existing, and shall not relation existsbe interfered with by virtue of any law or usage of such State, while it shCongress, but shall be protected as property by all remain in athe departments of the territorial conditigovernment during its continuance; and when any tTerritory, 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 Ffederal ratio of representation of the people of the United States, it mayshall, 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 relaconstitution of perssuch new State may provide.
Article 2. Congress heldshall have no power to abolish slavervice and labor, as the constituy in places under its exclusive jurisdiction of such new, and situate within the limits of State mays that permit the holding of slavides.
ART 14. That nothing rticle 3. Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery within the Constitution of the UnitedDistrict of Columbia, so long as it exists in the adjoining States, of Virginia any amendmend Maryland, or either, nor without thereto, shall be so consent of the inhabitants, nor without just compenstruedation first made to such owners of slaves as to authorizedo not consent to such abolishment. Nor shall Congress at any departmenttime prohibit officers of the Gfederal government or members of Congress, whose duties require them to be in said District, from bringing with them their slaves, and holding them as such, during the time their duties may require them to remain there, and after, interfewards taking them from the District.
Article 4. Congress shall have no power to prohibit or hinder the reltransportation of persons helslaves from one State to another, or to a Territory in which slaves are by law permitted to be held, whether that transportation be by land; navigable rivers, or by the sea.
Article 5. That, in any State wddition to the provisions of the third paragraph of the second section of that relae fourth article of the Constitution existof the United States, Congress shall have power in any manto provide by law, and it shall be its duty so to provide, that the United States shall pay to the owner to establish or sustawho shall apply for it the full value of his fugitive slave, in all cases, when that relation in any State 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 premedy for the recovery of hibited bys fugitive slave, under the said claws or cuse of the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof. And in all such cases, when the United State. Ands shall pay for such fugitive, they shall have the power to reimburse themselves by imposing and collecting a tax on the county or city in which said viole shalnce, intimidation, or rescue was committed, equal in amount be alteredto the sum paid by them, with the addition of interest, amend the costs of collection; and the said wcounty or city, after it has paid said amount to the consent of eUnited States, may, for its indemnity, sue and recover from the wrong-doers, or rescuers, by whom the owner was prevented from the recovery Stateof his fugitive slave, in like manner as the Union.
ART 15. Towner himself might have sued and recovered.
Article 6. No future amendment of the Constitution shall affect the five preceding articles, nor the third paragraph of the second section of the fourthirst article of the Constitution shall be taken, nor the third paragraph of the second section of the fourth article of said Constitution, and construedno amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress and emy power Congress to pasto abolish or interfere with slavery in any of the States by whose laws it is or may be allowed or permitted.
Article 7. Sec. 1. The elective franchise and the right to hold office, whether federal, State, territorial, or municipal, shall not be exercised by persons who ary to secure the reture, in whole or in part, of the African race.
Sec. 2. The United States shall have power to acquire from time to time districts of country in Africa and South America, for the colonization, at expense of the federal treasury, of such free negroes and mulattoes as theld to service o several States may wish to have removed from their limits, and from the District of Columbia, and such other places as may be under the lawjurisdiction of Congress.
And whereas, also, besides those causes of anydissension embraced in the foregoing amendments proposed to the Constitution of the United States, there are others which come within the jurisdiction of Congress, and may have escapebe remedied by its legislative power; and whereas it is the desirefrom of Congress, as far as its power will extend, to remove all just cause for the popularty to whom such servi discontent and agitation which now disturb the peace or labor mayf the country, and threaten the stability of its institutions: Therefore--
ART 16. TSenate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the laws now in force for the recovery of fugitive slaves are in or importastrict pursuance of the plain and mandatory provisions of the Constitution, and have been sanctioned as valid and constitutional by the judgment of persons the Supreme Court of the United States; that the slaveholding States are entitled to the faithful observice or involuntary servitude, into any Staance and execution of those laws, and that they ought not to be repealed or so modified or changed as to impair their efficiency; and that laws ought to be made for the punishment of those who attempt, Terriby rescue of the slave or other illegal means, to hindery, or placedefeat the due execution of said laws.
2. That all State laws which conflict within the United States, from any place nrfugitive slave acts, or any other constitutional acts of Congress, or which in their operation impede, hinder, or delay the free country beyorse and due execution of any of said acts, are null and void by the limitsplain provisions of the Constitution of the United States or Territories. Yet those State laws, void as they are, have given color to practices, and led to consequences which have obstructed the due administration and execution of acts of Congress, and especially the acts for the deliver prohibited.
ART 17. No Territory beyondy of fugitive slaves, and have thereby contributed much to the discord and commotion now prevailing. Congress, therefore, in the present limperilous juncture, does not deem it improper, respectfully and earnestly, to recommend the repeal of those Unitedlaws to the several States which have enacted the Tem, or such legislative corrections or explanations of them as may prevent their being used or perverted to such mischievous purposes.
3. That the act of the eighteenth of September, shalleighteen hundred and fifty, commonly called the fugitive slave law, ought to be so amended as to make the fee of the commissionexr, mentioned in the eighth section or bf the act, equiral in amount, in the cases decided by him, whethe Uniter his decision be in favor of or against the claimant. And Sto avoid misconstruction, the last clause of the fifth section of said act, which authorizes the person holding a warrant for the arrest or detention of a fugitive slave to summon to his aid the posse comitatus, and which declares it to be the duty of all good citizens to assist him in its execution, ought to be so amended as to expressly limit the authority, and duty to cases in which thereaty shall be ratified by a votesistance, or danger of resistance or rescue.
4. That the laws for the suppression of the African slave, trade, and especially those prohibiting the importation of slaves intwo thirde United States ought to be made effectual, and ought to be the Senate. oroughly executed, and all further enactments necessary to those ends ought to be promptly made.