ought to consider it without reference to the rules. If it be
that this programme is not acceptable to the Senate, let it be
rejected. What I supposed was intended from the beginning was, that
whatever they sent here was to be considered as an entirety--accepted
or rejected. I was about to remark, who supposes that twenty States
would have sent commissioners to prepare a programme of peace for the
consideration of Congress, if they had supposed that immediately the
peculiar views of each member of Congress would be set up in
opposition to them?

Mr. President, a single remark in relation to what fell from the
Senator from New York, and I shall have done. The Senator from New
York alludes to the terms of the preamble, that, for the reason that
these commissioners agreed, therefore these propositions are submitted
as amendments to the Constitution. I do not wish to be understood as
regarding it in that light. I do not think it is the right of Congress
to submit propositions of amendment of the Constitution because they
come from any source. The spirit of the Constitution is, that Congress
will submit amendments to the Constitution; because Congress approves
those amendments, and it would be a reason why I should vote for or
against them, whether I approved them or not. If, as a whole, I could
vote for them, I would vote for them; if, as a whole, I could not, I
would vote against them. That does not affect the question whether,
under all the circumstances, and solemn surroundings, the labor which
has been bestowed, and the character of the men that have presented
this paper, we should consider it as an entirety, or attempt to cut it
up by piecemeal, by which neither they, nor the public, will ever
ascertain what the judgment of Congress was on the results of their
labor. That is what I say.

Mr. SEWARD:--The honorable Senator may very naturally and very
properly take the ground that he would not vote, and that Congress
ought not to vote, for submitting this proposition to the people, for
the reason assigned in the paper before us. I have not any disposition
to quarrel with him about it. I might take the same view, and say
that I would not submit to the people a proposition which was futile,
which was frivolous. That is not what I was speaking to. What I was
speaking to was, the character of this proposition; and this is a
proposition just to this effect, logically and technically expressed:
that whereas these commissione