he maintains that there is a
difference, in fact, in the two methods prescribed. What right has
this body, if there is any force in this objection, to submit _his_
proposition to the States? If what we propose is revolutionary, then
what he proposes is revolutionary. I reply to him, with all respect
for his legal ability, and with all the humility which becomes me, and
insist that he is wrong. He refers to the opinion of Judge COLLAMER. I
hold Judge COLLAMER in much respect, and his opinion in great honor
here, but his statements are at war with the objections made by the
gentleman from Connecticut. Judge COLLAMER maintains that it is the
duty of Congress _to propose_ amendments, not to _recommend_ them. It
would be entirely proper, according to his opinion, for Congress to
propose amendments which they would not adopt themselves. I go
somewhat farther, and insist that it is the duty of Congress to
propose amendments whenever desired by any State or any considerable
section of the Union. If we have no right to suggest a line of action
to Congress, no right to petition Congress, no right to ask Congress
to propose amendments, as the gentleman insists, we had better go
home, or rather, I should say, we should never have come here.

There are twenty States represented in this Conference. I have no
doubt other States would have been here, but for the shortness of the
time. But how and why are we here? We have come here on the invitation
of Virginia; her resolutions are our constitution. We have come here
at her instance. For what purpose did she ask us to come here? under
what circumstances did she pass these resolutions? Virginia saw that
the country was going to ruin--that one State had already seceded, and
several others were about to follow. She saw there were circumstances
affecting the condition of the South which aroused her to frenzy--not
madness, but the frenzy which falls on every patriotic mind when it
witnesses a country going to destruction. She saw the country was
going to ruin with rapid steps, and that its ruin must be accomplished
unless her friends in the free States would come forward, and consent
to put into the Constitution additional guarantees which would satisfy
the people of the slave States that their rights were secure. See what
she did--what she said. She expresses it as her deliberate opinion,
"that unless the unhappy controversy which now divides the States of
this Confederacy shall be satisfac