rty of compromise. It seemed, for the moment, as
though the history of the year 1850 were to be repeated. Now, as then,
the initiative was taken by a senator from the border-State of
Kentucky. Again a committee of thirteen was to prepare measures of
adjustment. The composition of the committee was such as to give
promise of a settlement, if any were possible. Seward, Collamer, Wade,
Doolittle, and Grimes, were the Republican members; Douglas, Rice, and
Bigler represented the Democracy of the North. Davis and Toombs
represented the Gulf States; Powell, Crittenden, and Hunter, the
border slave States.[903]

On the 22d of December, the committee took under consideration the
Crittenden resolutions, which proposed six amendments to the
Constitution and four joint resolutions. The crucial point was the
first amendment, which would restore the Missouri Compromise line "in
all the territory of the United States now held, or hereafter
acquired." Could this disposition of the vexing territorial question
have been agreed upon, the other features of the compromise would
probably have commanded assent. But this and all the other proposed
amendments were defeated by the adverse vote of the Republican members
of the committee.[904]

The outcome was disheartening. Douglas had firmly believed that
conciliation, or concession, alone could save the country from civil
war.[905] When the committee first met informally[906] the news was
already in print that the South Carolina convention had passed an
ordinance of secession. Under the stress of this event, and of others
which he apprehended, Douglas had voted for all the Crittenden
amendments and resolutions, regardless of his personal predilections.
"The prospects are gloomy," he wrote privately, "but I do not yet
despair of the Union. _We can never acknowledge the right of a State
to secede and cut us off from the ocean and the world, without our
consent._ But in view of impending civil war with our brethren in
nearly one-half of the States of the Union, I will not consider the
question of force and war until all efforts at peaceful adjustment
have been made and have failed. The fact can no longer be disguised
that many of the Republican leaders desire war and disunion under
pretext of saving the Union. They wish to get rid of the Southern
senators in order to have a majority in the Senate to confirm
Lincoln's appointments; and many of them think they can hold a
permanent Republican asc