The Committee of Thirty-Three
Boston Daily Advertiser,
January 21, 1861
The failure of the “committee of thirty-three”
to agree upon any scheme for adjusting the political difficulties referred
to it for solution, appears to have created an impression that the committee
was a failure, and that its deliberations were fruitless. We cannot see the
matter in this light, however. If the committee had [sic] done nothing else,
it has performed a very essential public service and one which, as affairs
go, may be of more importance than we now see, in enabling the House to transact
the regular routine business of the session, which has to be finished to keep
the wheels of government in motion. With political topics of such absorbing
interest in every one’s mind at a session which must close peremptorily
on the fourth of March, and leave the country with its new House of Representatives
yet to be completed at the summer elections in several States, it is a matter
of no trifling moment that this committee has kept the topic of the day in
a measure out of the House of Representatives, until the other business of
the country is in such condition that the House can safely launch out upon
that boundless sea of discussion.
This is an incidental service, however—originally
designed, we suppose, by those who have led in the business of the session,
but still apart from that field of usefulness in which the public have looked
for the return for the labors of the committee. But in spite of this acknowledged
failure to agree upon any scheme of settlement, it appears to us that the
committee has rendered very essential service in exposing the real purposes
of the secessionists, and in showing what can be done to check the further
spread of their treasonable movements. Without reviewing minutely proceedings
yet fresh in the minds of all, we may state, as a fact within the recollection
of any reader, that the committee drew from the representatives of seceding
States the confession, that they do not hold themselves bound to stand by
the result of a fair and constitutional election, that they are not embarking
in treason because of unfriendly legislation on the part of northern States,
because of any apprehended dangers from northern aggression, or because of
any rights withheld in the territory of the United States, but that they have
undertaken disunion for the sole reason that they have resolved to extend
slavery into territory not yet owned by the United States.
That we do not exaggerate when we thus state the result
of the committee’s labor is plain, we think, from the character of those
measures to which a majority of the committee would have agreed, had the representatives
of disaffected States consented to them. The committee were ready to advise
the repeal of the personal liberty acts, to insert in the Constitution a denial
of all rights in Congress to interfere with slavery in the States except with
the consent of every State in the Union, and to close up now and forever,
on unobjectionable terms, the question of slavery in all territories now within
our limits. The committee were thus ready by an exhaustive process to settle
the slavery question in all its necessary relations, to bring the North forward
as far as concession can go without palpable sacrifice of principle, and to
offer a really just and practicable middle ground for accommodating the differences
of the two sections. This failed to pacify the advocates of secession, and
the failure was a plain demonstration of the real object for which they have
taken their present dangerous stand.
It is gaining a great point, we think, that the committee
has thus served to bring our real difficulty so plainly before the country.
The record has thus been made up against the party of secession in the most
effective manner, and should convince every one that as for that party no
plan of action which can be offered can satisfy their demands. It appears
to us, however, that the committee has also served to disclose a basis of
action, on which much may be done to strengthen the Union party in other Southern
States, which are not yet openly the prey of treason. The committee has shown
that the majority of the Republican party as represented in Congress is ready
to make a fair and reasonable settlement of all questions now open, in the
spirit of conciliation and equity. Even a gentleman of such tenacity of opinion
and purpose as Mr. Adams of this State only asks to be satisfied that some
good result is attainable, in order to give his active support to such a plan,
some leading features of which have been suggested by himself. And it fortunately
happens that at this juncture the country has assurances to the same effect
from the lips of the leading cabinet officer of the future administration.
We feel that substantial ground is thus pointed out on which the North and
a large part of the South can unite for the preservation of the Constitution
and the Union. We shall not yet admit that love of country is so far lost
in either section, that this great purpose will be sacrificed, either for
a punctilio, or from sympathy with a wide-spread frenzy, nourished by the
most unholy passions and leading to political and social ruin.
