CHAPTER XII.
Congress in the Winter of 1860-61 .-- The North offers Many Concessions to the South .-- Spirit of Conciliation .-- Committee of Thirteen in the Senate .-- Committee of Thirty-three in the House .-- Disagreement of Senate Committee .-- Propositions submitted to House Committee .-- Thomas Corwin's Measure .-- Henry Winter Davis .-- Justin S.Morrill-- Mr.Houston of Alabama .-- Constitutional Amendment proposed by Charles Francis Adams .-- Report of the Committee of Thirty-three .-- Objectionable Measures proposed .-- Minority Report by Southern Members .-- The Crittenden Compromise proposed .-- Details of that Compromise .-- Mr.Adams's Double Change of Ground .-- An Old Resolution of the Massachusetts Legislature .-- Mr.Webster's Criticism Pertinent.
-- Various Minority Reports .-- The California Members .-- Washburn and Tappan .-- Amendment to the Constitution passed by the House .-- By the Senate also .-- New Mexico .-- The Fugitive-slave Law .-- Mr.Clark of New Hampshire .-- Peace Congress .-- Invited by Virginia .-- Assembles in Washington .-- Peace Measures proposed .-- They meet no Favor in Congress .-- Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada originated.
-- Prohibition of Slavery abandoned .-- Republicans in Congress do not ask it .-- Explanation required .-- James S.Green of Missouri .-- His Character as a Debater .-- Northern Republicans frightened at their own Success .-- Anxious for a Compromise .-- Dread of Disunion.
-- Northern Democrats .-- Dangerous Course pursued by them .-- General Demoralization of Northern Sentiment.
While the Secession leaders were engaged in their schemes for the disruption of the National Government and the formation of a new confederacy, Congress was employing every effort to arrest the Disunion tendency by making new concessions, and offering new guaranties to the offended power of the South.

If the wild precipitation of the Southern leaders must be condemned, the compromising course of the majority in each branch of Congress will not escape censure,--censure for misjudgment, not for wrong intention.
The anxiety in both Senate and House to do something which should allay the excitement in the slave-holding section served only to develop and increase its exasperation and its resolution.

A man is never so aggressively bold as when he finds his opponent afraid of him; and the efforts, however well meant, of the National Congress in the winter of 1860-61 undoubtedly impressed the South with a still further conviction of the timidity of the North, and with a certainty that the new confederacy would be able to organize without resistance, and to dissolve the Union without war.
COMMITTEES OF CONCILIATION.
Congress had no sooner convened in December, 1860, and received the message of Mr.Buchanan, with its elaborate argument that the National Government possessed no power to coerce a State, than in each branch special committees of conciliation were appointed.
They were not so termed in the resolutions of the Senate and House, but their mission was solely one of conciliation.

They were charged with the duty of giving extraordinary assurances that Slavery was not to be disturbed, and of devising measures which might persuade Southern men against the rashness on which they seemed bent.

In the Senate they raised a committee of thirteen, representing the number of the original States of the Union.