It proposed, according to the demand of Mr.
Toombs, that a law should be enacted in which all offenses against slave property by persons fleeing to other States should be tried where the offense was committed, making the slave-code, in effect, the test of the criminality of the act,--an act which, in its essential character, might frequently be one of charity and good will.
These propositions had the precise effect which, in cooler moments, their authors would have anticipated.

They humiliated the North without appeasing or satisfying the South.

Five Southern members made a minority report in which still further concessions were demanded.

They submitted what was known as the Crittenden Compromise, demanding six amendments to the Constitution for the avowed purpose of placing slavery under the guardianship and protection of the National Government, and, after the example of Mr.Adams's proposed amendment, intrenching the institution where agitation could not disturb it, where legislation could not affect it, where amendments to the Constitution would be powerless to touch it.
-- The first amendment proposed that in "all the territory of the United States south of the old Missouri line, either now held or to be hereafter acquired, the slavery of the African race is recognized as existing, not to be interfered with by Congress, but to be protected as property by all the departments of the Territorial Government during its continuance." -- The second amendment declared that "Congress shall have no power to interfere with slavery even in those places under its exclusive jurisdiction in the slave States." -- The third amendment took away from Congress the exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, as guarantied in the Constitution, declaring that Congress should "never interfere with slavery in the District, except with the consent of Virginia and Maryland, so long as it exists in the State of Virginia or Maryland, nor without the consent of the inhabitants of the District, nor without just compensation for the slaves.

Nor shall Congress prohibit officers of the General Government nor members of Congress from bringing with them their slaves to the District, holding them there during the time their duties may require them to remain, and afterwards taking them from the District." -- The fourth amendment prohibited Congress from interfering with the transportation of slaves from one State to another, or from one State to any Territory south of the Missouri line, whether that transportation be by land, by navigable river, or by the sea.
-- The fifth amendment conferred upon Congress the power, and prescribed its duty, to provide for the payment to the owner of a fugitive slave his full value from the National Treasury, in all cases where the marshal was prevented from arresting said fugitive by violence or intimidation, or where the fugitive, after arrest, was rescued by force.
-- The sixth amendment provided for a perpetual existence of the five amendments just quoted, by placing them beyond the power of the people to change or revise--declaring that "no future amendment to the Constitution shall ever be passed that shall affect any provision of the five amendments just recited; that the provision in the original Constitution which guaranties the count of three- fifths of the slaves in the basis of representation, shall never be changed by any amendment; that no amendment shall ever be made which alters or impairs the original provision for the recovery of fugitives from service; that no amendment shall be made that shall ever permit Congress to interfere in any way with slavery in the State where it may be permitted." PROPOSITIONS OF COMPROMISE.
Before Mr.Corwin submitted his report, Mr.Charles Francis Adams appears to have become disgusted with his own proposition for the amendment of the Constitution.