The fifteen slave States, re-enforced by California and Oregon, gave to the Southern interest a majority of one vote on the committee.

The other free States, sixteen in all, were hostile to the extreme Southern demands, and reported a resolution, which they were willing to accept.

The South required an explicit assertion of the right of citizens to settle in the Territories with their slaves,--a right not "to be destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation." They required the further declaration that it is the duty of the Federal Government, when necessary, to protect slavery "in the Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends." This was in substance, and almost identically in language, the extreme creed put forth by the Southern Democratic senators in the winter of 1858-59, after the "popular sovereignty" campaign of Douglas against Lincoln.

It was the most advanced ground ever taken by the statesmen of the South, and its authorship was generally ascribed to Judah F.
Benjamin, senator from Louisiana.

Its introduction in the Charleston platform was intended apparently as an insult to Douglas.