plicitly and glaringly across the face of the Constitution itself. History, however, was preparing a striking contrast to this proposal, in the actual event. A thirteenth amendment to the Constitution was passed, January 31, 1865, in these words:

Section I. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The language of the first section, thus written lastingly into the Constitution of the United States, is that of the old Jeffersonian ordinance which Wilmot revived, infused with new life and unshakable purpose, and immortalized as the Wilmot Proviso.

As for Wilmot himself, after witnessing the conclusion of the efforts of the Peace Conference, and the arrival of Lincoln in Washington as President-elect, he returned to Pennsylvania and to his duties as president judge of the thirteenth district. But events moved swiftly to bring him back to the Capital. On the 4th of March, 1861, Simon Cameron resigned his place in the Senate to enter Lincoln's cabinet as Secretary of War, and on the 13th of March, David Wilmot was chosen by the republican caucus, and immediately thereafter elected by the legislature, to fill the unexpired term as United States senator from the State of Pennsylvania.

CHAPTER XXXIV

IN THE SENATE

WILMOT's response to the call of his new duties was immediate. The announcement of his election to the Senate appeared March 15, 1861. March 19, the same Harrisburg correspondent wrote that "on Saturday night Judge Wilmot arrived at Philadelphia on his way to take his seat at Washington, and took lodgings at the Continental Hotel. About eleven o'clock at night, a large number of the new Senator's friends gave him the compliment of a serenade. He spoke as follows:

I learn from those friends who are near about me that this salutation is proffered to me as a mark of public respect. Permit me, therefore, to express my acknowledgments and most grateful thanks. You will not expect of me any protracted remarks on this occasion. I am on my way to the Federal Capital for the purpose of entering upon the responsible duties which have been imposed upon me by the partiality of my native State. I shall endeavor to discharge my duty so as to meet with your approbation (cheers).

Fellow citizens-I have been misunderstood, I will not say misrepresented, before the people, touching one subject of deep and vital interest to Pennsylvania. I trust, before the brief period in the Senate which has been allotted to me shall have expired, I shall have vindicated myself in your estimation, and proved myself a true friend of the interests of my native State (renewed applause). I shall endeavor to take in view all the great and manifold interests of this country, and I shall esteem it my especial duty, so far as in me lies, to maintain the interests of this great State. I am, by education and by party association, a Republican, and I point you with pride to the fact that the Republican party in Congress have testified their fidelity to their principles and their country by the passage of the Morrill tariff bill (thunders of

applause). Thus early the party have redeemed their pledge upon this subject (more applause).

I go to Washington for the purpose of extending, so far as in me lies, a hearty, consistent, and steadfast support to the Administration in the trying exigencies in which it is placed (cheers). I believe it to be my highest duty as I believe it to be the highest duty of every man in the country, to stand by the government in this great crisis of affairs (cries of "good," "that's so," and cheers). I don't propose to enter into any discussion upon the complications and embarrassments which surround the country, but thus far I can see, and so far it seems to me every citizen may see, that our safety, the safety of our liberty, the safety of our property, that every national and moral interest is deeply involved in extending an arm to the Government at this period. We have called to the Presidency, by the peaceful operation of our institutions, by a constitutional majority of the people, a President to administer the affairs of the country for the ensuing four years (great cheers). We are met by an armed rebellion in a portion of the Republic. I believe that the policy of the Administration will be peaceful; that it will exhaust every peaceful means to restore quiet to the country without the employment of force. I believe that to be its true policy. It behooves us, however, to be prepared to meet any emergency that may arise. No man can tell what a day will bring forth, and it is a matter of the highest importance that we give all the aid we can to the Government, that our social, political and moral institutions-that all the institutions that we value-may be preserved. They can only be preserved by our united and earnest support. I don't intend to enter upon a protracted discussion of public affairs. I intend, so far as is in my power, to legislate for the whole country, and not for one portion at the expense of the other. Permit me again to thank you for this compliment and to bid you a good-night."

Continuing his journey to Washington, Wilmot, in the language of the official journal of the Senate, “appeared and took his seat" March 18, 1861, almost at the lingering end of the Thirty-sixth Congress, in its special session, which held on after the expiration of Buchanan's term and into the first

weeks of the new Lincoln administration. Five days after Wilmot's entry, another newcomer, John Sherman, of Ohio, took the senatorial oath of office.

The ten days that remained wrote no history in the Senate chamber important enough to be recorded. Most of the transactions concerned the election of a president pro tempore and other officers, and the confirmation of Lincoln's appointments of which some of the more interesting, following Wilmot's seating, were those of Charles Francis Adams as minister to England, Carl Schurz as minister to Portugal, Thomas Corwin to Mexico, and Joshua R. Giddings as consul to Canada. Echoes of the cataclysm outside penetrated, and died away. On March 25th, Lazarus Powell, of Kentucky, offered a resolution calling on the President (if not incompatible, etc.) to furnish the Senate with all dispatches received from Major Anderson while he was in command of Fort Sumter-to which the President very promptly returned answer that the publication would be inexpedient. March 26, John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky (swiftly on his way toward expulsion for treason), introduced a motion recommending the withdrawal of all United States troops from the limits of the Confederate States. The following day, Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, sought to restore the balance by proposing a resolution that, in the opinion of the Senate, the true way to preserve the Union was to enforce the laws of the Union. That resistance, whether under the name of anticoercion or any other name, was encouragement to disunion, and that it was the duty of the President to use all the means in his power to hold and protect the public property of the United States and enforce the laws thereof as well in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas as within other States of the Union. Both resolutions disappeared in camera of executive session and did not emerge again. March 28th, the Senate of the Thirty-sixth Congress adjourned sine die.

Wilmot remained in Washington for another three weeks, and when he left for his home in Towanda the confusion of

the coming war had begun to invest the capital. The Baltimore riots of April 19 had been followed by a panic among the railroad officials and a refusal on the part of both roads— the Baltimore and Ohio and the Philadelphia and Wilmington -to undertake transportation through Baltimore. A momentary lull followed the President's conference with a delegation from that city, and his acquiescence in General Scott's hasty and temporary order to send troops around, instead of through, Baltimore. Then followed exactly the result that Lincoln had half-jestingly predicted: "So far from being thankful for their success in changing the march of Union troops, the incensed secessionists upbraided their committee for consenting to allow them to pollute the soil of the State." 1

That forenoon (the morning of April 20) Senator David Wilmot, making his way northward from Washington as best he could, wrote back from Baltimore to the General in Chief, confirming the rumor that some of the bridges of the Philadelphia road had been destroyed, the telegraph interrupted, and rapid communication with the North cut off; and added, "Troops coming on your road (from Harrisburg to Baltimore) could leave it about three miles from Baltimore, and by a march of five miles reach the Washington road some two and a half miles from the city." It was with some such idea that General Scott had first proposed the march around Baltimore; and, strengthened by Wilmot's suggestion, he on the following day wrote to General Patterson, who held command in Philadelphia, that this Harrisburg and Baltimore route was perhaps the most important military route to Washington, adding the injunction, "Give your attention in part to this line." 2

The military situation in Washington was, indeed, for a brief time, acutely alarming--so much so that General Scott seriously planned the concentration of all the defensive resources upon the Executive square, with the Treasury building as a citadel in which the President and his Cabinet were to

1 Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, Vol. IV, p. 127. 2 Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, Vol. IV, p. 129.