And yet no approach to such unanimity
is attainable unless some deference shall be paid to the will of the
majority, simply because it is the will of the majority. In this case
the common end is the maintenance of the Union; and among the means to
secure that end, such will, through the election, is most clearly
declared in favor of such constitutional amendment."
The joint resolution was called up in the House on January 6, 1865, and
general discussion followed from time to time, occupying perhaps half
the days of that month. As at the previous session, the Republicans all
favored, while the Democrats mainly opposed it; but important exceptions
among the latter showed what immense gains the proposition had made in
popular opinion and in congressional willingness to recognize and embody
it. The logic of events had become more powerful than party creed or
strategy. For fifteen years the Democratic party had stood as sentinel
and bulwark to slavery, and yet, despite its alliance and championship,
the "peculiar institution" was being consumed in the fire of war. It had
withered in popular elections, been paralyzed by confiscation laws,
crushed by executive decrees, trampled upon by marching Union armies.
More notable than all, the agony of dissolution had come upon it in its
final stronghold--the constitutions of the slave States.
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