Congress can contribute much to avert it by proposing and recommending to the legislatures of the several States the remedy for existing evils which the Constitution has itself provided for its own preservation.  This has been tried at different critical periods of our history, and always with eminent success.  It is to be found in the fifth article, providing for its own amendment.  Under this article amendments have been proposed by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and have been “ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States,” and have consequently become parts of the Constitution.  To this process the country is indebted for the clause prohibiting Congress from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or of the right of petition.  To this we are also indebted for the bill of rights which secures the people against any abuse of power by the Federal Government.  Such were the apprehensions justly entertained by the friends of State rights at that period as to have rendered it extremely doubtful whether the Constitution could have long survived without those amendments.

Again the Constitution was amended by the same process, after the election of President Jefferson by the House of Representatives, in February, 1803.  This amendment was rendered necessary to prevent a recurrence of the dangers which had seriously threatened the existence of the Government during the pendency of that election.  The article for its own amendment was intended to secure the amicable adjustment of conflicting constitutional questions like the present which might arise between the governments of the States and that of the United States.  This appears from contemporaneous history.  In this connection I shall merely call attention to a few sentences in Mr. Madison’s justly celebrated report, in 1799, to the legislature of Virginia.  In this he ably and conclusively defended the resolutions of the preceding legislature against the strictures of several other State legislatures.  These were mainly founded upon the protest of the Virginia legislature against the “alien and sedition acts,” as “palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution.”  In pointing out the peaceful and constitutional remedies—­and he referred to none other—­to which the States were authorized to resort on such occasions, he concludes by saying that—­

The legislatures of the States might have made a direct representation to Congress with a view to obtain a rescinding of the two offensive acts, or they might have represented to their respective Senators in Congress their wish that two-thirds thereof would propose an explanatory amendment to the Constitution; or two-thirds of themselves, if such had been their option, might by an application to Congress have obtained a convention for the same object.

This is the very course which I earnestly recommend in order to obtain an “explanatory amendment” of the Constitution on the subject of slavery.  This might originate with Congress or the State legislatures, as may be deemed most advisable to attain the object.  The explanatory amendment might be confined to the final settlement of the true construction of the Constitution on three special points: