Democrat, but of the high-spirited type; he could have tolerated secession by peaceable agreement, but rose in anger at menaces against the flag and the Union.  He conducted his department with entire success, and also rendered to the country perhaps the greatest service that was done by any man during that winter.  On January 29 he sent the telegram which closed with the famous words:  “If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot."[119] This rung out as the first cheering, stimulating indication of a fighting temper at the North.  It was a tonic which came at a time of sore need, and for too long a while it remained the solitary dose!

So much of the President’s message as concerned the condition of the country was referred in the House to a Committee of Thirty-three, composed by appointing one member from each State.  Other resolutions and motions upon the same subject, to the number of twenty-five, were also sent to this committee.  It had many sessions from December 11 to January 14, but never made an approach to evolving anything distantly approaching agreement.  When, on January 14, the report came, it was an absurd fiasco:  it contained six propositions, of which each had the assent of a majority of a quorum; but seven minority reports, bearing together the signatures of fourteen members, were also submitted; and the members of the seceding States refused to act.  The only actual fruit was a proposed amendment to the Constitution:  “That no amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”  In the expiring hours of the Thirty-sixth Congress this was passed by the House, and then by the Senate, and was signed by the President.  Lincoln, in his inaugural address, said of it:  “Holding such a provision to be now constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”  This view of it was correct; it had no real significance, and the ill-written sentence never disfigured the Constitution; it simply sank out of sight, forgotten by every one.

Collaterally with the sitting of this House committee, a Committee of Thirteen was appointed in the Senate.  To these gentlemen also “a string of Union-saving devices” was presented, but on the last day of the year they reported that they had “not been able to agree upon any general plan of adjustment.”

The earnest effort of the venerable Crittenden to Affect a compromise aroused a faint hope.  But he offered little else than an extension westward of the Missouri Compromise line; and he never really had the slightest chance of effecting that consummation, which in fact could not be effected.  His plan was finally defeated on the last evening of the session.