a full meeting held upon the subject decided to oppose it, as they
afterward did. Its conciliatory spirit they could not comprehend; the
kindly, temperate warning, they would not heed. The most moderate of
them all,--[Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky.]--in the most moderate of his
utterances, could not bring himself to the belief that this Resolution
was "a measure exactly suited to the times."

[And such was the fatuity existing among the Slave-holders of the
Border States, that not one of those Slave States had wisdom enough
to take the liberal offer thus made by the General Government, of
compensation. They afterward found their Slaves freed without
compensation.]

So, also, one month later, (April 11, 1862), when the Senate Bill
proposing Emancipation in the District of Columbia, was before the
House, the same spokesman and leader of the loyal Border-State men
opposed it strenuously as not being suited to the times. For, he
persuasively protested: "I do not say that you have not the power; but
would not that power be, at such a time as this, most unwisely and
indiscreetly exercised. That is the point. Of all the times when an
attempt was ever made to carry this measure, is not this the most
inauspicious? Is it not a time when the measure is most likely to
produce danger and mischief to the Country at large? So it seems to
me."

It was not now, nor would it ever be, the time, to pass this, or any
other measure, touching the Institution of Slavery, likely to benefit
that Union to which these men professed such love and loyalty.

Their opposition, however, to the march of events, was of little avail