Remarks of Jonathan Worth on the Proposition to call a Con[ven]tion, in the Senate, January, 1861.*

The proposition of the Senator from Guilford, as I understand it, is to submit it to the vote of the people whether they will have a Convention, altogether unrestricted, without anything in the preamble or body of the resolutions declaratory of the purpose of the calling such Convention. I recognize as the basis of our government the right of the people to govern, and I am therefore willing, if the people desire it, that such a Convention be called, free to consider and act on every principle of government, State or National, with this proviso only, that the action of such Convention shall have no validity until ratified by a vote of the people; but if the bill in any way indicates that the Convention is called to consider our Federal relations, I can not vote for it, because the Constitution authorizes the General Assembly to call no such Convention. Such Conventions have been nowhere called except for the purpose of carrying out secession. I will not discuss this doctrine as a constitutional remedy. This has been sufficiently done. It is sufficient for my present purpose to declare that I regard it as a ruinous heresy, whether the present Union be preserved or a Southern Confederacy be formed. I regard it as the seed of death in any Confederation. A new Republic founded on it would be based on Disintegration. I can therefore vote for no bill which in any way squints toward a recognition of this doctrine.

The only Convention to consider of National affairs, which the General Assembly can constitutionally call, is a Convention provided for in the Fifth Article of the Constitution of the United States to pass on amendments to the Constitution of the United States previously proposed as therein prescribed. Any other Convention called by the General Assembly to consider of National affairs I regard as revolutionary, and I am sure my constituents are not ready for revolution for existing causes.

_______________

* In Worth's writing

SOURCE: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Editor, The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, Volume 1, p. 128-9

Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, July 8, 1864

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, at the late session Congress passed a bill to "guarantee certain States, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government," a copy of which is hereunto annexed;

And whereas, the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than one hour before the sine die adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him;

And whereas, the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known that, while I am (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration; and while I am also unprepared to declare that the free State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort, or to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in States, but am at the same time sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery throughout the Nation may be adopted, nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at all times shall be, prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people, so soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in any such State and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in which cases military Governors will be appointed, with directions to proceed according to the bill.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this eighth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

[L. S.]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

 Secretary of State.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume 4 (Serial No. 125), p. 477-8