FEDERAL RELATIONS.
Mr. HAMILTON. I offer the following joint resolution, [S. 3.] These resolutions are forwarded to me by a gentleman of high standing, and high literary attainments, who page: 44[View Page 44] has a deep and abiding interest in the affairs of the country. He is anxious they should be presented to the country.
The resolutions,which are very lengthy,were read and referred under the rule to the Committee on Federal Relations.
Mr. RAY then submitted the series of resolutions on the State of the Union, which he offered early in the morning hour: and they were read. Joint Resolution [H. R. 4.]
To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled;
The State of Indiana, by her Senators and Representatives in General Assembly convened, respectfully memorializes and represents to your honorable bodies that she views with the utmost anxiety the perilous condition of the American Union; that she, moved by an imperative sense of duty to our common country in addressing the Congress of the United States on the portentious condition of public affairs, imploring prompt action on some scheme of pacification that will preserve the Federal Union and restore tranquility to the country.
Entertaining, as your memorialist does, the most profound conviction of the blessings, as well as the threatened dangers of the Union, she is ready to make great sacrifices to perpetuate the one and avert the other.
At a time like this, when the foundations of the National government are shaken and its pillars crumbling away, it is the solemn duty of every State in the American Union to discard all specious fallacies in regard to slavery-all blind resentment for supposed agressions-all pride and sectional animosities, and all partisan criminations, and forgetting the mutual provocations of the past, bring all offensive doctrines and platforms, all abstract theories aud barren creeds, as sacrifices upon the altar of a common country.
The State of Indiana, not unmindful of her position and duty in this respect as a conservative State of the Union, solemnly invokes the wisdom and patriotism of the national Congress to the noble work of fostering loyalty to the Federal Government, strengthening the bonds of the Union, removing all disturbing causes, staying the tide of revolution and giving a peaceful solution to the great problem of the age.
The labors and sacrifices of an immortal ancestry in devising this beautiful and complicated form of Federal Government, the experiment of civilized man for self-government, the happiness, the prosperity, the civilization and the destiny of the American race hang, it is believed, upon the speedy and effective action of the American Congress. Events of an age are crowding themselves into hours, events of an incalculable magnitude, fraught with the issues of Union or Disunion, peace or war, the rise or fall of a great empire.
The State of Indiana can not but deplore the sectional madness and party infatuation that would suffer the dismemberment of this confederacy on any theory that the supposed integrity of platform is of greater consequence than the existence of this Government.
She takes great pride at this critical junction in declaring to her sister States that the records other past legislation are not sustained by nullifying laws or personal liberty bills.
While the State of Indiana is firmly attached to the Union of the States, and regards the un broken peace of the country as an indispensible condition of its continuance, and while she denies the asserted Constitutional right of any State to secede from the Federal Union, and while she recognizes a plain duty in the Federal Government to enforce the Federal laws, and maintain Federal supremacy over Federal property, yet she recognizes the duty and policy of moderation and forbearance on the part of the Federal Government toward the seceding States, and that at this junction, only the civil powers of the Government can safely be used to enforce the laws, and in behalf of the Union and peaceful enforcement of the laws, the State of Indiana exhorts the National Government to second, by legislation, the efforts of the Executive to enforce the laws by civil process.
And while the State of Indiana recognizes, as a last resort, the inalienable right of revolution by a State for sufficient cause, and she does not regard the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency alone a sufficient cause for revolution, yet in frankness and justice to her sister States, she is bound to say, that the aggregate of grievances which the South has sustained at the hands of the North, including the election of a sectional President, upon a simple anti-slavery issue, does furnish good ground of alarm to the slaveholding States, and justifies them in demanding concessions and new guarantees for the safety of their institution.
The State of Indiana, therefore, not wholly despairing of the Republic, but greatly at a loss for an adequate remedy for the impending catastrophe of a disrupted Government, regards with great favor the series of propositions lately submitted by the Hon. John J. Crittenden to the Senate of the United States, as furnishing a basis for an adjustment which shall withdraw the further agitation of slavery from the National councils, as well as from Northern politics; correct public sentiment in the North; secure the return of the disloyal States; save the land of Washington from a sanguinary war; preserve the honor and prestige of the American name, and perpetuate the liberties of a people who have wantonly put them at stake to abide the fortunes of Revolution, and the arbitrament of the sword.
For these, among other reasons, the State of Indiana prays for prompt action by the Congress of the United States in the passage of said propositions, looking to an amendment of the Federal Constitution, to meet the exigencies of the case; and further, the State of Indiana looking to the possible defeat of said scheme of adjustment, and looking to the fearful progress of the revolution, which must inevitably carry with it the pillars of the Constitution and insure the horrors of civil war, she prays, in that event, that your Honorable bodies will unite in calling a National Convention of the States to consider amendments to the Constitution of the United State. In conclusion, your memorialist repeats that the solution of the impending calamities is to be found in conciliation and compromise, and not in the power of the sword, which, if once drawn, will never be re
page: 45[View Page 45]turned until every State in the Union has become a blood-stained desert. She asks that the people of the nation may have an opportunity of speaking with their own lips, and their own tongues, and from their own hearts, and not through the doubtful and uncertain medium of political oracles. Therefore,
Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring, That copies of the foregoing memorial, certified by the President and Secretary of the Senate, and by the Speaker and Clerk of the House of Representatives, be and they are hereby directed to be forwarded to Washington City, and one copy to the Vice President of the United States, and the other to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to be by them laid before the bodies over which they respectively preside.
Mr. JOHNSON moved to suspend the rule referring the resolution to the Committee on Federal Relations.
On motion of Mr. WAGNER,this motion was laid on the table-yeas 25, nays 21.
The joint resolution was then referred, under the rule, to the Committee on Federal Relations.
Mr. SLACK offered a resolution, directing the Committee on Federal Relations to report back the joint resolution just referred to them, on to-morrow, without amendment.
On motion by Mr. WAGNER-yeas 25, nays 21-this resolution was laid on the table.
And then-
On motion, the Senate took a recess till 2 o'clock.
