Report on the Joint Select Committee on Federal and State relations Page: 2 of 5
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tion, subject to be abolished or modified by the sovereign power
alone of the States in which it prevails; it is not a moral or politic
cal evil, but an element of prosperity and happiness both to the
master and slave.
Abolish slavery and you convert the fair and blooming fields of
the South into barren heaths; their high-souled and chivalrous
proprietors into abject dependents, and now happy and contented
slaves, into squalid and degraded objects of misery and wretched-
ness.
The southern States have remonstrated and forborne, until for-
bearance is no longer a virtue. The time has arrived when, if
they hope to preserve their existence as equal members of the
' "confederacy, and to avert the calamities which their northern
: brethren, actuated by a insatiate and maddening thirst for power
would entail upon them, they must prepare to act -to act with
resolution, firmness and unity of purpose, trusting to the righteous-
ness of their cause and the protection of the Almighty Ruler of the
destinies of nations, who ever looks benignantly upon the exertions
of those who contend for the prerogatives of freemen. Therefore,
Be it resolved by the Legislature of the State of Mississippi,
That- they cordially approve of the action of the Southern State
Convention, held at the city of Jackson, on the first Monday of
October, 1849, and adopt the following resolutions of said body, as
declaratory of the opinions of this Legislature, and of the people
of the State of Mississippi.
1. Resolved, That we continue to entertain a devoted and
cherished attachment to the Union, but we desire to have it as it
was formed, and not as an engine of oppression.
2. Resolved, That the institution of slavery in the southern
States, is left, by the constitution, exclusively under the control of
the States in which it exists, as a part of their domestic policy,
which they, and they only, have the right to regulate, abolish, or
perpetuate, as they may severally judge expedient; and that all
attempts, on the part of Congress, or others, to interfere with this
subject, either directly or indirectly, are in violation of the con-
stitution, dangerous to the rights and safety of the South, and
ought to be promptly resisted.
3. Resolved, That Congress has no power to pass any law
abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, or to prohibit the
slave trade between the several States, or to prohibit the intro-
duction of slavery into the territories of the United States; and,
that the passage, by Congress, of any such laws, would not only
be a dangerous violation of the constitution, but would afford evi-
dence of a fixed and deliberate design, on the part of that body,
to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States.
4. Resolved, That we would regard the passage, by Congress,
of the " Wilmot proviso," (which would in effect, deprive the citi-
zens of the slave-holding States of an equal participation in th-~---------~ 4~
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[Mississippi Legislature Committee on State and Federal Relations]. Report on the Joint Select Committee on Federal and State relations, pamphlet, 1849; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth395250/m1/2/: accessed July 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Schreiner University.