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 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.— January 20, 1SG3. — Head 
 first and second times, and ordered to be printed. 
 
 [By Mr. Foster.] 
 
 EESOLCTIONS 
 
 Respecting the present war. and the causes leading thereto'. 
 
 1 Whereas, The -war now existing between the Confederate 
 
 2 States and the United States, had its origin from bad and wicked 
 :) fanatics, known as the abolition party, whose organization for a 
 ■1-Mlong scries of years was simply contemptible, holding its orgies 
 .3 in obscure club rooms; fanaticism, infidelity and every revolting 
 
 6 form of social heresy Hocked to its standard, and constituted its 
 
 7 only support. 
 
 1 In the lapse of time, however, as the South advanced in wealth 
 
 2 and power; as Southern men, ever pre-eminent in the foremost 
 
 ranks of American statesmen, were becoming more prominent 
 
 1 and influential in the councils of the* nation, a formidable opposi- 
 o'p tion was presented to that selfish, perverse policy, under which 
 6 the South had been long and severely oppressed ; this vile and 
 
7 wicked faction was, however, .soon embraced and taken into full 
 
 8 fellowship by the free-soil party o: the North, and a nucleus Avas 
 !) thus formed of a political organization which destroyed the peace 
 
 10 and harmony of the nation, and finally severed the Union. 
 
 1 At the conclusion of the Mexican war, when we had acquired 
 
 2 an immense territory in the West, an effort was made by this 
 :} partj to exclude the institution of slavery from those territories, 
 4 and the so-called Wilmot Proviso was the first blast that roused 
 
 the people of the South from their dreams of peace and security. 
 
 1 After a long and bitter strife, the conservative and patriotic 
 
 2 feelings of the American people prevailed, and the great eompro- 
 
 3 mise of 1850 was effected. The hearts of patriots every where 
 
 4 were filled with joy and exultation, at what they conceived towc 
 o a happy deliverance from the perils of disunion. But their joy 
 G was of short duration. The intolerant and destructive spirit of 
 
 7 the North was not subdued. This w r as soon manifested by open 
 
 8 resistance to Federal laws, embodying and enforcing a provision 
 
 9 of the Constitution of the United States for the recapture and 
 
 10 rendition of fugitive slaves, escaping from the Southern States. 
 
 1 1 This resistance was effected, in some instances, under the forms 
 
 12 and sanctions of Northern State legislation, and in others by 
 
 13 the violence of lawless mobs. 
 
3 
 
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 <" 1 Not onl v were the rights of the South thus invaded, but the #. 
 
 2 Republican party attempted by congressional legislation, to ex- 
 
 3 elude the South, with its institutions from the territories belong- 
 
 4 ing, in common, to all the people of the United States, and pur- 
 
 5 chased mainly by Southern valor and blood. 
 
 1 We appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
 
 2 it was there decided thatjsuch legislation by Congress, would be 
 
 3 unconstitutional. But the t>lack Republican party, impelled by 
 
 4 fiendish fanaticism, and affecting that there was a law of con- 
 
 5 science inscribed upon the heart of man, by the finger of God, 
 G which was a higher law than the written Constitution, refused to 
 
 7 abide by, and boldly made war against the decision of this august 
 
 8 tribunal, and proclaimed in their party platform that they would 
 
 9 refuse to obey this decision, and would have it reversed by chang- 
 
 10 ing the organization of the Supreme Court. More than this, in 
 
 1 1 their recognised organs and public speeches, they not only made 
 
 1 2 war upon the institution of slavery, but went so far as to proclaim 
 
 13 the equality of the black with the white race, thus adding the 
 
 14 grossest insults to the past and contemplated injuries to the 
 
 15 Southern people. 
 
 1 The triumph of the Black Republican party in the Presidential 
 
 2 election in 1S60, upon such professions and principles, consum- 
 
4 
 
 3 mated the disruption of the Union, and involved the country in 
 
 4 all the horrors of civil war, which sad calamity, the South, con- 
 
 5 scious of its rectitude, used all fair and honorable means to 
 G avert. 
 
 1 The success of this party, in the election of Abraham Lincoln 
 
 2 to the Presidency, satisfied the Southern people that the aboli- 
 
 3 tionized puritan of the North, and the frank cavalier of the 
 
 4 South, could no longer live under tlie same government and laws, 
 
 and we asked to be permitted to depart in peace from so hateful 
 G and unworthy a connection, and to share our portion of the 
 7 burdens of the old government ; but this just and Constitutional 
 <S request the Black Republican party, with its characteristic and 
 <) vindictive injustice, denied us, and have attempted, with the 
 
 10 sword, to coerce us to maintain our connection with them, in the 
 
 11 prosecution of which wicked purpose, they have perpetrated and 
 
 12 continue to perpetrate acts revolting to civilization and disgrace^ 
 
 13 ful to humanity. 
 
 1 Their fiendish passions, not satiated with the wanton destruc- 
 
 2 tion of life and property, with the most brutal violence upon 
 
 3 the persons of our unprotected females ; with the unjustifiable 
 
 4 seizure of non-combatants and our ministers of religion, and 
 • r i their incarceration in loathsome dungeons : with the unlawful 
 
(i impressment of our negroes, and compelling them to leave their 
 
 7 homes and their owners, tearing them, by force, from their wives 
 
 8 and children, and thus adding incalculable sufferings to that class 
 
 9 they hypocritically profess to serve, and whose destitution and 
 
 10 helplessness, in the abolition camps, from exposure, want of pro- 
 
 1 1 per food and comfortable quarters, such as they have been ac- 
 
 12 customed to at home, is most frightful and appalling. 
 
 1 In addition to this dark catalogue of most shameful and bar- 
 
 2 barons outrages ; after having met with repeated disasters and 
 o the most signal defeats, in attempting to subjugate the South, 
 
 4 they have finally resorted to the yet more startling and inhuman 
 
 5 policy of creating a servile insurrection, and instigating the in- 
 
 6 discriminate butchery of helpless women and children, by procla- 
 ? mation, through their abolition President, conferring freedom 
 
 8 upon, and arming our slaves, an act of such glaring turpitude 
 
 9 and demoniac savageness,, as to elicit a powerful and impressive 
 
 10 rebuke from the honest, fearless and still virtuous Democratic 
 
 1 1 citizens of their own government, and the universal indignation 
 
 12 and reprobation of all civilized nations : Now therefore, 
 
 1 Be it resolved by the Congress of the Confederate States of 
 
 2 America : That the President be, and he is hereby requested to 
 «?> m^ke known to the abolition Executive of the Federal Govern- 
 
4 merit, that we, as a nation, are determined to bo, and forever to 
 
 5 remain free and scperate from, and disconnected with, so base 
 C and corrupt a people as have wickedly and wantonly destroyed 
 
 7 the greatest government ever constructed by the wisdom of man 
 
 8 and cemented with the blood of true and devoted patriots ; that 
 
 9 we defy his power and scorn his odious, abolition proclamation, 
 
 10 and that a severe and righteous retaliation shall be visited upon 
 
 1 1 every abolition officer engaged, or in any manner employed in 
 
 12 carrying out the provisions of said proclamation, and that for 
 
 13 every slave abducted, seized, or in any manner whatever pro- 
 
 14 tccted by the abolition army, as well for the past as in the 
 \o future, full remuneration shall be had for the same. 
 
 1 Be it further resolved : That if the conservative Democratic 
 
 2 citizens of the North-western States, of the United States, will 
 
 3 forever and eternally dissolve all ties and connections with the 
 
 4 puritanical, God-forsaken, mischief-making New England States, 
 
 5 that are justly responsible for the disruption of the old govern- 
 G ment, and all the distressing calamities growing out of the same, 
 
 7 that the Confederate States of America are both willing and pre- 
 
 8 pared to enter into such friendly commercial treaties as shall be 
 
 9 entirely satisfactory to the said North-western States, and to 
 
 10 make such other and further arrangements as may prove to be 
 
 1 1 mutually beneficial and just. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://vyww.archive.org/details/resolutionsrespeOOconf 
 

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