- Event type: CREATE
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Session 11908: 1860-12-17 12:00:00
More members join the House and multiple resolutions are presented and referred to the Committee of Thirty-Three. Mr. Davis moves to be excused from the Committee of Thirty-Three.
Document View:
Resolutions on Dred Scott and Slavery Rights
Whereas a conflict of opinion, dangerous to the peace and permanence of the Union, has arisen concerning the true intent and meaning of the Constitution of the United States in relation to African slavery within the Territories of the United States; and whereas the opinion of the ma-jority of the court pronounced in the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Dred Scott case, determines that the citizens of the United States have an equal right to take with them into the Territories of the United States any article of property which the Constitution of the United States recognizes as property, and that said Constitution recognizes slaves as property; and further, that the right neither of persons or of property can be destroyed or im-paired by either congressional or territorial legislation; and whereas such determination, while it has been accepted by some as a judicial exposition of the Constitution aforesaid by the supreme judicial tribunal, has by others been re-jected as destitute of the force or a judicial precedent; yet, in view of the probability that such opinion will hereafter become the reason of decisions of a similar character by the same tribunal, and in the hope of averting the immeasurable calamities which national dissolution threatens:
Therefore,
Resolved, That the opinion of the majority of the Su-preme Court of the United States, delivered by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, should be received as the settlement of the questions, under the Constitution of the United States, therein discussed and decided.
Resolved further, (two thirds of both Houses concurring,) That the following articles be proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by conventions in three fourths of the several State shall be valid as part of such Constitution, namely: Con-gress may establish governments for the Territories of the United States; but any Territory having a population equal to the constituency of one member of Congress, and hav-ing adopted, by a vote of the citizens of the United States resident therein, a constitution republican in form, may be admitted by Congress into this Union as a State; and nei-ther Congress nor the people of a Territory, during the territorial condition, shall, by legislation or otherwise nul or impair the rights of property recognized by the of any of the States.
Decisions yet to be taken
Document Timeline
- Resolutions on Dred Scott and Slavery Rights (introduced on 1860-12-17 12:00:00 - CREATE - e813012) [This document]
[view current proposal at this moment]
- None (introduced on 1860-12-17 12:00:00 - REPORT_PROPOSAL - e813013) [view current proposal at this moment]