Page:A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, Including the Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861-1865, Volume I.djvu/173

Rh during the recess of Congress, I should have deemed it my duty to issue the proclamation under this power; but as these acts are transmitted during the session of Congress, I feel it to be due to you, in a matter of so much importance as the admission of a new State into the Confederacy, to lay before you the acts to which I have referred, that you may take such action upon them as in your judgment may be necessary and proper. I also submit to you, for your consideration and action in relation thereto, a copy of a convention between the Confederate States and the State of Missouri which was concluded and signed by the commissioners of both parties at the city of Richmond, on the 31st day of October, 1861.

 November 25, 1861. Hon. Howell Cobb, President of the Congress. I have the honor herewith to transmit a communication from the Provisional Governor of Kentucky informing me of the appointment of commissioners on the part of that State to treat with the Government of the Confederate States of America for the recognition of said State and its admission into the Confederacy. Also a communication from the president and members of the convention which declared the separation of Kentucky from the United States and adopted the provisional government as therein recited. Two of the three commissioners thus appointed have presented their credentials and submitted a proposition to enter upon negotiations for the admission of the State of Kentucky into the Confederacy. Before entering upon such negotiation I have deemed it proper to lay the case before Congress and ask its advice. The history of this controversy involving the State of Kentucky is so well known to the Congress that it is deemed unnecessary to enter here into a statement of the various stages through which it has passed. It may, however, be proper to advert to the fact that in every form in which the question has been presented to the people of Kentucky we have sufficient evidence to assure us that by a large majority their will has been manifested to unite their destinies with the Southern States whenever, despairing of the preservation of the Union, they should be required to choose between association with the North or the 