Page:State Documents on Federal Relations.djvu/82

24 Nevertheless, in the opinion of your Committee, the Legislature of Massachusetts owe it to themselves, to the people of this State and to future generations, to make an open and distinct avowal of their sentiments upon this topick, to the end that no sanction may appear to be derived from their silence; and also that other States may be led to consider this intrusion of a foreign State into our confederacy, under this usurped authority, in a constitutional point of view as well as in its consequences, and that, thereby, a concurrence of sentiment and a coincidence of councils may result; whence alone can be hoped a termination of this usurpation, and of the evils, which are, apparently, about to flow from it.

Your Committee, therefore, propose for the adoption of the Legislature, the following resolutions:—

Resolved, As the sense of this Legislature, that the admission into the Union of States created in countries not comprehended within the original limits of the United States, is not authorized by the letter or the spirit of the federal Constitution.

Resolved, That it is the interest and duty of the people of Massachusetts, to oppose the admission of such States into the Union, as a measure tending to the dissolution of the confederacy.

Resolved, That the Act passed the eighth day of April, 1812, entitled "an Act for the admission of the State of Louisiana into the Union and to extend the laws of the United States to the said State," is, in the opinion of this Legislature, a violation of the Constitution of the United States; and that the Senators of this State, in Congress, be instructed, and the Representatives thereof requested, to use their utmost endeavors to obtain a repeal of the same.

Resolved, That the Secretary of this Commonwealth be directed to transmit a copy of these Resolutions to each of the Senators and Representatives of this Commonwealth, in the Congress of the United States. [Resolves of Massachusetts (1813), 310–318. Boston, 1813.]