I wish to say, further, that we, as Commissioners, must act at all times under the control of the General Assembly or the State Convention of our State. Before we can act definitely upon either of the propositions submitted, I think it will be our duty to transmit them to the General Assembly for instructions.
Mr. WICKLIFFE:—The several reports are now before the Conference. I presume it will be the desire of every member to give them a careful examination. In order to prevent all unnecessary delay, I move that the several reports be laid upon the table, that they be printed at once and distributed to the members, and made the special order of the Conference for 12 o'clock to-morrow.
The motion of Mr. Wickliffe was agreed to.
Mr. WICKLIFFE:—I have drawn up a preamble and a resolution which I wish to offer for the consideration of the Conference. I shall not press action upon them to-day, but desire to have them laid on the table and printed. I shall call them up after the report of the General Committee is disposed of. It would gratify me much, and I think greatly tend to the peace and harmony of the country, if they could be adopted at once, and published. It is well known to most of you that there is nothing in all the legislation or action of the Free States, which has created so much excitement and alarm among the people of the slaveholding States, as the passage of the so called "personal liberty" acts. They are regarded as deliberate infractions and breaches of the Constitution, and as attempts to nullify the operation of a constitutional enactment of Congress. But I do not wish to invite discussion upon the subject now; I hope my motion will not meet with objection.
The motion of Mr. Wickliffe was adopted, and the preamble and resolution were presented as follows:
MR. WICKLIFFE'S PREAMBLE AND RESOLUTION.
Whereas, the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States declares, "that no person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This clause is one of the compromises without which no Constitution would have been adopted. It was a guarantee to the States in which such labor and service existed by law, that their rights should be respected and regarded by all the States; and it is not within the competency of any State to disregard the obligation it imposes, or to render it valueless by legislative enactments. And whereas, the House of Representatives of the United States did, on the —— day of February, by unanimous vote, declare that neither the Congress of the United States nor the people or government of any non-slaveholding State, has the constitutional right to legislate upon, or to interfere with slavery in any slaveholding State in the Union.
This declaration is regarded by this Convention as an admission that the statutes of those States, passed for the purpose of defeating the provision of the Constitution aforesaid, and the laws of Congress made to enforce the just and proper execution of this constitutional guarantee, are in violation of the supreme law of the land.
The provisions of the statutes in many of the non-slaveholding States, commonly known and called "personal liberty bills," amount in their consequences to a practical nullification of the acts of Congress of February 12th, 1793, and September 18th, 1850, and are in violation of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution, as before stated. That the spirit of those statutes appears to be repugnant to the principles of compromise and mutual and liberal concessions which dictated the section of the Constitution in question, and which pervades every part of that instrument. It is, therefore, respectfully requested by this Convention that the several States abrogate all such obnoxious enactments.