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FEDERAL RELATIONS.

I transmit herewith a communication from the Honorable
William H. Seward, Secretary of State, received at the Execu-
tive Department, on the 18th June last, enclosing certain
Constitutional Amendments, which will require your early
action.

At the extra session of the General Assembly, in January,
1866. I presented my views at large in reference to the Policy
ot Reconstruction which had been adopted and acted upon by
President Lincoln, and was proposed to be continued without
variation in any material point by his successor in office. I
was sincerely impressed with the conviction, that to bring
about harmony and good feeling and restore our national
affairs to the channels from which they had been diverted by
the war, this was the best practicable mode in which it could
be successfully accomplished. This plan proceeded upon the
recognized principle, that this Union could not be dissolved
by any effort of the State governments—either by peaceable
or violent secession, or in any other mode. The General
Government was as powerless as the States in precipitating
any such result. To have conceded this revolutionary power,
would have been a virtual abandonment of the whole theory
upon which our compact was based. The States, if broken
by the successful defection of a single member, would have
established the inability of the Federal power, to maintain
its National supremacy, and dissolution would have resulted
as an inevitable consequence. The revolt of the Southern
States was treated, and properly so, as an insurrection against
the power of the Union, and when subdued, left the States
unchanged in all their former relations. This view was not
controverted by the General Assembly at that time, nor have
I since heard that any other plan of reconstruction, based
upon the true theory of our government, has been presented.
The passage of the Constitutional Amendment, as a condition
precedent to the readmission of the States to the right of repre-
sentation, presents to my mind, objections of the gravest
character, so long as the Constitution continues to be recog-
nized as the Supreme Law under which we are acting.

I may also express the opinion here, that whether with or
without the authority of the Constitution, Congress should
hesitate to make any radical change in the organic law, with-
out the concurrence of the requisite vote of all the States,
South as well as North.

It cannot have escaped notice, that the proposed amend-
ment, comprising five distinct propositions, embodies more
than its language would seem to convey, and that the clause,
to enforce these provisions, "by appropriate legislation."
may leave the Southern and Border States at the mercy of the