1867.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 953

ANNAPOLIS, March 16,1867.
To Lieutenant Governor Cox,

President of the Senate, and .;

Oliver Miller, Esq.,

Speaker of the House of Delegates :

Gentlemen.—I have had the honor to receive your joint
letter of the 12th instant informing me of my election by the
General Assembly as a Senotor of the United States for the
term of six years from the fourth of March, instant.

I receive this evidence of the confidence of the Represen-
tatives of the people of Maryland, with profound gratitude,
and in accepting the distinguished honor, conferred upon me,
I beg to offer the assurance that in the new sphere, of service '
to which I am about to be removed, I shall spare no effort to
serve my native State, with fidelity and zeal, and with a de-
termed purpose to maintain unimpaired, all her rights as a
co-equal sovereign member of the Federal Union.

The Country, as all are aware, is at this moment, surround-
ed embarrassments from which there are few persons who can
discover an avneue of escape. The Union of the States as it
came from the hands of its authors is, this day. disrupted
by the absence of ten of its Members for the Federal Councils,
and the lovers of free Government are looking with intense
anxiety for a change in the condition of our internal relations.
There are many who dispair of early relief, but judgiug from
the known patriotism of the great masses of the people of the
North and West, as well as the deep-seated love of a common
country which animates the hearts of the representative men
of those great sections, in and out of Congress, I cannot allow
myself to believe that the work of restoration will be delayed
to any very remote or indefinite period of time.

Reason will, I trust, soon resume her empire over the
minds of men of all sections, and the passions engendered by
the late civil strife will so far subside as to give full play to
that "sober, second thought," under the influence of which
our beloved country has been, more than once, rescued from
impending perils.

Influenced by such hopes and desires, I shall repair to the
seat of Government with undoubting confidence that at no
distant day the Union of our fathers will be restored in all
its integrity, and that our country will resuma the career of
greatness and power, which, under the guidance of wisdom
and patriotism, surely is its manifest destiny, ,
I have the honor to be,

With great respect,

Your obedient servant,

PHILIP F. THOMAS,

Which was read and ordered to be entered on the Journal,
120