624 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 16,

The President laid before the Senate the following commu-
nication from the Hon. Philip Francis Thomas, United States
Senator elect:

ANNAPOLIS, March 16, 1867.

To Lieut. 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 Senator 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 deter-
mined 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, surrounded
by embarrassments from which there are few persons who can
discover an avenue 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 from 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 despair of early relief, but judging
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 representa-
tive 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 indefinate 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
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
geat of government, with undoubting confidence that, at no
distant day, the Union of our fathers will bo reetored in all
its integrity, and that our country will resume the career of
greatness and power which, under guidance of wisdom and
patriotism, surely is its manifest destiny.

I have the honor to be be, with great respect,

Your obedient servant,

PHILIP F. THOMAS.

Which was read and ordered to be entered on the Journal.