176 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Feb. 4,

The Committee on Federal Relations, to which was re-
ferred the Resolutions from the Legislatures of Missouri,
Virginia and Delaware, having had the same under consid-
eration, beg leave to report.

Although an interval of more than a year has elapsed since
the Legislature of the State of Louisiana assembled in the
State House, in the Capitol of the State, and had organized
by the selection of a Speaker and other officers, and was pro-
ceeding in the discharge of its duties, when, on the 4th day
of January, 1875, the Hall of the House of Delegates of
the said State was violently invaded by a portion of the Army
of the United States, acting under the orders, and by the di-
rection of Lieutenant General P. H. Sheridan, five of the
members of the said House of Delegates were seized and for-
cibly ejected by said troops, and for a time the said Legisla-
tive Assembly, of the said State, was dispersed, the Legisla-
tive Hall occupied by said troops, armed with muskets and
bayonets, and other persons, not elected by legal voters of
the State, were by the said troops installed ss members of
the said House of Delegates in lieu of the five ejected mem-
bers. Considering the foregoing facts and circumstances,
the great and imminent danger to free institutions, which
may result, if this gross outrage upon fundamental princi-
ples of republican institutions, shall be permitted to pass
unrebuked, and without the most solemn and emphatic pro-
test, to become a precedent. We, the representatives of the
State of Maryland, in General Assembly, do resolve.

First. That the Constitution of the United States is the
supreme law of the land, regulating, governing and control-
ling both Federal and State Governmeut so far as its powers
are expressed, and so far as they are essential to the execu-
tion of its expressed powers.

Second. That the Federal Government derives all the pow-
ers that it has, or that it can rightfully exercise, and that it
exists solely and entirely by virtue of the written Federal
Constitution and its necessarily implied powers, and that all
the powers of the Federal Government are grants and con-
cessions from the several States composing the United States,
and are limitations and restrictions upon the powers of the
several States, voluntarily parted with by the States, and
granted by them to the Federal Government.

Third. That the Federal Government and the State Gov.
ernments, although both exist within the same territorial
limits, are separate and distinct sovereignties, the States by
virtue of their inherent and eriginal sovereign powers, with
which they have never parted, and which they have express-
ly reserved to themselves "or to the people thereof," by the