1861.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 203

prived our people of their arms, has seized and transported our
citizens to other States for trial upon charges or pretended
charges, has taken the private property of our citizens, has
caused peaceable travellers to be stopped and their persons,
trunks and papers to be searched, has arrested and caused to
be imprisoned without any civil process whatever, the persons
of our citizens, and by the military power kept and still keeps
them in confinement against and in contempt of all civil pro-
cess. Now therefore, be it

Resolved by the General Assembly of Maryland, That re-
cognizing our relations to the Federal Government, we feel
that whilst we cannot do more, we can do no less, than enter
this, our solemn protest, against the said acts of the President
of the United States, and deelare the same to be gross usurpa-
tion, unjust, oppressive, tyrannical and in utter violation of
common right and of the plain provisions of the Constitution.

It-esolved, 2.—That the right of a State to secede, is not a
constitutional right, but an act of revolution, and any State
seceding does so at its own peril; neither do we believe that
the Federal Government has any power under the Constitu-
tion to wage war against a State for the purpose of subjuga-
tion or conquest.

Resolved, 3.—That prudence and policy demand, that the
war now being waged, shall cease, that if persisted in, it will
result in the ruin and destruction of both sections, and a
longer continuance of it will utterly annihilate the last hope
of a reconstruction of this Union; therefore we want peace,
and are in favor of a recognition of the Southern Confederacy
and an acknowledgment of its government.

Resolved, .4.—That we deem the Writ of Habeas Corpus,
the great safe-guard of personal liberty, and we view with the
utmost alarm and indignation, the exercise of the despotic
power, that has dared to suspend it in the case of John Mer-
ryman, now confined in Fort McHenry.

Which were read.

The hour having arrived, the House proceeded to consider
the order of the day, being the resolutions of instruction to
the Senators and members of Congress to vote for the im-
mediate recognition of the independence of the government
of the Confederate States of America,

When Mr. Chaplain addresse the House—at the conclusion
of whose remarks,

On motion of Mr. Brown,
The House at 2 o'clock adjourned.