States; by the decisions of the most eminent judicial authorities; and
by the consent of the people of America, is considered an clement of our
political system; and as the Holy Bible is at once the source of Chris-
tianity, and the depository and fountain of all civil and religious free-
dom, we oppose every attempt to exclude it from the schools thus
established in the States.                                                                         

XII.—The American party having arisen upon the ruins and in
despite of the opposition of the Whig and Democratic parties, cannot be
in any manner responsible for the obnoxious acts or violated pledges of
either. And the systematic agitation of the slavery question by those
parties having elevated sectional hostility into a positive element of po-
litical power, and brought our institution into peril, it has, therefore,
become the imperative duty of the American party to interpose for the
purpose of giving peace to the country and perpetuity to the Union.
And, as experience has shown it impossible to reconcile opinions so ex-
treme as those which separate the disputants, and, as there can be no
dishonor in submitting to the laws, the National Council has deemed it
the best guarantee of common justice and future peace, to abide and
maintain the existing laws upon the subject of slavery, as a final and
conclusive settlement of that subject in spirit and in substance.

And regarding it the highest duty to avow their opinions upon a sub-
ject so important, in distinct and unequivocal terms, it is hereby declared,
the sense of this National Council, that Congress possesses no power,
under the Constitution, to legislate upon the subject of slavery in the
States, where it does or may exist, or to exclude any State from admis-
sion into the Union because its constitution does or does not recognize
the institution of slavery as a part of its social system; and expressly
pretermitting any expression of opinion upon the power of Congress to
establish or prohibit slavery in any Territory, it is the sense of the Na-
tional Council that Congress ought not to legislate upon the subject of
slavery within the Territories of the United States, and that any inter-
ference by Congress with slavery as it exists in the District of Columbia,
would be a violation of the spirit and intention of the compact by which
the State of Maryland ceded the District to the United States, and a
breach of the national faith.

XIII.—The policy of the Government of the United States, in its rela-
tion with foreign governments, is to exact justice from the strongest,
and do justice to the weakest; restraining, by all the power of the gov-
ernment, all its citizens from interference with the internal concerns of
nations with whom we are at peace.

XIV.—This National Council declares that all the principles of the
Order shall be henceforward every where openly avowed; and that each
member shall be at liberty to make known the existence of the Order,
and the fact that he himself is a member, and it recommends that there
be no concealment of the places of meeting of subordinate councils.

E. B. BARTLETT, of Kentucky,

President of National Council,

C. D. Deshler, of N. J., Cor. Sec.
James M. Stephens, of MD., Rec. Sec.                                     

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