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Drafts of Resolutions Recommending Amendment of the Kansas-Nebraska Act1Jump to section
[FIRST DRAFT?]
Whereas the African Slave-trade ought not to be revived by law.
And whereas the principle of non-intervention by congress, as laid down in those parts of Sections fourteen and thirtytwo of the act of congress entitled ``An act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas'' Approved [blank] which reads as follows, towit
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requires the repeal of all laws of congress abolishing, or hindering said African Slave-trade; and requires that all persons wishing to own slaves should be left ``perfectly free'' to purchase them on the coast of Africa, and take them to, and hold them within, the Terrtories of the United States, if they choose to do so, therefore
Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois, that our Senators in Congress be instructed and, our Representatives requested, to use their best endeavors to procure the repeal of the above recited parts of said Act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas.
Resolved further, that our said Senators be instructed, and our said Representatives requested; to procure the revival and re-enactment, of the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union, approved March sixth, eighteen hundred and twenty.
Resolved further, that they use their utmost endeavors to prevent the said Terrtories of Nebraska and Kansas, or either of them, or any part of either of them, ever coming into this Union as a Slave-state or states.
Resolved further, that they use their utmost constitutional endeavors to prevent Slavery ever being established in any county or place, where it does not now legally exist.
Resolved further, that our said Senators and Representatives, resist to their utmost, the now threatened attempt to divide California, in order to erect one portion thereof into a slave state---
[SECOND DRAFT?]
Resolved by the People of the State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly: