ritory of Iowa has formed a constitution, and applied for admission into the Union, at the present session of Congress. To her demand it is presumed that no objection will be made, and it is probable that she will soon add her strength to the non-slave holding States, in the councils of the nation; and if Florida is excluded, she will thus destroy the equilibrium which now happily exists in the higher branch of the national Legislature. The disposition of some of the non-slave-holding states, to encroach upon the rights and interests of the South, has been too often and too boldly exhibited for us to be longer insensible to the danger of destroying this balance of power. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the South, we owe it to the country, (for wrong and injustice to the South, is danger to the whole,) no longer to falter or to hesitate in the assertion of our rights.

Were the blessings of self-government less desirable, and the evils of Territorial vassalage more tolerable than they are, still, a regard to the common good-to the maintenance of the rights of that section of the Union with whose destiny for weal or woe our own is indissolubly connected, should prompt us to make some sacrifices, to secure the common safety. But, desirous as we long have been, to be admitted to the enjoyment of our rights as freemen, the considerations to which we have adverted, should add new ardor to our zeal, and give additional emphasis to our application for admission.

The Committee believe that the time has now arrived for fixed and definite action. The great blessings of self-government for which we have asked, and which have been so long withheld, are too precious to be surrendered with indifference; are too clearly our right for us to submit to their denial, without remonstrance.

Longer acquiescence in the wrong and injustice to which we have hitherto submitted, would bring upon us the contempt of the nation, and the loss of our own self-respect, without which, no people are fitted for the enjoyment of freedom.

Your Committee are satisfied that a very large majority of the people of Florida are anxious for immediate admission into the Union, as a State, under the St. Joseph constitution, and with the view of carrying those wishes into effect, the Committee have prepared and recommend to the consideration of the Senate and House of Representatives

First-A joint memorial to the Congress of the United States for the admission of Florida as a State, at the present session of Congress;

Second-Joint resolutions and a preamble on the same subject, which, if adopted, are to be transmitted to our Delegate in Congress. WALKER ANDERSON, Chairman of the Committee on the part of the Senate. THOS. JEFF. HEIR,

Chairman of the Committee on the part of the House.

MEMORIAL.

To the Senate and House of Representatives

of the United States, in Congress assembled :

The Memorial of the Senate and House of Representatives of the Territory of Florida, in behalf of the people of said Territory, respectfully showeth:

That the people of Florida have heretofore, at various times and in various modes, expressed their anxious desire to take upon themselves the privileges and responsibilities of a free people, and to be admitted into the National Union as a Sovereign State.

For many years they were content to postpone the exercise of the inalienable right of self-government, secure in the confident hope that, under the Treaty of Cession, that right was guaranteed to them by such solemn sanctions that it could not be withheld from them when they should deem it expedient to require it at the hands of those in whose keeping it had been deposited. The difficulties and embarrassments incident to their position as a frontier country, lately acquired from a foreign power, and occupied, to a great extent, by the Indians, and subsequently the war which was provoked with those Indians, through no agency of the people of Florida, nor for their peculiar benefit, though they were the sole sufferers from its calamities-all these causes contributed to induce the people of Florida to submit themselves, contentedly, to the government of a kindred people, the principles of which they regarded as the best security, that the rights, which were never relinquished, would be accorded, when required by them. The people of Florida would not be worthy of the destiny to which they are now anxiously looking, if they had endured this long privation of all that is dear to freemen, without aspirations after a higher and freer condition. Though the Government under which they lived was paternal, and, they may add with gratitude, was beneficent in the care which was extended to our infant condition; yet no true American could forget that the relation in which the people of Florida stood to that Government, was not that of freemen. Their Executive and Judicial officers were appointed by the General Government, and no law which the people of Florida adopted for themselves, through the Legislative Representatives which that Government permitted them to have, was of any validity without the permission of the Congress of the United States.

The memorialists, then, owe it to the character of the people of Florida to show to your honorable bodies, by reference to the past acts of the people and their representatives, that they have not, while in the enjoyment of the parental care of the United States, forgotten the high privileges which belong to them, nor been unmindful or heedless of the duties which those privileges imposed-duties which they owe not less to the Government of the United States than to themselves. In 1834, the Legislative Council first took action on the subject of a State Government, the proceedings in relation to which, are to be found at pages 106 and 109 of the journals of that year.

In 1837, an act was passed, entitled, “An act to take the sense of the people of this Territory on the policy and propriety of becoming a State," a copy of which act is to be found in the journals of that

year.

The proclamation of the Governor, showing that the popular vote, under this law, exhibited in an aggregate vote of 3485, a majority of more than one thousand, is respectfully referred to. In 1838, the Legislative Council again took action on this subject, in affirmation of the popular will, and reference is respectfully made to the proceedings in the journal of that year. In compliance with a law enacted for that purpose, elections were held in every County in the Territory, in October 1838, for Delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

In December, of the same year, that Convention assembled at St. Joseph, and adopted a Constitution in behalf of the people of Florida, to which and to the journals of the Convention, reference is respectfully made. Under an order of the Convention, a memorial was transmitted to Congress in behalf of the people of Florida, demanding admission as a State, which was read in the House of Representatives on February 20th, 1839, laid on the table, and ordered to be printed. It will be found in Document 208, of the House of Representatives U. S., 3d session, 25th Congress. In May, 1839, the Constitution, formed at St. Joseph, was submitted to the people, and was accepted and ratified by them, as appears from the proclamation of the President of the Convention, and the official statement of the votes hereto annexed. In 1840 and 1841, proceedings were again had in the Legislative Council, with a view of urging upon the notice of Congress, our application for admission, which proceedings, with the reports of committees, will be found in the journals of those years.— In 1842, a requisition was made upon a special committee, appointed by the St. Joseph Convention, by more than one-third of the members of that Convention, to re-assemble the Convention under a resolution of that body, which provided for its re-assembling in the event of our rejection by Congress. The call was, however, not made by All these documents, with

the committee; a copy is annexed hereto. the exception of the one last mentioned, have been heretofore laid before Congress, besides many memorials from the people in their primary assemblies. It will be thus seen that it is no fault of the people of Florida that the National Government have not been ere this relieved of the burden of maintaining the Territorial institution, and that they have not shown themselves unworthy of the blessings of a free government, by a contented submission to the condition of dependence and vassalage, which it has been their lot to endure.The appeals to Congress for the acknowledgment of our rights, so urgently and so repeatedly made, have not heretofore been effective. Our prayers and memorials have hitherto scarcely elicited notice, and no action whatever has resulted from them.

Once more the people of Florida, through their representatives, present their claim for admission into the Union of the States, at the present session of Congress.

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They will not permit themselves to believe that your honorable bodies will disallow the force of the treaty obligations, by which the United States as a part of the consideration by which they acquired the dominion of this Territory, solemnly undertook to admit the people of Florida into the Union as soon as possible, consistent with the principles of the Federal Canstitution. They will not fear that the representatives of the people of the United States will doom to an indefinite exclusion from the blessings of self-government a kindred people, taught by their example to value liberty as the highest earthly good, nor by continued wrong and injustice try too severely the forbearance and long suffering of those who have been brought up in that school in which it is taught that the right of self-government is inalienable and indestructible.

PREAMBLE AND RESOLUTIONS.

WHEREAS, in pursuance of an act of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida, entitled, An Act to call a Convention for the purpose of organizing a State Government, passed 3d January, 1838, and approved Feb. 2d, of the same year, the several Delegates elected by the people from the different Counties of the Territory, did assemble at St. Joseph, according to the provisions of said act, on Monday, the 3d day of December, 1838, for the purpose of devising and adopting the most efficient and proper measures for the formation and establishment of an independent State Government for the people of Florida, and to form and adopt a bill of Rights and Constitution for the same, and all needful measures preparatory for the admission of Florida into the National Confederacy: And whereas, the intention of the Legislative Council, and the wishes of the people, were carried out and complied with by said Convention, in the formation and adoption of a Constitution, which, in order to test more fully the sentiments of the people of Florida on the subject of State Government, was submitted to them in the year 1839: And whereas, said Constitution was confirmed by a majority of the legally qualified voters of this Territory: And whereas, the application of the Territory of Iowa for admission into the Union at the present session, renders it a duty which the people of Florida owe to the whole South, as well as to themselves, to urge their right to admission without further delay. We therefore conceive it necessary, expedient, and wise, to throw off our Territorial vassalage, and assume an independent State Government, not only from motives of policy, but from the repeated declarations of the will of the people on this subject. And in order to do so, that an early application should be made to the Congress of the United States for the admission of Florida into the Union as a sovereign and independent State:

1. Be it therefore Resolved by the Governor and Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida, That our Delegate in Congress be requested to submit again the Constitution adopted at St. Joseph, and subsequently ratified by the people of Florida, to the Congress of

the United States, and to urge upon that body its reception, and the desire of the people of Florida to be admitted into the National Confederacy as an independent State, at an early period of the present. session.

2. Resolved, secondly, That a copy of this Preamble and Resolutions be forwarded to the Hon. David Levy, properly certified by both Houses.

STATE OF FLORIDA.

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WHEREAS, the People of Florida assembled in Convention at the city of Saint Joseph, on Monday, the third day of December, A. D. 1838, to devise and adopt the most efficient, speedy, and proper measures for the formation and establishment of an Independent State Government, for the People of Florida, and to form and adopt a Bill of Rights, and a Constitution for the same, and needful measures, preparatory to the admission of Florida into the National Confederacy,' in pursuance of an Act of the Governor and Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida, approved February 2d, 1838, did form, and on the 11th day of January, 1839, did adopt a Bill of Rights, and a 'Constitution or form of Government for the People of Florida:' And whereas, in pursuance of the 5th section of Article XVII of said Constitution, designated therein the Schedule and Ordnance,' said Constitution was submitted to the People for ratification, at the election for Delegate on the first Monday of May, 1839, and was duly ratified by a majority of the votes of the People, and proclamation was duly made of such ratification, according to the provisions of said Constitution: And whereas, the People of Florida, assembled in Convenvention as aforesaid, respectfully memorialized the Congress of the United States for admission as a free, sovereign, and Independent State, into the National Confederacy: And whereas, the People of Florida have, in divers modes and ways, since the adoption and ratification of said Constitution, otherwise respectfully asked of Congress the recognition of their rights to such admission, under the stipulations of the Treaty between Spain and the United States, ceding the Floridas to the latter: And whereas, the Territorial Legislature have also repeatedly, in behalf of the People of Florida, made similar requests of the Federal Government: And whereas, the aforesaid memorials, applications and requests, have been treated with inexcusable neglect by the Congress of the United States, and it has been hitherto omitted and refused by Congress to admit Florida into the Union as a State: And whereas, said Convention, by the same 5th clause of the XVIIth article of said Constitution aforesaid, did ordain, that "in case the Constitution be ratified by the People, and immediately after official information shall have been received that Congress have approved the Constitution, and provided for the admission of Florida, the President of this Convention shall issue writs of election to the proper officers of the different Counties, enjoining them to cause an election to be held for Governor, Representative in