over which Congress has exclusive jurisdiction, and all kinds of property shall be entitled to like and equal protection therein by the several departments of the General Government.

5. New States formed out of territory now belonging to the United States, or which may be hereafter acquired, shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people thereof may determine at the time of admission.

6. Congress shall have no power to prohibit or interfere with the slave-trade between the States, nor to prohibit citizens of the United States passing through or temporarily sojourning in the District of Columbia from having with them their slaves and carrying them away, but it shall be the duty of Congress to provide by law for the punishment of all persons who may interfere with this right in the same way as is provided for in the foregoing third proposition.

7. No State shall pass any law to prohibit the citizens of any other States traveling or temporarily sojourning therein from carrying their slaves and returning with them; and it shall be a penal offense, definable by Congress and punishable by the Federal courts, for any person to entice away or harbor, or attempt to entice away or harbor, the slave or slaves of such citizen so traveling or temporarily sojourning.

8. The obligation to surrender fugitives from justice as provided for under the Constitution of the United States extends and shall be held to extend as well to fugitives charged with offenses connected with or committed against slavery or slave property as to any other class of offenses, and for the purposes of this proposition whatever is defined to be a criminal offense in one State shall be deemed and held a criminal offense in every other State.

9. The Supreme Court having decided that negroes are not citizens of the United States, no person of African descent shall be permitted to vote for Federal officers nor to hold any office or appointment under the Government of the United States.

SEC. 4. Be it further ordained, &c., That refraining from any formal demand upon those slave-holding States which have passed them of the repeal of the personal liberty and other acts in any wise militating against the rendition of fugitive slaves, or fugitives from justice, yet the State of Georgia hereby announces her unalterable determination not to remain permanently in confederation with those States unless they shall purge their statute books of all such acts.

SEC. 5. Be it further ordained, &c., That if between now and the time of final action upon the question of her continuance in the Union the General Government should attempt to coerce any one of the States that have recently withdrawn, or shall hereafter withdrawn therefrom, the State of Georgia will make common cause with such States, and hereby pledges all her resources for their protection and defense.

SEC. 6. Be it further ordained, &c., That the State of Georgia will continue to hold until her final decision in the premises the possession of Fort Pulaski and all other Federal property within her borders which have been seized under the direction and authority of His Excellency the Governor of this State.

SEC. 7. Be it further ordained, &c., That a commissioner be appointed by this convention to each of the slave-holding States now members of the Federal Union, to inform them of the action of Georgia and to urge their conformity to the policy herein indicated; and that in response to the request of Alabama this convention will also appoint a commissioner to the convention which she has invited at Montgomery on the 4th of February next, who is hereby instructed to urge upon that convention so to shape their action as to conform to and co-operate with that of the proposed congress Atlanta on the 16th day of the same month.

SEC. 8. Be it further ordained, &c., That if all effort fail to secure the rights of the State of Georgia in the Union and she is reluctantly compelled to resume her separate independence she will promptly and cordially unite with the other Southern States similarly situated in the formation of a Southern confederacy upon the basis of the present Constitution of the United States.

SEC. 9. Be it further ordained, &c., That this convention will adjourn, to meet again on the 5th day of February next, to take such action in the premises as may be required by the proceedings of the congress at Atlanta and the development of intervening events, keeping steadfastly in view the rights, equality, and safety of Georgia and her unalterable determination to maintain them at all hazards and to the last extremity.

After and elaborate discussion, in which Messrs. Nisbet, Johnson of Jefferson, Cobb, Stephens of Taliaferro, Toombs, Means, Reese, Hill of Troup, and Bartow participated, a call was made for the previous question, which, being sustained under the ruling of the chair, cut off the motion to commit and a vote on the substitute, and brought the