Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1857-04-09
Resolutions Of the Republican State
Convention.

Judge KELLEY from the Committee on
Resolutions made the following report, viz :
This Convention of Delegates, representing
the Freemcn of Pennsylvania, opposed to the
leading measures of the late National Admin
istration, and the continuance of the same de-
structve policy clearly foreshadowed by the
acts and declarations of the administration lust
inaugurated, do
ReS0lre, That the maintainance of the prn-
ciples promulgated in the declaration of Inde-
pendence, and embodied in the Federal Con-
stitution is essential to the preservation of our
Republican institutions that the Federal Con
stitution, the liberties of the people, the sove-
reign rights of the States, and the Union of
the States, must and shall be preserved
Resoieed, That with our Republican fathers.
we hold it to be self-evident truth, that ali
men are created equal that they are endow-
ed by their Creator with certain ir.alienahIe
rights that among these are lifG, liberty a, d
the pursuit of happiness thGt to secure these
rights, COVE nments are instituted among men :
and that the primary dnty and object of our
Federal Government is to secure these rights
to all persons urder its exclusive jurisdiction
That as our Republican fathers abolished sa-
very in all the national territory, and ordan-
eel lii the Constitution that no person shall
be deprived of life, liberty or property, with
out due process of law, it becomes our duty to
maintain this provision of the Constitution
against all attempts to violate it, for the pur-
pose of establishing slavery in the territories
of the United States That we deny the au-
thority of Congress, of the Supreme Court, of
q Territorial Legislature, of any individual or
o;o Of ipI TO rr,-
tence to Slavery in any territory of the Unit
ed States, while the Constitution shall be
maintained
Rcs0ired, That the Constitution confers up
on Congress sovereign power over the Terri
tories of the United States, for their govern
ment a power not controverted for the first
sixty years of our national existence, but exer-
cised by the general concurrence of all depart
mentS of the Government, through every Ad-
ministratiOn from WASHINGTON to Polk ; and
that in the exercise of this unquestionable po-
wer, it is the duty of Congress to prohibit in
the Territories, those twin relics of barbarism
polvgamy and slavery.
Resoired THAT WE ARE YET FREEMEN, and
that while we retain the nestimabe rights of
Frecmen, secured to us by the sacrifices, suf-
ferings and blood of our Revolutionary fathers,
we will not submit to have a new Constitution
imposed upon us by the extra,judcial opinions
of Judges of the Supreme Court-opinions
subverSive of the rights of human nature-in
conflict with the truth of history, with the un-
broken action of the government and the law
of the land, as heretofore pronounced by the
Federal Judiciary, and the Courts of nearly
every State in the American Union
RcSoirtd, That the recent opinions of the
majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court,
in case over which they decided the Court
had no jurisdiction and, therefore, no authori-
ty to pronounce the law arising therein is but
another step in conSummatiOn of that conspira-
cy against our free institutions, which had its
inception in the repeal of the Missouri Com
promise that it is the direct result of the late
triumph of the Slave Power in the election of
its candidate, JAMES BUCHANAN to the Pres
dency, and unless promptly rebuked by the
people at the hallot-boX, may be followed by
other usurpations fatal to thc independence of
the Free States and the liberties of our people
Rcsoirg1 That the constitutionalrights of the
people of Kansas have been fraudently aud vi
oently taken from them. Their territory has
been invaded by an armed force spurious and
pretended legislative judicial and executive
officers have been set over them, by whose
usurped authority, sustained by the military
power of the Federal Government, tyrannical
and unconstitutional laws have been enacted
and enforced the right of the people to keep
and Lear arNs has been infringed test oaths
of an extraordinary and entangling nature have
been imposed as condition of exercising the
right of suffrage and holding Office tie right
of an accused person to speedy anu public