Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1862-07-28

border sIaveholding States should publicly an
nounce the motives under which they were COM
PEELED to act. and the considerations of public
policy urged upon them and their constituents by
the President.
With a view to such a statement of their posi-
ton, the members thus addressed met in council
to deliberate on the reply they should make to
the President. and, as the result of a comparison
of opinions among themselves, they determined
upon tho adoption of a majority and a minority
answer.
REPLY OF THE MAJORITY.
The following paper was yesterday sent to the
President, signed by the majority of the Repre-
sentatives FROM the border slave States:
WASHINGTON, July Ia, 1862.
To the President:
The undersigned, Representatives Of Kentucky,
Virginia, Missouri and Maryland. in the two Hou-
ses of Congress. have listened to your address
with the profound sensibility naturally inspired
by the high source from which it emanates, the
earnestness which marked its delivery, and the
overwhelming importance of the subject of which
it treats. We have given il a most respectful
consideration. and now lay before you our re
Spouse. We regret that want of time has not
permitted US to make il more perfect.
We have not been wanting. Mr.. President, in
respect to you. and in devotion to the Constitu-
ton and the Union. We have not beeen indifer-
ent to the great difficulties surrounding you. CON-
pared with which all former national troubles
have been as a summer cloud; and we have freely
given you our sympathy and support. Repudia-
ting the dangerous heresies OF the secessioIists,
we believed with you that the war on their part
is aggressive and wicked, and the objects for
which il was to be prosecuted on ours, defined by
your message at the opening of the present Con
gress, TO be such as all good men should approve,
we have not hesitated to vote all supplies for car
rying it on vigorously. We have voted all the
men and monty you have asked for, and even
more: we have imposed enormous taxes ON our
people, and they are paying them with cheerful
ness and alacrity; we have encouraged enlist
ments, and sent to the field many OF our best
men; and some of our number have offered their
persons to the enemy a. pledges of their sincerity
and devotion to country. We have done all this
under the most discouraging circumstances, and
in the face of measures most distasteful to US,
and injurious to the interests we represent, and in
the hearing of doctrines avowed by those who
claim to be your friends, most abhorrent to us
and our constituents. But, Tor all this, We have
never faltered, nor shall we as long as we have a
Constitution TO defend ana a Government which
protects us. And we are ready for renewed eff
forts, and even greater sacrihces-yea, any sac
rifice-when we are satisfied il is require. to
preserve our admirable form of government,
and the priceless blessings OF constitutional lib
erty.
4 few of our number voted for the resolution
recommended by your message of the 9th of
March last; the greater portion OF US did not, and
we will briefly state the prominent reasons which
influenced our action.
In the first place, it proposed a radical change
of our social system. and was hurried through
both Houses with undue haste. without reasona
BILE time for consideration and debate. and with
-. - - II g.. ,an lf.fia urffh nnr onpefffa
ents, whose interests il deeply involved. 1t
seemed like an interference by this Government
with a question which peculiarly and exclusively
belonged to our respective States, on which they
had not sought advice or solicited aid. Many
of us doubted the constitutional power of this
Government to mike appropriations of money
for the object designated, and all okus thought
oCr finances were in no condition to bear the
immense outlay which its adoption and faithful
execution would impose upon the national trea-
sury. If we pause but a moment to think OF the
debt its acceptance would have entailed, we are
appalled, by its magnitude. The proposition was
addressed to all the States, and embraced the
whole number of slaves. According to the cen
sus Of 1860 there were then very nearly four
millions of slaves in the country; from natural
increase they exceed that number now. AT even
the low average of three hundred dollars, the
price fixed by the emancipation act for the .laves
Vi tnS DlSulCbs dhu SiCd1is OOiV" NhSh iC"i
worth, their value runs up to the enormous sum
of twelve hundred millions of dollars; and if to
that we add the cost of deportation and colonial
ton. at one hundred dollars each. which is but a
fraction more than is actually paid by the Mary
land Colonization Society, we have four hundred
million more! We were not willing to impose Il
tax on our people sufficient to pay the interest on
that sum, in addition 10 the vast and daily in
creasing debt already fixed upon them by the ex-
igencies of the war; and, if we had been willing.
the country could not bear it. Stated in this
form, the proposition is nothing less than the de
,pnrtation from the country of sixteen hundred
million dollars worth of producing labor, and
the substitution in its place OF an nterest-bearing
debt of the same amount!
But if we are told that it was expected that
only the States we represent would accept the
proposition, we respectfully submit that even then
it involves a sum too great for the financial abil-
ity of this Government at this time. According
to the census of 1860