[Texas]: [Confederate Imprint]:

House of Representatives, Jan. 19, 1865 -- Laid on the Table, and Ordered to Be Printed. Resolutions of the State of Texas, Concerning Peace, Reconstruction, and Independence [caption title].

[Richmond, Va.]: January 19, 1865. 3pp., printed on a single folded sheet. Minor toning and wear. Very good. Item #4902

A defiant screed issued by the Confederate House of Representative in January 1865, printing eight resolutions by the Texas Legislature passed in November 1864 to be presented to the President of the Confederate States should a "re-union" between the Confederacy and the Union occur at the end of the Civil War. Paramount among the Texas House's concerns is their insistence that an amendment be made to the U.S. Constitution that "will forever guarantee the institution of African slavery in the States in this Confederacy." The third resolution prints a familiar refrain in which the Texas House argues that their secession from the Union was not motivated "upon any questions such as the mere preservation of the slave property of their citizens," but rather in order to "preserve their freedom and their sovereignty" (i.e., state's rights). Further, in this same resolution, the Texas legislature warns that they "are still unwavering in their resolution to preserve their freedom and their sovereignty, without which all else is valueless."

Other resolutions cover trade with foreign powers, the South's unfavorable opinion of Abraham Lincoln ("a Chief Magistrate with the purpose that he should destroy our liberties in disregard to the Constitution"), the South's inability to accept reconciliation with the North, and proposes that any end to the Civil War must begin with the U.S. government "making their proposition to the Government of the Confederate States, which alone can entertain it." Resolution five contains fiery language cataloguing the "inhumanities of this war," which concludes with an unsurprising but nonetheless eye-opening accusation: "Lying to themselves and pretending to the rest of the world that they are fighting the battle of freedom for four millions of happy and contented negroes, they are attempting the enslavement of eight millions of freedmen. With devilish mockery of philanthropy. they have deluded and dragged these negroes from their comfortable homes to use them as screens from our weapons in the day of battle, and they have sent them by thousands to painful death by neglect, exposure and starvation."

Price: $650