[Maryland]:

$750 · Offered by William Reese Company

RESOLUTIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL RELATIONS OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES OF MARYLAND, WITH SENATE AMENDMENTS. EXTRA SESSION, 1861. A significant publication setting forth Maryland's positions on the South's secession and the constitutionality of the Union's response in the early weeks of the Civil War. Maryland allowed slavery and held a strategically important position near Washington and on the border between North and South. Despite significant popular support for the Confederacy, Maryland ultimately decided to remain part of the Union. The resolutions printed here emerged after a special legislative session of the general assembly called by Governor Hicks and held in April in Frederick, a strongly pro-Union town (as opposed to the capital, Annapolis). The report notes that "the war now waged by the Government of the United States upon the people of the Confederate States, is unconstitutional in its origin, purposes and conduct..." and that Maryland resolves, owing "to her own self-respect and her respect for the Constitution, not less than to her deepest and most honorable sympathies, to register this, her solemn protest, against the war which the Federal Government has declared upon the Confederate States of the South, and our sister and neighbor Virginia, and to announce her resolute determination to have no part or lot, directly or indirectly, in its prosecution." They also protest the "present military occupation of Maryland" but, in the wake of the Pratt Street Ri

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.