Mr. Houston submitted the following resolution for consideration; which was read, and ordered to be printed:
Whereas the Congress of the United States, possessing only a delegated authority, have no power over the subject of negro slavery within the limits of the United States, either to prohibit or interfere with it in the States, Territories, or District where, by municipal law, it now exists, or to establish it in any State or territory where it does not exist; but, as an assurance and guaranty to promote harmony, quiet apprehension, and remove sectional prejudice, which, by possibility, might impair or weaken love and devotion to the Union in any part of the country, it is hereby
Resolved, That, as the people in Territories have the same inherent right of self-government as the people in the States, that if, in the exercise of such inherent right, the people in the newly acquired territories, by the annexation of Texas and the acquisition of California and New Mexico, south of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude, extending to the Pacific ocean; shall establish negro slavery or prohibit it, that such establishment or prohibition of negro slavery, in the formation of their State governments, shall be deemed no objection to their admission as State or States into the Union, in accordance with the constitution of the United States.
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