"2. _Resolved_, That negro slavery, as it exists in fifteen
States of this Union, composes an important portion of their
domestic institutions, inherited from our ancestors, and
existing at the adoption of the Constitution, by which it is
recognized as constituting an important element in the
apportionment of powers among the States, and that no change of
opinion or feeling on the part of the non-slaveholding States of
the Union in relation to this institution can justify them or
their citizens in open or covert attacks thereon, with a view to
its overthrow; and that all such attacks are in manifest
violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to protect and defend
each other, given by the States respectively, on entering into
the constitutional compact which formed the Union, and are a
manifest breach of faith and a violation of the most solemn
obligations.
"3. _Resolved_, That the Union of these States rests on the
equality of rights and privileges among its members, and that it
is especially the duty of the Senate, which represents the
States in their sovereign capacity, to resist all attempts to
discriminate either in relation to persons or property in the
Territories, which are the common possessions of the United
States, so as to give advantages to the citizens of one State
which are not equally assured to those of every other State.
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