March 18, 1863 resolution of the New Jersey Legislature

New Jersey War Protesters

From and article entitled "The Protest of New Jersey" in Tyler's
Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, October 1931. It is
about a March 18, 1863 resolution of the New Jersey Legislature.

"Be it resolved by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of
New Jersey, that . . . the matured and deliberate sense of the
people of New Jersey may be known and declared, we their
representatives . . . make unto the Federal Government this our
solemn

PROTEST

Against a war waged with the insurgent States for the acomplishment
of unconstitutional or partisan purposes; Against a war which has
for its object the subjection of any of the States, with a view to
their reduction to a territorial condition;

Against Proclamations from any source by which, under the plea
of "military necessity," persons in States and Teritories sustaining
the Federal Government, and beyond necessary military lines, are
held liable to the rigor and severity of military laws; Against the
domination of the military over the civil law in States,
Territories, or Districts not in a state of insurrection; Against
all arrests without warrants; against the suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus in States and Territories sustaining the Federal
Government . . .; Against the creation of new States by the division
of existing ones or in any other manner not clearly authorized by
the Constitution, and against the right of secession as practically
admitted by the action of Congress in admitting as a new state a
portion of the State of Virginia . . ."

The Resolution then called for a peace conference with the
Confederates, which of course was ignored.