“Whereas, the right of search has never been yielded to Great Britain,” and the brig Creole has not been surrendered by the British authorities, etc., therefore,

Sec. 1. “Be it resolved by the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, That ... the right of search cannot be conceded to Great Britain without a manifest servile submission, unworthy a free nation....

Sec. 2. “Resolved, That any attempt to detain and search our vessels, by British cruisers, should be held and esteemed an unjustifiable outrage on the part of the Queen’s Government; and that any such outrage, which may have occurred since Lord Aberdeen’s note to our envoy at the Court of St. James, of date October thirteen, eighteen hundred and forty-one, (if any,) may well be deemed, by our Government, just cause of war.”

Sec. 3. “Resolved, That the Legislature of the State, in view of the late murderous insurrection of the slaves on board the Creole, their reception in a British port, the absolute connivance at their crimes, manifest in the protection extended to them by the British authorities, most solemnly declare their firm conviction that, if the conduct of those authorities be submitted to, compounded for by the payment of money, or in any other manner, or atoned for in any mode except by the surrender of the actual criminals to the Federal Government, and the delivery of the other identical slaves to their rightful owner or owners, or his or their agents, the slaveholding States would have most just cause to apprehend that the American flag is powerless to protect American property; that the Federal Government is not sufficiently energetic in the maintenance and preservation of their peculiar rights; and that these rights, therefore, are in imminent danger.”

Sec. 4. Resolved, That restitution should be demanded “at all hazards.” House Doc., 27 Cong. 2 sess.  IV.  No. 215.

1842, March 21.  Congress (House):  Giddings’s Resolutions.

Mr. Giddings moved the following resolutions:—­

Sec. 5. “Resolved, That when a ship belonging to the citizens of any State of this Union leaves the waters and territory of such State, and enters upon the high seas, the persons on board cease to be subject to the slave laws of such State, and therefore are governed in their relations to each other by, and are amenable to, the laws of the United States.”

Sec. 6. Resolved, That the slaves in the brig Creole are amenable only to the laws of the United States.

Sec. 7. Resolved, That those slaves by resuming their natural liberty violated no laws of the United States.

Sec. 8. Resolved, That all attempts to re-enslave them are unconstitutional, etc.

Moved that these resolutions lie on the table; defeated, 53 to 125.  Mr. Giddings withdrew the resolutions.  Moved to censure Mr. Giddings, and he was finally censured. House Journal, 27 Cong. 2 sess. pp. 567-80.