id laws.

"2. That all State laws which conflict with the Fugitive Slave Acts of
Congress, or any other Constitutional Acts of Congress, or which, in
their operation, impede, hinder, or delay, the free course and due
execution of any of said Acts, are null and void by the plain provisions
of the Constitution of the United States; yet those State laws, void as
they are, have given color to practices, and led to consequences, which
have obstructed the due administration and execution of Acts of
Congress, and especially the Acts for the delivery of Fugitive Slaves;
and have thereby contributed much to the discord and commotion now
prevailing. Congress, therefore, in the present perilous juncture, does
not deem it improper, respectfully and earnestly, to recommend the
repeal of those laws to the several States which have enacted them, or
such legislative corrections or explanations of them as may prevent
their being used or perverted to such mischievous purposes.

"3. That the Act of the 18th of September, 1850, commonly called the
Fugitive Slave Law, ought to be so amended as to make the fee of the
Commissioner, mentioned in the eighth section of the Act, equal in
amount in the cases decided by him, whether his decision be in favor of,
or against the claimant. And, to avoid misconstruction, the last clause
of the fifth section of said Act, which authorizes the person holding a
warrant for the arrest or detention of a Fugitive Slave to summon to his
aid the posse comitatus, and which declares it to be the duty of all
good citizens to assist him in its execution, ought to be so amended as
to expressly limit the authority and duty to cases in which there shall
be resistance, or danger of resistance or rescue.

"4. That the laws for the suppression of the African Slave Trade, and
especially those prohibiting the importation of Slaves into the United
States, ought to be more effectual, and ought to be thoroughly executed;
and all further enactments necessary to those ends ought to be promptly
made."

The Peace Conference, or "Congress," it may here be mentioned, was
called, by action of the Legislature of Virginia, to meet at Washington,
February 4, 1861. The invitation was extended to all of such "States of
this Confederacy * * * whether Slaveholding or Non-Slaveholding, as are
willing to unite with Virginia in an earnest effort to adjust the
present unhappy controversies in the spirit in which the Constitution
wa