keepers, etc.

For the compensation of the door-keepers, messengers, Pay of doorpages, policemen and watchmen of the senate and house of ⚫ representatives, a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars. For the clerks of the senate and house of representatives, Clerks. two hundred dollars.

For the compensation of the chaplains of the senate and Chaplains. of the house of representatives, a sum not exceeding forty dollars.

For postage, printing and stationery for the governor and Executive decouncil, in addition to the sum heretofore appropriated for patent, exthe current year, a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars.

Approved May 23, 1861.

penses.

RESOLVES,

SECOND SESSION,

1861.

Chap. 106 RESOLVE MAKING AN APPROPRIATION FOR PLATES, PAPER AND PRINT

ING OF SCRIP TO BE ISSUED BY THE COMMONWEALTH.

Resolved, That the treasurer and receiver-general of the Commonwealth be, and he is hereby authorized to procure such plates, paper and printing, as may be necessary in the preparation of the scrip of the Commonwealth which may be issued under authority of the general court, and that a sum not exceeding three thousand dollars is hereby appropriated to meet the expenses thereof, under the direction of the governor and council.

Approved May 23, 1861.

Chap. 107 RESOLVE FIXING THE COMPENSATION OF MEMBERs and officers of

THE LEGISLATURE AT THE PRESENT SESSION.

Resolved, That there shall be allowed and paid out of the treasury of the Commonwealth, to each member of the legislature who has been in attendance during the present session, the sum of three dollars per day; the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives shall receive double the compensation above provided for senators and representatives. There shall be allowed and paid to the clerks of the senate and house of representatives the sum of one hundred dollars each for the present session; to the chaplains of the senate and house of representatives, two dollars per day; to each door-keeper and messenger, three dollars per day; to each page, two dollars per day; and to each watchman one dollar per day, in addition to his salary, for every day he is employed during the session: provided, that there shall be deducted from the compensation of each member, three dollars for each day's absence during the session. Approved May 23, 1861.

ADDRESS

OF

HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR.

At one o'clock, on the day of assembling, His Excellency the Governor, accompanied by the members of the Executive Council and officers of the civil and military departments of the Government, attended by a Joint Committee of the two branches, met the Senate and House of Rep resentatives, in Convention, and delivered the following

ADDRESS.

Gentlemen of the Senate and

the House of Representatives:

The occasion demands action, and it shall not be delayed by speech. Nor do either the people or their representatives need or require to be stimulated by appeals or convinced by arguments. A grand era has dawned-inaugurated by the present great and critical exigency of the Nation, through which it will providentially and triumphantly pass, and soon emerging from apparent gloom will breathe a freer inspiration in the assured consciousness of vitality and power. Confident of our ultimate future, confident in the principles and ideas of democratic republican government, in the capacity, conviction, and manly purpose of the American people, wherever liberty exists and republican government is administered under the purifying and instructing power of free opinion and free debate, I perceive nothing now about us which ought to discourage the good or to alarm the brave.

But the occurrence of public events universally known and needing no repetition here, has compelled the constitutional government of our Federal Union to assert its rightful powers for the protection of its own integrity, and the maintenance of the honor, rights and liberties of the

whole people, by an appeal to the stout hearts and the strong right arms of all loyal States and patriotic men.

Massachusetts, by the unanimous acclaim of her million and a quarter of people, has already inspired every department of her own public service with her traditional sentiment of perfect devotion to the cause of that common country which her successive generations have helped either to create or to support. And it is now only with a view to securing the aid and coöperation of the legislative branch, and in order to carry out more perfectly and more consistently with the system of our constitutional distribution of powers the measures requisite to a full performance of our duty as a State of the Union, that I have ventured to recall the members of the General Court from their private duties, so speedily after the close of a laborious session.

Gentlemen,-This is no war of sections,-no war of North on South. It is waged to avenge no former wrongs, nor to perpetuate ancient griefs or memories of conflict. It is the struggle of the People to vindicate their own rights, to retain and invigorate the institutions of their fathers, the majestic effort of a National Government to vindicate its power and execute its functions for the welfare and happiness of the whole, and therefore while I do not forget, I will not name to-day that "subtle poison" which has lurked always in our national system, and I remember also at this moment, that even in the midst of rank and towering rebellion, under the very shadow of its torch and axe, there are silent but loyal multitudes of citizens of the South who wait for the national power to be revealed and its protecting flag unfurled for their own deliverance.

The guns pointed at Fort Sumter on the 12th day of April, while they reduced the material edifice and made prisoners of its garrison, announced to ANDERSON and his men their introduction into the noble army of heroes of American history; and the cannon of the fort, as they saluted the American flag, when the vanquished garrisonunconquerable in heart-retired from the scene, saluted the immortal Stripes and Stars, flaming out in ten times ten thousand resurrections of the flag of Sumter, on hill-top, staff and spire, hailed by the shouts and the joyful tears of twenty millions of freemen.

The proclamation of the President, summoning the rebels to disperse and the loyal militia to rally to the support of the national capital menaced by secessionists, was immediately followed, in this State, by a movement of four regimental commands of infantry, a battalion of rifles, and

another of light artillery, (all from the "Active Volunteer Militia" of Massachusetts,) which under all its circumstances of celerity of motion, promptness of obedience and brilliancy of results, is unexampled in any thing I remember elsewhere of the conduct of citizen soldiery. The telegraphic call from the Department at Washington for two regiments, reached the Executive of Massachusetts on the morning of Monday, the 15th of April, and was soon expanded into a call for four regiments. Availing ourselves of the organization happily existing in this Commonwealth partially prepared for active duty, and of the flexibility of our militia system; and with the aid of the legislation of this year, permitting its indefinite numerical enlargement and the expansion of its companies to the full army size of sixty-four privates; together with the steps already taken to anticipate possible exigencies of the sort, and with the advantages of previous drill, discipline and moral preparation induced by means of a general order promulgated to the militia in the month of January,-the patriotic ardor and generous devotion of the people found means of efficient and prompt response. The telegraphic messages from Washington convinced me that no small reliance was placed on this Commonwealth to be early in the field; and moreover that no delay whatever would be consistent with the urgent demands of the public safety. Nor was any delay permitted. Every officer, civil and military, according to his position and means of usefulness, and many private citizens, with various aid, coöperated with the commander-in-chief; and by nine o'clock on the Sabbath morning following the Monday on which the first telegram was received, the whole number of regiments demanded from Massachusetts were already either in Washington, or in Fortress Monroe, or on their way to the defence of the national capital. Col. Jones, at the head of the regimental command of which the Sixth Regiment of the Massachusetts line was the nucleus, had already cut his way through a hostile and assailing force. His men shedding their blood in the streets of Baltimore, and illustrating the quality of our arms by a movement as skilful as it was brave, had extricated themselves from their sudden and strange peril, and were already steadying the government and actually garrisoned in the senate chamber of the Union. Gen. Butler, gallantly following as rapidly as possible in company with the regiment under Munroe, to assume command in his capacity of brigadier over the Massachusetts men, had reached Philadelphia, where he heard of the attack upon the Sixth, while it was