Stirring Message of the Governor-Peace Resolutions-Counter Resolutions -Majority and Minority Reports of the Committee on Federal Relations -Prorogation-Decision of the Supreme Court.

Governor-Richard Yates.

Lieutenant-Governor-Francis A. Hoffman.

Secretary of State-O. M. Hatch.

Auditor of Public Accounts-Jesse K. Dubois.

Treasurer-Alexander Starne.

Superintendent of Public Instruction-John P. Brooks.

TWENTY-THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

The Twenty-third General Assembly convened January 5, and consisted of the following members:

SENATE.

Wm. H. Green, Massac.
Hugh Gregg, Williamson.
I. Blanchard, Jackson.
J. M. Rodgers, Clinton.
*W. A. J. Sparks, Clinton.
W. H. Underwood, St. Clair.
L. E. Worcester, Greene.
H. M. Vandeveer, Christian.
S. Moffat, Effingham.
Jos. Peters, Vermilion.
Isaac Funk, McLean.
Colby Knapp, Logan.
H. E. Dummer, Cass.

HOUSE OF

James H. Smith, Union.
T. B. Hicks, Massac.
Jas. B. Turner, Gallatin.
Jas. W. Sharp, Wabash.
H. M. Williams, Jefferson.
J. M.Washburn, Williamson.
Jesse R. Ford, Clinton.
S. W. Miles, Monroe.
E. Menard, Randolph.
J. W. Merritt, Marion.
Jas. M. Heard, Wayne.
D. W. Odell, Crawford.
J. W. Wescott, Clay.
R. H. McCann, Fayette.
C. L. Conger, White.
J. B. Underwood, St. Clair.
John Thomas, St. Clair.
S. A. Buckmaster, Madison.
Wm. Watkins, Bond.
P. Daugherty, Clark.
Reuben Roessler, Shelby.
G. F. Coffeen, Montgomery.

*Seat contested.

B. T. Schofield, Hancock.
Wm. Berry, McDonough.
Albert C. Mason, Knox.
John T. Lindsay, Peoria.
W. Bushnell, LaSalle.
A. W. Mack, Kankakee.
Edward R. Allen, Kane.
D. Richards, Whiteside.
T. J. Pickett, Rock Island.
J. H. Addams, Stephenson.
Cornelius Lansing, McHenry.
Wm. B. Ogden, Cook.
Jasper D. Ward, Cook.

REPRESENTATIVES.

A. M. Miller, Logan.
C. A. Keyes, Sangamon.
C. A. Walker, Macoupin.
John N. English, Jersey.
Wm. B. Witt, Greene.
Scott Wike, Pike.
Albert G. Burr, Scott.
James M. Epler, Cass.
Lyman Lacey, Menard.
J. T. Springer, Morgan.
A. E. Wheat, Adams.
Wm. J. Brown, Adams.
Lewis G. Reid, McDonough.
Joseph Sharon, Schuyler.
Milton M. Morrill, Hancock.
Thos. B. Cabeen, Mercer.
Henry K. Peffer, Warren.
Joseph M. Holyoke, Knox.
John G. Graham, Fulton.
Simeon P. Shope, Fulton.
James Holgate, Stark.
Wm. W. O'Brien, Peoria.

Elias Wenger, Tazewell.
Harrison Noble, McLean.
Boynton Tenny, DeWitt.
John Tenbrook, Cales.
John Gerrard, Edgar.
John Monroe, Vermilion.
James Elder, Macon.
*Wm. N. Coler, Champaign.
+J. S. Busey, Champaign.
C. A. Lake, Kankakee.
Addison Goodell, Iroquois.
John W. Newport, Grundy.
Charles E. Boyer, Will.
IP. A. Armstrong, Grundy.
T. C. Gibson, LaSalle.
Mercy B. Patty, Livingston.
John O. Dent, LaSalle.
George Dent, Putnam.
J. A. Davis, Woodford.
Daniel R. Howe, Bureau.
Nelson Lay, Henry.
J. Kistler, Rock Island.

L. Smith, Whiteside.
Demas L. Harris, Lee.
James V. Gale, Ogle.
W. W. Sedgwick, DeKalb.
L. W. Lawrence, Boone.
Sylvester S. Mann, Kane.
Jacob P. Black, Kendall.
Elijah M. Haines, Lake.
T. B. Wakeman, McHenry.
S. M. Church, Winnebago.
H. C. Burchard, Stephenson.
Henry Green, Jo Daviess.
Jos. F. Chapman, Carroll.
A. S. Barnard, DuPage.
Ansel B. Cook, Cook.
Amos G. Throop, Cook.
Wm. E. Ginther, Cook.
Melville W. Fuller, Cook.
*George W. Gage, Cook.
$Michael Brandt, Cook.
Francis A. Eastman, Cook.
Lorenzo Brentano, Cook.

The Democrats had a majority in both branches. Lieutenant-Governor Hoffman presided over the Senate, and Manning Mayfield, of Massac, was elected Secretary, over L. H. Burnham, of Stephenson, by a vote of 13 to 10.

Samuel A. Buckmaster, of Madison, was elected Speaker of the House, over Luther W. Lawrence, of Boone, by a vote of 52 to 25, and John Q. Harmon, of Alexander, Clerk, over John C. Southwick, of Lake, by a vote of 53 to 25.

Among the new members of this General Assembly who were prominent, or attained prominence, were: Menard, Merritt, Conger, Thomas, Wike, Shope, O'Brien, Mann, Burchard, Fuller, Eastman, Brentano.

The Governor's message was laid before the two houses on the 6th of January. It contained the usual recommendations regarding needed legislation relating to the

several great interests of the State, but the greater portion of it was devoted to questions growing out of the war. Referring to National affairs, he said:

"In the new policy of emancipation thus inaugurated, I feel that it is of the utmost importance to meet and silence the prejudice which, for partisan purposes, is attempted to be excited against the alleged injurious effects of emancipation. It is not to be overlooked that there exists a degree of prejudice in the minds of the people, upon the subject of giving freedom to the slave, to which politicians appeal with fatal injury to the cause of that enlightened progress which has been so Providentially placed within the reach of the present generation. A grand opportunity is presented to us by the logic of events. By a wise and Christian policy we blot out a mighty wrong to one class of people now in bondage, and secure lasting peace and happiness to another.

am sure of two things: First-that when slavery is removed, this rebellion will die out, and not before. Second-I believe and predict, and commit the prediction in this State paper to meet the verdict of my successors in office, and of posterity, that the change brought about by the policy of emancipation will pass off in a way so quietly and so easily that the world will stand amazed that we should have entertained such fears of its evils.

"I demand the removal of slavery. In the name of my country, whose peace it has disturbed, and plunged into fearful civil war; in the name of the heroes it has slain; in the name of justice, whose highest tribunals it has corrupted and prostituted to its basest ends and purposes; in the name of Washington and Jefferson, and all the old patriots who struggled round about the camps of liberty, and who looked forward to the early extinction of slavery; in the name of progress, civilization and liberty, and in the name of God Almighty himself, I demand the utter and entire demolition of this heaven-cursed wrong of human bondage-this sole cause of the treason, death and misery which fill the land. Fear not the consequences, for the Almighty will uphold the arms of the hosts whose banners are blazoned with the glorious war-cry of liberty.

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Slavery removed, and we shall have peace-solid and enduring peace-and our Nation, entering upon a new career, will leap with a mighty bound to be the greatest and freest upon the face of the earth.

"I regret that appeals are being made to the masses by a few public presses in the country for separation from New England. Not a drop of New England blood courses my veins; still I should deem myself an object of commiseration and shame if I could forget her glorious history; if I could forget that the blood of her citizens freely commingled with that of my own ancestors upon those memorable fields which ushered in the millennium dawn of civil and religious liberty. I purpose not to be the eulogist of New England; but she is indissolubly bound to us by all the bright memories of the past, by all the glory of the present, by all the hopes of the future. I shall always glory in the fact that I belong to a republic in the galaxy of whose stars New England is among the brightest and best. Palsied be the hand that would sever the ties which bind the East and West."

The two houses met in joint session on the 12th of January and proceeded to elect a Senator of the United States to succeed Stephen A. Douglas, deceased. Wm. A. Richardson received 65 votes and Richard Yates 38. Richardson having received a majority of all the votes cast, the Speaker declared him the duly elected Senator.

This was not a harmonious body. We were then in the second year of the war, and there existed a radical difference between the respective parties relating to the measures employed by the National Government to overthrow the rebellion, and much of the time of the session was occupied in a violent and fruitless discussion of these questions; but that the reader may have a clear understanding of the spirit and temper of that assembly, we print the views of the respective parties on the questions at issue as they were presented by the majority and minority reports from the Committee on Federal Relations. The report of the majority was in these words:

"WHEREAS, The Union has no existence separate from the Federal Constitution, but, being created solely by that instrument, it can only exist by virtue thereof; and when the provisions of that Constitution are suspended, either in time of war or in peace, whether by the North or the South, it is alike disunion; and