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1		SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 26
2		(As Amended by Senate Amendment Nos. 1 & 2)
3		WHEREAS, On February 27, 1861, in an attempt to avert the
4		secession of Southern states, United States Representative
5		Thomas Corwin of Ohio proposed an amendment to the United
6		States Constitution that would prohibit the United States
7		Constitution from being amended in a manner that authorizes
8		Congress to abolish or interfere with the states' domestic
9		institutions, including slavery; and
10		WHEREAS, On March 2, 1861, the Corwin Amendment was
11		approved by a joint resolution of the Thirty-Sixth United
12		States Congress (12 Stat. 251) and was submitted to the states
13		under Article V of the United States Constitution for
14		ratification with no deadline given for completion of its
15		ratification; and
16		WHEREAS, The Twenty-Third General Assembly of the State of
17		Illinois ratified the Corwin Amendment in "An Act ratifying a
18		certain amendment to the Constitution of the United States", in
19		force June 2, 1863 (Public Laws 1863, p. 41); and
20		WHEREAS, The Corwin Amendment has not yet been ratified by
21		three-fourths of the states and, therefore, is not part of the
22		United States Constitution at this time; and

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1		WHEREAS, It is still possible that a sufficient number of
2		states could belatedly ratify the Corwin Amendment thereby
3		adding it to the United States Constitution, as occurred with
4		the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was
5		first proposed in 1789 and was not ratified by a sufficient
6		number of states until 1992; and
7		WHEREAS, With the end of the Civil War and the ratification
8		of the actual 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution
9		in 1865, the purposes of the Corwin Amendment have become moot;
10		therefore, be it
11		RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL
12		ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
13		CONCURRING HEREIN, that the State of Illinois rescinds its 1863
14		ratification of the following proposition, known as the Corwin
15		Amendment to the United States Constitution:
16		"ARTICLE XIII.
17		No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will
18		authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or
19		interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions
20		thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by
21		the laws of said State."; and be it further

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1		RESOLVED, That certified copies of this resolution be
2		forwarded to the Archivist of the United States, the President
3		of the United States, the President and Secretary of the United
4		States Senate, the Speaker and Clerk of the United States House
5		of Representatives, and each member of the Illinois
6		congressional delegation with the request that it be printed
7		verbatim in the Congressional Record.