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He looked with reverence on that glorious old flag and
on the constitution of our fathers, and he had never de-
parted from that faith. He had suffered a great deal for
his State, and he could not bear in silence the implica-
tion of the gentleman from Frederick that the members
of this convention were recreant to the State. It was for
the principles of our forefathers that the South went
into the contest and selected Jefferson Davis as its chosen
exponent. He was in the Senate chamber when Jefferson
Davis made his farewell speech, and when he plead with,
his associates on that floor and begged them for the sake
of Heaven to accept the Crittenden compromise, and
promised that whatever the action of Mississippi might
be, that he would stay with them, and that he was certain
he could take his State with him. He did not know in
what school the gentleman from Frederick had been edu-
cated; he had received his education at the University
of Virginia. Perhaps the gentleman from Frederick had
recently become a convert to the democratic party and
wished to show his new-born zeal.
Mr. Nelson replied that he had never voted any but the
democratic ticket in all his life.
Mr. Marbury then concluded his remarks.
Mr. McKaig said he did not propose to make a speech,
because he had not understood any of those which had
been made. He thought, however, that this Convention
was here to frame a constitution* for the people of the
State of Maryland, and not to take care of the govern-
ment at Washington. There were enough Yankees there
to do that. [Laughter. ]
Mr. Jones took the floor in advocacy of the article as
reported by the committee. There was one good effect
which had already been produced by the recommendation
of the committee. The radicals, as he said yesterday, had
forgotten the constitution, but we had remembered it. A
friend had sent him a copy of the Cincinnati Commercial,
a leading radical paper, which contained a letter from
Washington, in which the writer had a paragraph headed,
"The Calhoun doctrine abandoned in Maryland, " and then
proceeded to compliment the people of Maryland on the
prospect of adopting this second article as reported by
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