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Mr. Dent said he had not been in favor of reporting
this section, and had endeavored to impress his views on
the committee. Compensation was due the people who
had been so foully despoiled of their property, by every
principle of justice. This section was not in accordance
with the constitution of the United States, which said
that no man's property should be taken without compen-
sation. He was opposed to sacrificing right Lo expediency.
The State of Maryland had stripped the people of this
property by form of law, and it was from the State that
compensation was due. He could not believe that there
was so little virtue in the people of Maryland that they
would vote down the constitution because it left the door
open to just and merited compensation. He thought the
Convention might trust to the honor and manliness of
the people even if this odious section was stricken out,
as he hoped it yet would be. Were they to be left to trust
to the punic faith of the government, which had deluded
the border States into adopting its measures and then
broken all its promises? That treacherous government
at Washington was not to be trusted.
Mr. Marbury said this subject had been fully discussed
in the last Legislature, and a large majority of the party
with which he acted had recognized the right of the slave-
holder to compensation from both the State and the Na-
tional treasury. Wherefore then this political necessity ?
Why should this Convention be called to fasten this odious
political wrong on the people forever? Gentlemen talked
about their efforts to stay this wrong; what had they
done? The gentleman from Somerset knew that he
might have exhausted the eloquence of Demosthenes, and
all the orators, ancient and modern, in that convention
of 1864, and it would have availed no more than if he was
talking to stone walls. Those men were then told that the
day would come when the outraged people of the State
of Maryland would in their assembled wisdom redress
these wrongs. The day had come, and what had been
done to redress these wrongs ? The people who had been
robbed did not come here as suppliants—they asked no
money, but only that the hands of the Legislature should
not forever be tied up from making them due award. He
could not look upon this thing as a matter of policy—could
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