CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 331

Remember the doubts and fears of the men who wrote it — doubt-
ful that their work was perfect enough and fearful that it might not
long endure.

And yet our national constitution has endured. For it was limited
to an expression of great principles; founded upon the faith and con-
fidence that the righteousness of these principles would suffice to pro-
vide security and direction for all future generations.

it is the moat eloquently simple statement of principle ever inspired
to direct a government and protect a people. Its relevance persevered
through the recognition that, while institutions will change, great
principles will endure.

The Constitution written for America one hundred and eighty
years ago comes to us today unspoiled — yet the constitution written
for Maryland eighty years later must now be edited anew. Like those
immortalized federalists who wrote the law of a nation, those who
framed the constitutions for states were determined to rise above prej-
udice and write true to principle. But perhaps they rose too little
and wrote too much.

Yet, we must not be too harsh with our State's constitutional foro-
bears. We must understand that in 1867 Maryland had not yet re-
covered from the agonizing impact of the Civil War, that the wounds
of conflict ran deep, that the memories of past political abuses were
still vivid. We must remember too that in that early year Maryland
was a rural, gentle and complacent State with but a single small com-
mercial center, and barely over a half million residents — a people
who sought little from their State government but to restore the peace
and permit them to recover in peace from the exhausting war.

They could not foresee the Maryland of today with its population
seven times the number for which the constitution of 1867 was framed,
with its urban concentration embracing severity-three percent of our
citizens — a Maryland where the profound barriers of transportation
and communication would no longer be obstacles to people and prog-
ress.

If the transition between clipper ships and jet propelled aircraft
seems phenomenal, even more startling is the very speed of incessant
change. Our commercial, industrial and population growth has not
been gradual but explosive. And its impact on government has been
no less dramatic.