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this Convention, or any part of either of them,
eug'it riot to be altered, changed or abolished,
hut in such manner as this Convention shall pre-
scribe and direct."
The report was read through, and was then
taken up by sections.
The first article being under consideration as
follows :
" Jlrt. 1. That all government of right origi-
nates from the people, is founded in compact on-
ly and instituted solely for the good of the
whoJe."
Mr. PRESSTMAN moved to amend said article
by adding at the end thereof, the following :
" And they have at all times the inalienable
right tu alter, reform, or abolish their form of
government, in such manner as they may think
expedient. ''
Some conversation followed between Messrs.
PARKE, Eisen and PRESSTMAN as to the most ap-
propriate place for the amendment.
Mr. CHAMBERS had hoped, after occupying so
much of the attention of the House on matters
more immediately confided to his care, to take
no part in the debate on the bill of rights. But
he felt it to be his duty, and he supposed every
other member did also, to understand what he
was about.
The second article of the bill, as reported, re-
cognizes fully the right of the people — the sole
and exclusive right — to regulate the internal go-
vernment V>f the State. What more is to be the
effect of this amendment? If it is designed to
admit the power and right of the people In a con-
stitutional and legal mode, to effect changes in
the government, it is submitted that this is alrea-
dy there, in terms as strong as language can ex
press it. Is any other power intended ? Is it to
countenance the doctrine that under any sudden
impulse, regardless of the legal forms which they
1 themselves have prescribed, and by any tumultu-
ous movement, the people might rise and by vio-
lence effect a change in the existing government ?
If that was the power intended to be asserted, he
denied that it had ever been recognized by any
government. The exercise of such a power
would be fatal not only to property, but to the
life of every citizen. It could not fail ultimately
to be exerted by a lawless and infuriated assem-
blage. He hoped the gentleman who offered the
amendment would explain his object. We had
hitherto lived happily under the present bill of
rights, .Which has; been every where respected,
and if we are to adopt a new principle by which
any self-constituted body of men choosing to call
themselves " the people,1' can assume the power
to subvert, when and as they please, the whole
social and political fabric, let us at least under-
stw»d it. (Let it be in terms plain and distinct,
that neither this Convention or those who are to
pass upon our work, may be in any doubt or er-
ror in regard to it.
Mr. PRESSTMAN said:
That when he offered the amendment to the
first article bf the bill of rights, he would take
occasion-to say to the several gentlemen who
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have suggested the propriety of presenting it to
certain other articles, or as an additional one to
the report of the committee, that he had weighed
well the purport of his amendment, and after
mature reflection thought, (and he had as yet
seen no reason for a change of that opinion,) that
there was a peculiar and fitting appropriateness
in the position where he now sought to place it.
He did not think that the provisions of the 4th or
41st articles, in the report of the gentleman from
Anne Arundel,(Mr. Dorsey,) embraced the prin-
ciple he sought to engraft upon the bill of rights;
one looks to the naked revolutionary right which
exists under all governments in the people,
to resist tyranny and throw off the yoke of op-
pression The language employed in that arti-
cle is "that whenever the ends of government
are perverted, and the public liberty manifestly
endangered, and all other means of redress are
ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to
reform the old or establisn a new government."
And that, sir, is the identical language of the pre-
sent bill of rights of Maryland. The other refers
to the mode of change which this Convention
may or may not adopt, when we come to estab-
lish the Constitution itself. Possibly, sir, that
mode may be the one now prescribed by the 59tji
article of the existing Constitution, which de-
clares "that no change shall be made without the
vote of two successive Legislatures." He was
admonished by the lessons of experience, that the
people, in trusting to that mode, had for years
leaned upon a broken reed, which had pierced
them. He hoped never to hear again of legis-
lative reform. He could see in that, nothing but
disappointment, —
"The serpent coil of future faithlessness."
Before making a more explicit annunciation of
the object of his amendment and the doctrine
it contained, he wished to relieve himself of
the effect of an impression which seemed to be
in the mind of the gentleman from Kent, that
this was an unmatured proposition. He had
nothing of that kind to say in extenuation of his
position. What he had done, he had done with
deliberation. The uncertainty which had exist-
ed as to the true construction of the present bill
of rights and Constitution, when taken separate-
ly or as a whole, as to the time when, and the
means and measures required to effect a change
by the people in their organic law, and above all,
the unwillingness of many to recognize this ina-
lienable right in them, except in a manner and
form so mutilated, as to peril, if not to deny its
very existence, impelled him to insert the princi-
ple contained in his amendment as a cardinal one,
in clear and unambiguous language, in the bill of
rights now to be adopted, and that, too, unre-
strained by the terms employed in the present
bill of rights. The phraseology of the present
article, stringent as it is, implying, in the minds
of some men, no change short of a revolution by
physical violence. He regarded the principle of
peaceable revolution, («uch as that now going on)
as a precious one; it would be a jewel that would
attract the affections and confidence of the peo-
ple, if placed in our bill of rights, while, without
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