brought by Washington county against the Balti-
more and Ohio Rail Road company, to recover
the penalty of one million dollars, which that
company was to have paid to the use of Washing-
ton county in the event of failing to pursue a
Specified route. This might have been regarded
as a contract with the county if the Legislature
represented parties dealing tor it, and with it, a»
corporate agents. And this necessarily would
have been the construction, if there had been a
particle of truth in such a theory. The Legisla-
ture remitted the penalty, and Washington county
failed to show that the law was unconstitutional
The gist of the decision was the merely po-
litical character of the county organization. They
are municipal corporations—nothing more. They
can be divided, and sub-divided—new arranged
—obliterated even, at the pleasure of the politi-
cal power of the State. Why then encourage a
theory that will lead only to mischievous results?
Mr. JOHN NEWCOMER gave notice of an amend-
ment which will be found hereafter.
Mr. BOWIE suggested a modification of his
amendment to Mr. DASHIELL, which was accepted.
Mr. THOMAS said, that the amendment of the
gentleman from Somerset, (Mr. Dasheill,) was in
direct conflict with the language of the law under
which we had assembled. It would be seen, by
reference to the first section of the law calling this
Convention, that the people of Maryland, in the
aggregate, were invited to vote for and against
the Convention; and in the third section of the
same law, it is declared; that the Convention shall
assemble, if a majority of all the people of the
State, declare in favor of such an assemblage.
We are here, then, at the instance of and with
authority of the people of Maryland. The sense
of the several counties and of the city of Balti-
more, was not taken separately. And it cannot,
with any propriety, be denied that the language,
as it is now in the preamble to the bill of rights,
is true and applicable to our proceedings,
But, says the gentleman from Somerset, the
Convention who adopted the present Constitution
Of Maryland, voted on questions arising therein,
by counties, each county being entitled to one
vote. Even if that was so, it would not effect
the question now before this Convention. We
are not adopting a preamble to the old Constitu-
tion, but we are proposing to prefix one to the
Constitution which we are about to form. The
law calling us together, having been passed by
the members of the Senate and House of Dele-
gates, voting per capita, and having been sanc-
tioned by a majority of all the people of this
State, that majority being ascertained by their ag-
gregated votes.
If the gentleman from Somerset, would look a
little further into the proceedings of the Conven-
tion of 1776, he would discover that in adopting
the Constitution for this State, the members of
the Convention voted per capita. On some questions
for convenience, the Convention had given to
each county a vote, but on the final vote for and
against the adoption of the Constitution, every
member of the Convention gave an individual
vote. As to the supposition, that the gentleman
from Somerset, seems disposed to encourage, that

the Convention of 1776. considered our old Con-
stitution as a "quasi confederacy," as Mr. Mc-
MAHON, has expressed it, it is altogether incon-
sistent with the conduct of that Convention, in
having, without asking consent of Frederick
county carved out of that, then very large county,
the counties of Montgomery and Washington
Now we all know that the Constitution of the
United States, which is a government for a con-
federacy, expressly denies to the general govern-
ment the power to disturb the boundaries of any
one State of the Union, without its consent.
Anticipating that the Convention would do
nothing to countenance the idea that the old
Constitution was nothing more than articles of
confederation between the counties of the State
and the city of Baltimore, Mr. THOMAS contend-
ed that there was nothing in the history of its
adoption that would justify a further continuance
of that rule of apportionment, which gave to the
counties and the city of Baltimore the represen-
tation they now have, respectively, in the House
of Delegates and Senate, and upon this floor)
We had no census showing accurately the po-
pulation of the several counties in the State in
1774. We had the census taken by the United
States in 1790. By referring to that census it
would be found that the population residing in
that section of the State who desire to have a
new Constitution, exceeded by a few thousand
only, the number of the population in that part of
the State where an amendment of the old Con-
stitution had been uniformly resisted. From
this fact it is not unreasonable to suppose, that
sixteen years before that census was taken, in
1774, the majority of the people of Maryland
resided in the counties who have a majority
of the inembers of the House of Delegates and
of the Senate, and a majority of the mem-
bers of this Convention. And we may infer
that the Convention of 1774, in giving to each
county an equal vote on some questions, acted
with great magnanimity in permitting the west-
ern counties of the State to have more votes than
their population then justified. How different
is the scene now ? The population on one border
of Maryland is three times as great as the popu-
lation in the counties on the eastern and west-
ern side of the bay. Nevertheless this last named
section controls the Legislature, and has control
in this Convention. Against this state of things
the people of the western counties came here to
remonstrate. They admit that those brethren
who had the legislative branch of the govern-
ment in their hands are patriotic, honest, and ca-
pable, They claim to be possessed of the like
qualifications to make good citizens. And are
not willing to pass their right of self-government
to others. They are willing to be governed by
a majority, and consider that to be the only pow-
er to which men of free wills can properly sub-
mit.
Mr. T. invited the gentleman from Somerset, to
look a little further into the early history of Ma-
ryland; saying, that he would willingly adopt the
rule by which the first settlers of Maryland appor-
tioned the members of the legislature. At that
time, there were but two counties in the State—