prepare false and fraudulent accounts and vouch
era, to conceal the traces of their frauds. We
know numerous instances in banks and other
moneyed institutions, in which these frauds have
been completely covered over, and concealed by
such false vouchers.
It is generally on change or in the street we
get the first intelligence of these defalcations.
Those who are guilty of them generally make
investments—usually for speculation—and accord-
ing to the trite saying, "ill-gotten gain never
benefits its owner," their reckless speculations
usually fail, and suicide or flight is most fre-
quently the first intimation of their guilt. He
held that the first and great security for the State
must be found in the well earned character of
the officer, for high moral integrity. Discard
considerations of party service and select your
man, from a long and intimate knowledge of
his virtue and his merit. The next reliance
must be on the pecuniary indemnity into which
competent sureties have entered for the faithful
discharge of his duties. Let no partiality or favoritism
prevent a due observance of strict duty
by those entrusted with this important branch of
service.
The Legislature, as a body, was no match in
the contest with a defaulter, in the effort on the
one hand to detect, and on the other to evade de-
tection in a course of official malversation. A
committee was equally impotent.
He could not then perceive in either of these
reasons a ground to annul the deliberate action
of the people, who had most deliberately and de-
cidedly expressed their wishes in relation to this
particular question, some three years since.
Not a gentleman on this floor has been able to
say he has heard the first whisper of discontent,
or any desire for change in this respect. Every
voter in the State knows we are here engaged in
re-modelling the Constitution, and all sorts of
suggestions have been made during our three
months session, but no voice has reached us ad-
vising a return to annual sessions. He believed
the judgment passed upon the subject was as
much influenced by the belief that excessive Le-
gislation was pernicious as by considerations of
economy. For himself, he was much of the opin-
ion very often expressed by an old friend now no
more, a former Attorney General of the State.
The experience of a long life actively occupied
in the business affairs of the world, had induced
his strong-minded friend to conclude that it was
of much more importance to have the law set-
tled than to have it this way or that—to know
what the law was, rather than why it was. He
doubted whether the State would suffer by cur-
tailing the usual quantum of legislation to one-
half of what it had been.
Mr. SPRIGG rose to give notice of an amendment
which he desired to offer, as follows:
Amend the said section by striking out all after
the word " term," in the second line, where it
secondly occurs, and insert in lieu thereof, the
following:
" Of one year from the day of the general elec-
tions, the General Assembly may continue its
first session after the adoption of this Constitu-

tion, as long, as in the opinion of the two Houses,
the public interests may require it, but all subse-
quent regular sessions of the General Assembly
shall be closed on the fiftieth day from their com-
mencement, unless the same shall be closed at
an earlier day by the agreement of the two Hou-
ses."
Which was read.
Mr. BROWN said it had been repeatedly urged
as an argument against annual sessions of the Le-
gislature, that nothing was done for the first three
or four weeks of each session. He had had some
experience in these matters, and thought that
gentlemen were mistaken in the views they
had expressed. In the House of Delegates there
were but few members who were what might be
termed old politicians. They were generally
strangers to each other. On the meeting of the
Legislature, a Speaker had to be elected, and
committees appointed—the latter being a duty
imposing much responsibility, because of the ne-
cessity of a judicious selection. This took a
week. In the meantime, the members were be-
coming acquainted with each other, and every-
thing was done, that could be done, to set the ma-
chinery of legislation into operation. These
delays which could not be avoided in any delib-
erative body; and for this Convention, more es-
pecially, to complain of the waste of time thus
caused, seemed very much like Satan rebuking
Sin. The committees then went to work, and
some two or three weeks might be taken up in
maturing important bills for the action of the
body. They were then taken up and discussed.
Mr. B. then proceeded to show, in reply to the
remarks of Mr. CHAMBERS, of Kent, that bills,
which had been acted upon by the lower House.
went to the Senate, and it was not until they
came back again to the House, that a date was
given to them. So that, in fact, many of the
bills, which, from their dates, seemed to have
passed on the last few days of the session, might
have passed long before. He cited the instance
of the law calling the Convention, in respect to
which, a proposition bad been introduced at the
commencement of the session, even before the
usual messages had been interchanged between
the two Houses.
One word as to the treasury. He did not sup-
pose that any gentleman intended to say that the
House of Delegates guarded the treasury. He
certainly did not inlend to say so. But we had
established a large system of taxation. It might
be necessary that changes in that system should
be made, in consequence of injury to some par-
ticular interest which it might be proper to re-
lieve, The crops might fail, or some other ca-
lamity befal us. If we continued prosperous, no
such necessity would arise. But did gentlemen
mean to say, that if the necessity come, the re-
lief should not be afforded ?
In regard to conferring upon the Governor the
power to call the legislature together, he, [Mr.
B.,] had only to say, that he never knew any ben-
efit grow out of extra sessions, either under the
general or State governments.
He thought it would be better to adopt the
amendment of the gentleman from Queen Anne's,