The question was then taken, and the amend-
ment of Mr. STEPHENSON was rejected.
Mr. BLAKISTONE moved to amend said section
by striking out from the word "other," in the se-
cond line, to the end of said section.
Mr. B. said, it would be as well to leave to the
Legislature to make their rules of proceeding
without incorporating them in the organic law.
He merely offered the amendment. He should
make no remarks upon it.
The question was taken and the amendment
was rejected.
Mr. WELLS said, he was unavoidably absent at
the time the question was taken upon his amend-
ment. He understood it had been acted upon as
applicable to the end of the section. If in order
he would now move to insert the amendment af-
ter the word "house," where it first occurred, in
the fourth line.
The amendment was read as follows:
"Nor shall any bill originate in either House
during the last three days of the session."
The PRESIDENT decided the amendment to be
in order on the ground that its effect in that con-
nection would be different from that in the por-
tion of the section to which it had been append-
ed.
The question was taken and the amendment
was agreed to.
Some conversation followed as to the effect of
the amendment,
Mr. SPENCER to put the matter beyond ques-
tion, he said, moved further to amend the section
by adding at the end, the words:
"As to reading and originating bills."
The amendment was agreed to.
And the section as amended was adopted.
The Convention now resumed the considera-
tion of the sixteenth section as follows , (a mo-
tion to reconsider having been made and agreed
to):
Section 16th. The enacting clause of every bill
shall be, "Be it enacted by the General Assem-
bly of Maryland," and no law shall be enacted
except by Bill.
Mr. SPRIGG moved to amend said sixteenth
section, by adding at the end thereof, the follow-
ing words:
"And no law enacted by the Legislature, shall
embrace more than one subject and that shall be
described in its title, and no law shall be revised
or amended by reference to its title only."
Mr. Stewart, of Caroline, moved as a substi-
tute for said amendment, the following:
"All laws shall be passed by original bill and
not by supplement, and every law enacted by the
Legislature shall embrace but one subject, and
that shall be described in the title, and no law
shall be revised or amended by reference to its
title only; but in such case, all parts of the act to
be revised or amended that are embraced in the
object of the bill, shall be re-enacted and pub-
lished at length."
Mr. STEWART, of Caroline, desired, he said
very briefly to explain why he had changed
" his proposition in one particular. His first idea
was that, whenever a law was to be amended or

revised, the whole law should be re-enacted and
published. He believed that there were anum-
ber of gentlemen who were in favor of going to
that point. But, from conversation with sev-
eral members, he had come to the conclusion
that it would be impossible to get a law passed to
that extent.
The greatest objection urged against it was the
expense. No man was more ready to save ex-
pense to the State than himself; but when look-
ing to the saving of money, we should at the
same lime, look to the benefit which might re-
sult from its expenditure. And if the people of the
State were to be greatly benefitted by the inser-
tion of such a provision in the Constitution, not-
withstanding the expense which might attend it,
surely it would be prudent and politic that it
should be adopted. Mr. S. illustrated this
idea.
It seemed to him that, in the aggregate, the re-
sult would be, to save to the people of Mary-
land a greater amount of money, by the adop-
tion of the article as originally proposed by him,
than would be expended in the printing of the
laws.
After referring to the provisions of the Consti-
tution of Louisiana, as sustaining his own views
on the subject, he proceeded to enquire what
would be the operation of the new article he pro-
posed. In Louisiana, every law embraced one
subject, and the object of the law was expressed
in the title page. Any law which might beneed-
ed, could readily be found. The law, as it was
in actual present existence, might be found. Ev-
ery citizen might know what the law is; whilst in
the State of Maryland, it was exactly the con-
trary.
He referred to the acts passed by the legisla-
ture in 1848-9—numbering five hundred and six-
ty. Many of these, he explained, were supple-
ments—some supplements to supplements, and
here and there an explanation of a supplement,
and so on; so that to get any knowledge of the
object, it was requisite to go back to the original
law itself.
Laws should be few, plain and easy of access.
With us, the case was precisely the reverse.
They were many, complicated and inaccessible.
None but a profound lawyer could tell any thing
about them, and even he might easily get con-
fused. It was still more necessary that aknowl-
edge of the laws should be disseminated in the
State of Maryland, possessing as she did, a crim-
inal code, which, from its peculiarity in some
respects, might be infringed without any viola-
tion of the moral law. He instanced the case
of the oyster laws—laws relating to the fisheries,
wild ducks, etc., and in the last named connec-
tion, gave some humorous illustrations.
if the laws were codified, it would be easy to
look into the code, and see what the laws were
which required revision and correction, and then
a law could be passed to amend them. In this
way, we should have a pefect law, which the
people would be able to understand, without the
aid of lawyers. He referred to the objection
made by the gentleman from Queen Anne, on
the ground of the great cost of printing, and re-