requisite to vote for twenty men, if need be, pro-
vided all the names were printed upon the one
and the same ticket?
Mr. CHAMBERS said, before the matter was
disposed of, he desired to have a decision of the
House upon the question alluded to by the gentle-
man from Dorchester, (Mr. Phelps.) If no mo-
tion to that effect was before the Chair, he would
submit one, to require the elections for the politi-
cal officers of the State to be held on the same
day as the election of Electors for President and
Vice President, the Tuesday next after the first
Monday in November, .and commencing in 1852.
He agreed with most of what had been said by
both the gentlemen, but he could not adopt the
conclusion to which the last one (Mr. Grason)
had arrived, if they were to have judicial officers
elected—which, said he, may Heaven forefend—
nothing could be more desirable than that those
elections should be separated as widely as possible
from all political questions, National, State, or
any other, having any affinity or connection with
party politics, in any form or degree. The Judi-
ciary Department, in all its branches and ramifi-
cations—whether in the election of an Attorney
General, State's Attorney, or any other thing associated
with the administration of justice—should
be kept at the utmost possible distance in lime,
as in every thing else, from every political con-
sideration. But with regard to other elections he
could not see how it could be deemed proper to
separate them. The very first element in the
Republican creed wag, that in all election the ma-
jority should rule. He should suppose it would
be the very first wish of every Republican to have
the fullest and largest possible expression of the
voice of the freemen of the State in the election
of their rulers; and how was this to he dune?
Why. by affording every reasonable facility to
vole, in the first place, and by uniting all possible
inducements to invite voters to use these facilities,
in the next. Let every motive be concentred on
one point, all the exertion that could be em-
ployed, all the feeling that could be excited, every
effort exhausted, to bring to the polls every indi-
vidual voter of the State. Let them come, and
come all, from the " top of the Allegany to the
shores of the Atlantic,'' as was said by a friend.
We were not to assume that any one entitled to
vote was unwilling to exercise the privilege. The
right implied the obligation, and he held the obli-
gation to vote as imperative as he held the priv-
ilege desirable. He held, too, that it was plainly
our duty to give these facilities. We were trus-
tees for the people, delegated to provide for and
protect their political privileges and their right of
voting amongst others. How was this facility
best afforded? Certainly, amongst other means,
by lessening, as much as practicable, the expense
and loss of time. If it were proposed to charge
one dollar to every voter for the privilege of
voting, or the employment of one day of his time,
it would strike every mind as a monstrous ini-
quity. How was it more proper so to arrange the
election, that a voter must necessarily expend his
dollar or waste his whole day before he could
vote? If he was compelled to expend his money,
it mattered little in the result whether it was by |
paying it to his host for his dinner and horse feed,
or paying it to the collector. If he was subjected
to the necessity of going twice and thus made
twice to incur the expense, and lose the time ne-
cessary to secure his vote, when it might as well
he done by one expenditure, then the second was
virtually a tax upon the franchise. This was
plain to every man who would think at all. It
was doubling; an expense, which many voters, and
many indigent voters, must encounter, and thus
taxing his privilege of voting; and this. loo, with-
out any adequate motive or advantage. He
might add, also, the unnecessary expense to the
county of an extra election, and the loss of time
in prosecuting a separate canvass, as items to be
regarded in estimating the economy of the one
plan over the other.
Something had been said about separating State
and National politics. He asked if any gentle-
man would stand on that floor and in the obser-
vation of that House, conversant, as most of its
members were, with the history of our political
formations, and say that National politics and
State politics were different things? Would any
gentleman hazard the responsibility of asserting
before an intelligent community, that those who
composed the party in State politics were not the
same persons who composed the National party?—
that National Whigs and State Whigs were dif-
ferent men in Maryland?—that the Democrats
who. in Maryland, composed the National party
of Democrats, were not the same men who com-
posed the State parly of Democrats? Could it
be denied that they were identically the same,
controlled by the same considerations, marching
under the same leaders, managed by the same
organization, and excited by the same feeling?
By whom was the Governor elected, and why?
Was it not by the same party who united in
national politics) and because he belonged to
that parly? The National party was the great
family; the party in the State was but a.
branch, a member of it. The President was
the great head of it, from whom it had some-
times taken its name. Had we not for years
known the ''Jackson party ?" Was that
party only known in contests for national of-
ficers? Did not the same party precisely, com-
posed of the same persons, and none others,
unite in contending for State officers? Certainly
every one knew and no one would deny this. It
had been stated by his friend from Dorchester,
and he believed the official returns verified the
statement, that a larger vote was cast at the
Presidential election than on any other occa-
sion. This was but another mode of stating the
fact, that there was at that time a more decided
expression of the popular will, stronger evi-
dence of the sentiment of the majority—of the
whole number of voters. This was what we
should desire to have, and to effect this we
should shape our proceedings. When an elec-
tion is to be had, for the purpose of ascertain-
ing the sentiment of a majority, it seemed plain-
ly to be a duty so to arrange matters as best to
secure a fair and full expression of that senti-
ment, to enable that majority to express its opin-
ion, the opinion of a majority of the whole. |
