biennial election for Senators and Delegates
would be held, and at the same time, that in
1853, the election for Governor would be held.
it had been urged that annual sessions would
certainly be necessary in 1851-2, and in 1842-3,
and probably in 1853-4, The amendments alluded
to by him would exactly meet that neces-
sity, The election of 1851 would provide for
the first session, the election in November,
1852, would provide for the second session, and
as the members then elected would be for two
years, they could hold another session the fol-
lowing year if it should be found necessary,
which, however, he did not anticipate. He be-
lieved two sessions would be found quite suffi-
cient to accomplish all the duties imposed by
the new constitution. However, it was mani-
fest the proposed arrangement would meet ei-
ther contingency, and allow two or three annual
sessions, as might he determined on. The sup-
posed difficulty, therefore, urged by the gentle-
man from Queen Anne's, was entirely imaginary.
All our proceedings were in our control, and
nothing was more easy than to accommodate
every other measure to the proposed arrange-
ment; and indeed, as to the third section of the
legislative bill, we have yet to act upon it in any
event. In fact, the elections in the years 1851
and 1852, must be held under either scheme,
and the difference was simply this, that if a ses-
sion was held the third consecutive year, ii
would be composed in the one case, of members
elected for two years, in the first year of
their official existence; and in the other case,
it would be composed of members elected for
two years, hut in the second year of their term.
Another difference was, and he thought both,
but especially this in favor of his scheme, that
if there was found to be no necessity for a third
annual session, then, according to the opposite
scheme, the members elected in 1853 would not
assemble in session until some fifteen months
after their election, and the same would be the
case always after. And thus we are asked
either to submit to an acknowledged evil, or at
a large expense to the State, have an unneces-
sary session forced upon us, merely to eke out a
finish to a plan, seriously objectionable on other
accounts. So far from considering any thing
in the past action of the Convention as a ground
of objection, he really regarded what had been
done as an invitation now, deliberately to con-
sider and decide, whether the State and genera]
elections should be held on the same day or not.
it was now for decision as an original question,
and he must repeat, that upon that question, it
appeared the argument was all on one side.—
There seemed to be scarcely an effort on the
other side to resist the considerations of conve-
nience, economy, and a larger and fuller ex-
pression of public sentiment; but it had been
said that corrupting influences from Washington
had controlled the elections for officers of the
United States. This certainly was the first oc-
casion on which he had heard this complaint.—
The gentleman who made this complaint looked
from a point of view which he (Mr. C.) had
never occupied. The subject of corruptions at |
the ballot box, had been a fruitful source of de-
nunciation and regret, but this idea of its having
its origin in the action of the general govern-
ment, had not been announced here, nor had he
the slightest recollection that it had been ex-
pressed elsewhere.
if this was the true cause of the different
result which our experience proved had occurred
in the election of Presidential electors, and the
election for Governor, if the last resulted in
one way, because that corrupting influence of
the Central Government was not used while the
Presidential election was carried in a different
way by the use of that influence, what was to
become of the other main argument of the same
gentleman, that the eloquence of gubernatorial
candidates would account for the success of
those who had been elected to that office? He
would submit to the Convention whether these
arguments were entirely consistent. He did
not profess to be informed of any particular
facts on which either of these arguments must
rest. The statement to-day made, of their ex-
istence, was the first he had heard of them. But
it did appear to him that while the assertion of
an active corrupting influence, as the effective
cause of success by one political party in the
Presidential election, implied that without such
an influence the majority was one way, the de-
claration that the success of a Gubernatorial
candidate, of opposite politics, was owing to
his oratory, seemed as clearly to imply that the
majority was the other way. He would there
leave that portion of the adverse argument, in
connection with this part of the case, the very
pregnant circumstance, alluded to by his friend
from Prince George's, (Mr. Tuck,) deserved at-
tention. If voters were ever controlled, as was
now intimated, by the corrupting interposition
of persons connected with the General Govern-
ment, it was desirable to have the intelligence,
as well as the eloquence of a candidate for the
Governor's chair, to assist in detecting and ex-
posing such vile practices. Again, if, as his
other friend had said, a torrent of eloquence
from such a candidate was likely to occasion
voters to disregard matters of political history
and fact, by making the worse appear the bet-
ter cause, why it was well to send along the an-
tidote. Let the candidates for the electoral
college, who are to be elected by the same per-
sons, in the same way, by general ticket, and at
the same time, let them be along and disabuse
the minds of voters, that they be not deluded
by the tinsel of fair speech and false logic, how-
ever eloquently and fervidly put forth. It was
a case in which more safety in numbers might
be anticipated. The political patient would
probably be more fairly treated than when in
the hands of a single practitioner, or perhaps
two, in a condition of antagonism. The learned
member of the profession before him, (Doctor
Bell,) shakes his head. to dissent from the po-
sition that there is more safety in a number of
surgical or medical attendants. It may be so—
he knows best. Perhaps the illustration is a
bad one, as doctors not only proverbially "disa-
gree," but in many instances disagree with less |
