temper than any other professional gentlemen
he knew.
But surely error, whether of fact or reasoning,
were most likely to be corrected when a number
of additional intelligent men were present, capa-
ble of applying the correction. He would suggest
another idea which occurred to him. There
was some limit to means of corruption, and the
number of its victims. Its sources were not
perennial. Money was the great agent of
mischief in this case, as in so many others,
Now let us disperse the surface over which the
same amount of means, and the same agencies,
are to be employed, and we thereby weaken the
violence and force of them on any particular
point. If the corrupting influence comes from
Washington, and infects voters for officers of
the general government, why the whole force of
that influence is either concentrated on that
object, and then it does not effect the election of
officers of the State, or it is diffused, and the
intensity of the views is lessened by the dilution.
He did not believe there would be more money
expended, more corrupting influences used, or
more bribery effected in an election of twenty
candidates, than of five.
Mr. HOWARD said that he did not understand
the gentleman from Queen Anne's to express
himself in the manner in which both the gentle-
men from Prince George's, and the gentleman
from Kent had made him. He concurred with
him in the opinion, but he did not understand
him to place his opinion upon the ground of
Corruption that would take place in elections ;
nor did he hear him express the word " corrup-
tion" at all; according to his (Mr. H's.) view of
the subject, there Would be no corruption in the
matter, and yet the consequence would be just
exactly what the gentleman from Anne Arundel
had pointed out. He (Mr. H.) supposed that
most of them who had attended elections, knew
full well that the more numerous the candidates
were who were to be voted for, the more the
judgment of the people become confused and
contracted. It resulted from a principle in
human nature, and they must deal with this
question as a principle when looking at men as
nature made them. Now if there was a Sheriff
to be voted for, when members of the House of
Delegates were to be voted for, and the friends
of that Sheriff felt an extraordinary degree of
zeal in his behalf, if they thought that more
benefit would accrue to the public by his elec-
tion, or even more personal gratifiaction to them-
selves than injury, on the other hand, by the de-
feat of the candidate for the House of Delegates,
did not they know that it was a matter of con-
tinual occurrence that men would promote the
success of their favorite candidate by trading
off their own votes with a view to obtain votes
from the opposing party ? If gentlemen did not
know it, or were not willing to admit it, it was
nevertheless a fact, and it resulted from that
principle of human nature which induced men
to pursue a favorite object at the expense of
that which was less interesting to their feelings.
They would trade away their own votes in order
to obtain the votes of others for the candidate |
which they supported. He need not appeal to
the recollection of gentlemen; for he presumed
this would be admitted as a fact. But this was
not corruption. He held this to be the evil
which was alluded to by the gentleman from
Queen Anne's. Whether it was or not, it was
the evil which was present to his mind, and
which induced him to wish to separate these
two elections of President of the United States,
and of Governor. He would keep them as far
apart as possible ) but if they must be thrown
together, he would let them be State officers,
Hitherto it had been remarked, as one of the
excellent features in our government, that the
election for President of the United States was
separated from all other influences. Let them
keep it so.
If the election should take place on the same
day, lie thought that this could be the result;
he did not say that it would be the result, but it
could be, and might be the result; that either
party in the State which chose to obtain the
election of either the Governor or the Presi-
dent, and sacrifice all other by a consolidated
movement among themselves, could do it by a
general understanding amongst themselves and
their friends throughout the State. If you take
my candidate for Governor, I will go with you
for President. In this way votes would be
changed without the charge of corruption; for
the[people considered their votes as their individ-
ual property, and they had a right to bestow
them as they pleased; and if, in the exercise of
their predeliction for the most important candi-
date before them, they chose to submit to the
minor evil of seeing a less important candidate
defeated, it was their privilege, and they had
the right to do it. It was a choice between
them, and they were now putting that choice,
that temptation in their way, which he did not
call corruption. He would say that it would
enable either party, in his judgment to procure
the election of Governor or of President, which
ever they preferred, by general harmony of ac-
tion among the friends of that individual through-
out the State. He did not censure it, however,
nor call it corruption.
It was to avoid this evil that they desired to
keep the elections apart. In regard to the can-
didate having to address the people, which the
gentleman from Kent said would be done away
with by the adoption of his proposition, the
same thing would happen that had happened
before. It was according to popular prejudice.
The gentleman from Prince George's (Mr.
Tuck) must recollect that in one instance, when
a gentleman from his own county was before
the people, that gentleman went about address-
ing the people of the State, which the Demo-
cratic candidate refused to do. But the gentle-
man who refused to do so gained no strength
by it, because his opponent was elected; nor did
he suppose that his course in abstaining from
popular discussion gained him fifty votes, fur he
had no doubt it lost him five hundred. Now,
he (Mr. H.) thought that the history of the
State had settled the question. The desire of
the people to sec the man for whom they were
called upon to vote was so strong that it amount- |
