manded upon the requisition of the Governor of
Pennsylvania, to answer what? To answer the
high crime of having employed agents in the State
of Pennsylvania to arrest and bring to him his
slave, at his home in Maryland, under the act of
Congress passed for that purpose. For doing this
without his ever having been in the Slate of
Pennsylvania, under the law of that State, if he
understood it, if the people of this country under-
stood it, if the people of the State of Maryland
understood it, was a penitentiary offence—and
which penalty, if Mitchell should be delivered up
to be tried by that law, would be visited upon
him, by incarceration in the State prison—to be
tried, condemned and imprisoned, under the
charge of kidnapping, when the only offence com-
mitted was, that he dared to receive his own prop-
erty, at his own house, in his own State. Nor is
this all. The two agents who assisted in reclaim-
ing his property are now confined within the
penitentiary walls of the State of Pennsylvania,
having been condemned and sentenced under the
very law by virtue of which this requisition is
made, in order to enforce it against Mitchell.
Sir, are we to extend no helping hand to those
who cannot help themselves? Are these two
men, who have jeopardized and been deprived of
their liberty for standing by the institutions of
our State and the rights of its citizens, to receive
nothing from as but remorseless delay, to prolong
their sufferings and their disgrace? Does not
every feeling of the human heart, of State pride,
of common interest in a common cause, appeal to
us to use every effort, to exhaust every remedy,
And apply every means to unbolt their prison
doors and relieve their sufferings? For one, in a
case like this, he could not be tied down to a con-
struction of power that would limit his action in
giving relief, or steel his heart to the wrongs endured
by these men. Besides, our action was of
importance, if for nothing else, to fix the attention
of the people of the State and of the whole Union
upon this evident, open, direct violation of the
peace measures passed by Congress in the execution
of the State law of Pennsylvania—a law
which amounted to an open nullification by a
State of an act of the General Government,
passed to save the Union and the Constitution
from destruction. The people were interested in
it—this Convention, as the representatives of the
people, were interested in it—and they, as the
representatives of the people, should, in a manner
as public as their action can make it, disseminate
this light amongst them, that they may see and
know how and in what manner their rights are
outraged, by those who have in a solemn com-
pact plighted their faith to respect them.
We are here clothed with the sovereign rights
of the people—in fact, are the people in epitome;
was this the time, then—are we the persons to
talk about the sorry matter of dollars and cents,
and hold ourselves down to technicalities, the le-
gality of our powers and duties, when the rights
of our people are invaded and one of their best
citizens demanded to answer for the " crime"
of taking back to his possession his own prop-
erty? He thought not. He thought that we
should not be held to the rigid rule, to the Record |
in such cases. Why, this was the only law of all
the compromise measures in which Maryland was
interested. It was the only one in that great series
of measures that the South stood on upon
that eventful occasion, Maryland, Virginia, and
the BORDER=0 slave States, more than any others,
wore deeply, vitally concerned in the due observance
of each and every one of the laws comprised
in that adjustment. Violate one—you annul the
contract, and by that violation trample into the
dust the rights of the party injured. Maryland
and the BORDER=0 States have stood by that contract,
are willing to stand by it for all time to come,
yet a State contiguous to them had passed laws
nullifying the laws of Congress—a bond of union
by which the States were bound together—taking
their best citizens for reclaiming their property,
manacling them in the dungeons of a Slate pris-
on, and in the face of all this, when information
was sought to be spread among the people of Ma-
ryland, that this might be known, what was to
be done by them? Why, we are to be told that
we should not move a finger, because if we do,
we go beyond the record and the sphere of our
duly. He must dissent from this doctrine. This
Convention had as much to do with this question
as they had to do with other matters that had
claimed their attention during its sittings The
publication of the Governor's message, the ap-
pointment of the committee of twenty-one, as re-
ferred to by the gentleman from Prince George's,
to take the question of adjustment into consider-
ation, and to endorse this very bill, which was in-
fringed now by the requisition of the Governor of
Pennsylvania, when before the Congress of the
United States—all required just as much the
power of the Convention as that which was now
sought to be exercised by the action to be taken
by this Convention. Where, then, was the argu-
ment of want of powers ? This action of the
Convention answered that we had it.
He could not sit still without expressing these
opinions. He hoped that these papers would be
read, printed, and considered, and if it should
be necessary, an expression of the feelings and
opinions of this Convention be put forth in some
shape or form, by way of resolution or other-
wise, so that the people of Maryland might
know what had been done in reference to some
of their citizens, and the people of the whole
country might know the action of those who
were attempting to disturb this great comprom-
ise, this great law of the Union, without which
the Union would cease to exist. And for the
further purpose of giving relief to those who
now were felons in a State prison for standing
by our citizens, the institutions of our State,
and the execution of laws upon which the safe-
ty of the confederacy stands.
The President then announced as the com-
mittee, Messrs. Sollers, Shriver, Bowie, How-
ard, Williams, Lloyd and McHenry.
The Convention then resumed the considera-
tion of the report of the committee on the Ex-
ecutive department.
Mr, CHAMBERS, of Kent, said that he was not
aware that the consideration of that part of the
Executive report relating to the oath of office |
