of the whole State, and every part of it. In dis-
charging the high duties for which he was here,
he felt himself above political parties and preju-
dices; ho was nominated and elected to this body
against his well-known desire upon the subject.
His design, in seeking the appointment of
commissioners of public works, was not merely
to confer on them the powers confided to the
State's agents, by the acts of the General Assem-
bly of Maryland, authorising the State's agents
to attend the meetings of the stockholders of all
joint stock companies in which the State of Ma-
ryland was a stockholder, and to withhold their
assent, if they deemed it expedient, to any re-
duction of tolls on the Chesapeake and Ohio
canal company, but he designed to impose on
these commissioners, duties far more numerous,
complicated and laborious, in addition to the
duties heretofore required to be performed by
the State's agents, of attending the meetings of
the stockholders of the joint stock in companies
which the State was a stockholder, and voting
thereon for president and directors of such com-
panies; in the language of the proposition before
us of the gentleman from Frederick, the commissioners
were required to "exercise a diligent and
faithful supervision on all public works, in which
the State may be interested as stockholder or
creditor, and perform such other duties as may
be required by law," by which requirements, as
he, (Mr. D.,) interpreted them, the commis-
sioners were expected to inform themselves by
personal inspection and examination, (as far as
the interests and powers of the State would ena-
ble them to do so,) of all the works, receipts and
expenditures of those companies, that they might
ascertain whether, by the judicious, and faithful
administration of the affairs of these companies,
the interests of the State had been, and were
about to be, properly provided for and promoted;
to suggest and urge to the extent of their
power such changes in the operations of the
companies, the construction of such new works,
or completion or discontinuance of old ones, the
appointment of other and better engineers and
officers, if occasion required it, the reduction or
increase in the number of officers or agents in the
service of the companies, or of their salaries or
compensation, and in fact, the commissioners are
to do every thing to the extent of their influence
and authority, to carry out the designs of the
legislature in the creation of those companies,
and to secure and promote by all just and honor-
able means, the immense interest, pecuniary and
otherwise, which the State has therein. Their
duty will be, as far as in them lies, to make the
public works, as they are not inaptly called, as
profitable to the State of Maryland, as they con-
sistently can he made; that it may realise those
advantages, and that income which were so lib-
erally promised and anticipated at the time the
immense treasure of the State was so lavishly
bestowed upon them.
Were these the same powers conferred, the
same duties imposed by the legislature, on the
State's agents, (whose duties and powers existing
only by the legislative enactments, I have fully |
and fairly stated,) that are now proposed to be
attached to the commissioners whose creation is
now sought to be provided for? No, sir. They
bear no more comparison to each other than does
a molehill to a mountain. And, yet those who
oppose the measure now under consideration,
have in their arguments treated it, as a mere
substitution of a new board of State's agents in
the place of that now existing, and that the pow-
ers and duties of both boards were one and the
same.
Such arguments resting wholly on an unfoun-
ded and erroneous assumption of facts as their
basis cannot be supported by this Convention.
He, (Mr. D.,) sincerely regretted that the fair
and liberal proposition of the gentleman from
Frederick was regarded by the whigs of this body
as a political device, resorted to by the opposite
party, for partizan purposes, that they might turn
out of office five whigs and put in their places
five democrats, who would use at elections, their
influence on the public works in securing the as-
cendancy of the democratic party in the State.
Such a suspicion, in his opinion is wholly unwar-
ranted; and is disproved by the manner in which
the State, for the election of commissioners, has
been divided into districts.
According to all past experience at elections,
and the known condition of parties at this time,
should a party election for commissioners be
held, (which he sincerely hoped might never
take place,) two of the districts would certainly
elect whigs, and the other two democrats; and
thus the purity of the board, from all improper
political influences, would certainly be secured.
In the event of an equal division of the commis-
sioners, which from the nature of their duties, he
did not anticipate, the treasurer of the State
was made the umpire between them; and he,
from the nature of his office and his incessant oc-
cupation in the discharge of its duties, would be
so far withdrawn from the politics of the day,
that should any question of party politics ever
arise between the commissioners, which he could
not expect from the nature of their duties, it can-
not but be apprehended that his umpirage will
impartially and justly adjust the controversy be-
tween them.
It has been urged that these controversies will
be of frequent occurrence, and that on every
such occasion the treasurer must be sent for and
withdrawn from his office to attend the commis-
sioners. None but an excited imagination could
conjure up such an oppression. In nineteen ca-
ses out of twenty, if not ninety-nine out of a hun-
dred, any differences in opinion amongst themselves
would be settled by amicable compromise
without invoking the interposition of the treasu-
rer. And should an occasion require the um-
pirage of the treasurer, it can be made by him,
on the written statements of the dissentient par-
ties; and to do so, it will be rarely, if ever, ne-
cessary for him to leave his office. Of the truth
and sincerity of the declaration of the gentleman
from Frederick, [Mr. Thomas,] that, in the plan
proposed by him for the appointment of commis-
sioners, he had no party political designs, I have
the most perfect confidence. |
