It appears to me that every liberal, unpreju-
diced mind must adopt the same conclusion, if he
adverts to the manner in which the State has
been districted, and to the fact that the treasurer
and not the Governor has been made umpire as
between the commissioners.
He, [Mr. DORSEY,] most cordially concurred
in the sentiments avowed by the gentleman from
Frederick, that party politics should never be
introduced into our works of internal improve-
ment. Their successful accomplishment and
prosperity imperatively demanded such an exclu-
sion, and, therefore, had he been in the place of
the Legislature in the appointment of State's
agents, he would have selected them from both
political parties, and in the appointment of the
directors of the joint stock improvement compa-
nies the State's agents should have selected them
in like manner. Regarding some such measure
as that now before us indispensably necessary to
the vital interests and future prosperity of the
city of Baltimore and the State of Maryland, and
not expecting from the democratic portion of the
Convention a support to so liberal and desirable
a proposition as that now under consideration,
he acknowledged that he was prepared to have
given his vote in favor of the report of the com-
mittee by which these commissioners were to
have been elected by a general ticket, whereby,
he believed, that through the overwhelming vote
of the city of Baltimore, there would be secured
to the democratic party, if it desired it for any
political purposes, the election of all the commis-
sioners of the public works from the democratic
ranks. He was willing thus far to sacrifice the
interests of his party for the public good; his
rule of action always having been " to go for
justice and his country against all parties," He
remembered, and should never forget the abhor-
ence he had felt during the war of 1812, on read-
ing for the first time the following extract from
an eastern paper : " perish the country, but let
the party triumph." And that feeling, [he would
not so far respect it as to call it sentiment,] was
said to be, if not adopted, measurably practised
by a set of politicians of that day called " blue
light federalists," who rejoiced at the victory of
our enemies and denied to their country, as far as
they had power, the means necessary to our successful
prosecution of the war. But this spirit
wss denounced by that universally revered patri-
ot, John Eager Howard, and by Roger B. Taney
and many others, whom he could name of the
federal parly to whom those " blue light federal-
ists " showed their hostility, by applying to them
opprobious epithets.
He expressed regrets that whispers of his po-
litical friends around him, too audible not to
have reached his ears, had informed him that he
was not, by them. any longer regarded as a whig
but as one who had gone over to the enemy
Such insinuations, if founded in sincerity, which
he could not believe, could not exert the slightest
influence upon him. According to the dictates
of his own judgment and conscience he was faith
fully discharging a positive duty; ho had but one
road to travel, and from it he could not be made
to depart. He regarded the measure now under |
consideration as one involving in the highest de-
gree the pecuniary interests and prosperity of
the State of Maryland and city of Baltimore,
which, in his view, were inseparably connected.
And its decisions, he, therefore, esteemed above
all questions of mere party politics, and in no
wise to be influenced by them. He, therefore,
conjured his political friends, the whigs, coolly
and deliberately to weigh the grave, momentous
question now before the Convention, and not in-
cur the awful responsibility of causing the re-
jection of a measure so vitally important to the
bit interests of the State, because, in its operation
it would turn out of office five whigs, at a
salary of one hundred dollars each, [all of which
was necessarily expended in itinerant charges in
performing their official duties,] and would substi-
tute ill their place« two whigs and two democrats
of at least equal qualifications and claims, and
would constitute a board where party politics
should never be named or felt in connection with
the business before it, or because of the unfounded
suspicion resulting from its apparent fairness
and propriety of the proposition, that gome sinis-
ter political advantage must have been designed,
and the deduction thereof is made in consequence
of the source whence it emanated.
Such conduct, from any such motive, would
be any thing but complimentary, to the justice,
candor and intelligence of its authors. Sir, in
no part of Maryland were the people more indig-
nant, or violently opposed to the unjust and un-
reasonable effort of Baltimore to obtain as uncon-
trolled a sway over the Legislature of Maryland,
as it has over the election of its Governor, under
the compromised amendments of the Constitution
in 1836, than were the freemen of Howard Dis-
trict. And none would have gone further in resist-
ing the unhallowed attempt. But when the rights
and interests of Baltimore are unjustly invaded,
or attempted to be impaired, all former causes of
dissention is, for the time being, buried in obliv-
ion, and its own citizens would not sooner rush
to its defence than would the citizens of Howard
District. Were I to oppose the wise, the just,
and salutary measure now under consideration,
and should thereafter return to Howard District,
the place of my nativity, I feel assured that I
should be received with looks so cold and chill-
ing, that if I had before indulged aspirations for
elevation by popular favor, they would sink too
low, ever to rise again, without seeking a new
constituency.
The opponents of the article for the appoint-
ment of commissioners of public works have ar-
gued the question as if the sole object of the ar-
ticle was to displace the present State's Agents,
that new State's Agents, in their places, might be
appointed, for the discharge of the same duties,
and nothing more than were imposed on the old
board of Agents Such an assumption is wholly
inconsistent with the obvious construction of the
article, whether interpreted according to its let-
ter or its spirit.
But, to test the weight of our opponent's argu-
ment, let it be conceded that the issue between
us is that which arises on their misconception or
mis-statement of facts, (no intentional mis-state- |
