Deleglates. Delegates.
No. 1, 102, would give her 25
" 2, 86 " " " 21
" 3, 4, 82, 81, " " " 20
" 5, 6 and 7, 75, 72, 72 " " " 18
" 8 and 9 67 and 66, " " " 16
" 10 61 " " " 15
" 11 58 " " " 14
" 12 69 " " " 17
" 13 88 " " " 22
Pretty much the same result in No. 2, 3 and 4
and 13, of the plans of apportioning the House.
In plan No. 1, the application is easily made;
Frederick and Baltimore counties, would have
an additional delegate. Neither of the other
counties named would; they having each a num-
ber of delegates, already equal to that increase,
[102] Mr. MERRICK'S plan.
Mr. PHELPS If Baltimore has twenty-five,
what would Washington and Frederick be entitled
to ?
Mr. BLAKISTONE. Washington would be enti-
tled to five, because she has one-nineteenth of the
population of the State, and if you multiply that,
five times nineteen would be within five of a hundred,
and as you come down the ladder, you can
calculate for yourselves,
The seventy-five would give her three, with a
very large fraction; seventy-two would give her
the same, with a small fraction, and so on down
to fifty-eight, would give her two, with no frac-
tion; but when you get to sixty-nine, it would
give her three, with an increased fraction again
Now, sir, I hope that no gentleman will under-
stand me as going for the plan of the gentleman
from Baltimore city—representation according
to population; but I wish gentlemen to come to
a settled and suitable basis, by which the repre-
sentation of Maryland is hereafter to be regu-
lated, not to he shifted with every change, of par-
ty, for the purpose of giving the ascendancy to
one or the other party, and then, the very next
day, to be overturned by some, other political parly
who wish to have a change in the Constitution
Now, the gentleman from Baltimore city, Mr.
PRESSTMAN, (I am very sorry that he is not here.)
says he goes in for compromise, and he read his
colleague a most beautiful lecture here yester-
day. I, however, have no objection to that, if it
was agreeable to his colleague and himself. It
was a beautiful compromise where everything
was given on one side, and nothing received on
the other. Now, do you call that a compromise,
when two men agree to settle a difference be-
tween them and one holds on and the other gives
up all—every point? Sir, it has none of the ele-
ments of a compromise about it. None at all
It has not even a squinting at a compromise.
Let us go a little further, and I tell you it fell
upon my ear, not as the most agreeable sound I
ever heard, when I heard gentlemen appealing to
—what? To local partialities—to local prejudi-
ces to the reform counties of Maryland to inarch
up and take the whole power in their own hands.
Was there no one else here ?
Where were the southern tier of counties on
the Western Shore with old St. Mary's at their |
head, embracing one of the most interesting sec-
tions of the whole State—nay, of the world ?
Where were the eight Eastern Shore counties?
But perhaps gentlemen think that Cecil, Caroline,
Talbot, and Queen Anne's, being in favor of
their peculiar notions of reform, compose the whole
Eastern Shore, or at least as much as is at this
time worthy of their notice. I, however, entertain
a very different opinion. I consider the whole
Eastern Shore as a part, and parcel of us, having
the same interest the same sentiment, the same
rights, and the same common destiny,
I wish my friends from Talbot, Cecil, Queen
Anne's, and Caroline, may not find they
have a fearful responsibility to answer to their
constituents when the day of accounting shall
come for the pans they are enacting in this grand
political drama. It is no part of my purpose
to interpose between honorable gentlemen and
their constituents, yet I may be permitted the
expression of the opinion, (unless I am most
grossly deceived ) that their sentiments and opin-
ions, as here expressed, do not reflect the senti-
ments and opinions of their constituents.
O tempora! O mores! What a change has
come over the scene of things.
Where were the southern counties, and the
Eastern Shore counties in times that are past and
gone, but which have left a sad remembrance
behind—a legacy of taxation ? Did honorable
gentlemen representing Baltimore city and the
western counties of Maryland, when they want-
ed the State to embark in splendid and mag-
nificent works of interrial improvements, for-
get Southern and Eastern Maryland? Oh, no, sir.
Did denunciation, and menace, and disparaging
epithets characterise their discussions then?
Were we reproached with having tyrannized
over and oppressed Baltimore city and western
Maryland ? Were we twitted with the paucity of
our numbers? Were we assimilated to the "ex-
ploded, rotten borough system of England," to
which the honorable gentleman from Cecil, [Mr.
McLane,] said, (I think in bad taste,) "some of
us were so tenacious of adhering?" Was our
poverty held up to ridicule when compared with
the wealth of Baltimore and western Maryland?
Were we told that their numbers and wealth en-
titled them to lord it over us, and that we must
surrender all political power into their hands,
and become "hewers of wood and drawers of
water" for their lordships and noble highnesses;
their numbers and wealth, "by the grace of God,"
having made them our legitimate taskmasters?
Nothing of the kind was heard. On the con-
trary, our patriotism, our liberality, was appealed
to. We were then recognised and acknowledged
as equals, and that is all that we ever desired, and
desire now—we desire no more. The giant city
of Baltimore and Western Maryland, then
put on no proud and supercilious airs of numeri-
cal or percuniary superiority In what character
did they then appear?—I almost blush to men-
tion it, when I see and know what is enacting
before our eyes. In tones of supplication, we
were addressed. They argued with us, they
reasoned with us. "They besought us—they |
