Who and what are they to be? Will they not be
the chosen agents of a free and enlightened peo-
ple, coming always fresh from among; them, ac-
quainted with their wants and wishes, and having
specially in charge the fulfilment of those wishes,
and the gratification of these wants? Will they
not be in short, the agents by which the people
are to carry on and carry out the principles and
rights of self-government? And to argue that
they are not to be trusted with the power of pas-
sing such laws, from time to time, as the good of
the State may require, whether for the call of
Conventions or otherwise, is to argue against the
capacity of the people for self-government, it is
anti-republican, anti-democratic, and leads to un-
just assumptions of power and prerogative. It
must be admitted that it is to the Legislature we
are to look generally for the true and only authoritative
expression of the will of the people—they
are the channel though which the people are ac-
customed to speak, and will speak in a voice to
be heard and respected. Why attempt to deny
them this right in reference to amendments to
your plan of a Constitution, till after the lapse of
ten years, and thereafter only at decenial periods?
You have not the pretext now of unequal repre-
sentation in the Legislature, for you have fixed
that yourselves, and to your own liking—and if
you adopt the amendment of the gentleman from
Allegany, you will evince a determination to keep
that and all things else, as you have fixed them,
for at least ten years, complain who will, oppress
whom it may!
Rely upon it, sir, the only wise and proper
mode of providing for future Conventions, is to
leave to the people the privilege of speaking to
that subject through their Legislature. When
then, and whenever the people desire the con-
vention of such an assembly, it will be called,
and not without such a desire on their part.
Wherefore burthen the people with the expense,
vexation and turmoil of assembling at stated pe-
riods, at the usual places of holding elections, to
declare by their votes, whether they will have a
Constitutional Reform Convention or not. When
you know not, you cannot know whether any
portion of the people will have a desire for any
such thing, or that there will be any occasion for
it at the time you designate; yet they must, if
you adopt this provision, go and cast their voles,
however much they may be opposed to it, or the
the Convention will be called by a small minori-
ty—a parcel of agitators and office hunters who
may chose to cast their votes ! Why unnecessarily
impose this task upon the people ? Why not
leave them to speak their wishes upon the subject
through their Legislature,
That minorities may call Conventions, if the
proposition of submitting the question, once in
ten years, to the popular vote is adopted. I need
only refer to the manner in which this Conven-
tion was called. Every one knows, that although
the calling of this Convention had been a subject
of agitation for years, and there was supposed lo
be considerable excitement about it. Yet, when
the question was submitted to the popular vote,
but a small minority of all the voters of the State |
voted for it—though a majority of the votes cast
were in its favor—the larger number of the peo-
ple not taking interest enough in the subject to
go to the poles. If, then, this the first Conven-
tion since the revolution, and about which so
much clamor had been raised, was called into
being by a minority of the voters of the State,
you can judge what will be the case when the
question comes to be submitted by virtue of a
provision of our organic law, once in every ten
years, A few agitators and office seekers will
drum up some hundreds, or some thousands, if
you please, in different quarters of the State, to
join them in voting for a Convention; whilst the
great body of the people, satisfied and contested
with the government, and pursuing their ordina-
ry employments, will remain at their homes; and
thus the Convention will be called, society dis-
turbed, large expenditures of the public money
incurred, and no body benefited except those
who are to appropriate to their individual emolu-
ment, the unnecessary public expenditure!
Again, sir it is not to be expected that the new
Constitution is to pass from our hands in a state
of perfection—fallability is the lot of humanity.
There will be, there must be, some defects, some
imperfections in this instrument, after this Con-
vention shall have ended their labors upon it, and
unless I am much mistaken, many defects and
imperfections will be found to exist. Will you
not leave with the Legislature the power which
they have always had, and never once abused, to
amend these defects by the acts of two successive
Legislatures? Will you not allow them, in the
old, usual and approved mode, to harmonize its
discordant parts, to regulate its practical work-
ings, so as to effect the very end you have in
view? It may be that some very slight alterations
may be necessary in consequence of clerical er-
rors or accidental omissions, the propriety, the
necessity lor which the whole community may
see and desire to have mode, they may be neces-
sary even to make a clause or section covering
the sense intended. And will you not leave power
in the hands of the people to do this by an act of
their Legislature, which, after it is passed, they
are to judge of and approve by an act of the suc-
ceeding Legislature, before it becomes binding?
or will you compel them to wait for any and
every such amendment for the long period often
years, and then be able to accomplish it only by
the most cumbrous and expensive machinery of
another Convention? Costs are not to beregarded
when public rights are at stake, and no man
would more indignantly scorn any argument which
should seem to balance money with any real se-
curity of the public weal than I would. But
where no popular right is involved, it seems hard
to require the people to incur an expense of two
or three hundred thousand dollars, to accomplish
an end which can be as well and much better ef-
fected without any, or with but very little ex-
pense.
The honorable gentleman from Baltimore
county, (Mr. Howard,) has said that the people
will bear with patience an inconvenience for ten
years, provided they know that at the end of that
time they can remedy it. I know the people are |
