stitution in which every interest of the State
will be sufficiently protected and guarded, and to
this I shall adhere, so far as my own judment, al-
ways open to be convinced by the wisdom and
experience of the able and distinguished men
here assembled, can direct me.
I have heard it stated that a basis of repre-
sentation has already been arranged in "caucus,"
and a debate has been had in this body regarding
the propriety of settling this most important
question in such a preliminary meeting, where
voice of less than a majority may be so exerted
as to obtain the control in this Hall, and have its
views engrafted upon the Constitution.
It is not for me to act the part of a censor
over gentlemen who choose to be bound upon
this question by meetings of this kind. I will
not charge them with having acted improperly.
Their responsibility is to their constituency, and
it is for them to judge whether they have acted
right or not. So far as I am concerned, I owe
no allegiance and have made no pledges to any
caucus movement upon this question of repre-
sentation. I have always been ready to meet
informally in consultation upon this subject, but
not to go so far as to consent to be bound up
against my own judgment, by a majority of
those present, so that I could not when I came
into this body, make even an effort in behalf of
my own views and the wishes of those who
have confided their interests to my keeping as
one of their delegates. Enough of this; but of
the proposition offered by the gentleman from
Washington, (Mr. Fiery,) I will speak here-
after.
I hope that I may be pardoned for referring
to the history of representation in Maryland.—
The gentleman from Baltimore city, (Mr.
Brent,) who first addressed you yesterday, has
claimed that representation according to population
was recognised by the Maryland colony,
as far back as 1638. Is he correct in this position?
The very law from which he read does
not sustain his view. It authorized the freemen
to vote for burgesses, who shall meet in the fort
of St. Mary's city, to take into consideration the
interests of the colony, and to those freemen.
who do not choose to vote, is reserved the right
to be present in person. Is this representation
according to population? Is there here any pro-
vision that every fifty, or one hundred, or any
other number of freemen, shall be entitled lo a
certain number of representatives? The great
principle, which is here taught, is not represen-
tation according to population, but it is that the
voice of the people must be beard in their leg-
islative assembly. Conceding, however, that
the fact was. as has been supposed by the very
learned and able gentleman, what would it
prove? Why the system so soon, as the condi-
tion of the colony in size and extent became
changed, was abandoned. At that period of time
our Pilgrim fathers had but just landed upon the
shores of the St. Mary's. But a few years be-
fore they had left the home of their childhood
and had dared the dangers of the ocean, that |
they might find in a strange and unexplored land
an asylum from intolerance and oppression.—
Their number was small. The very dangers
and storms and trials through which they had
passed, had only served to entwine more closely
their feelings and affections. Among them there
could as yet be no diversity of interest, and
there were no sectional or political differences;
but as time rolled on, their numbers increased,
local divisions were had, and in 1658, the time
of the restoration of the government to the proprietary,
we find the Legislature organized into
two separate houses, and representation in the
"lower House" uniform. From that period the
two Houses continued separate, and the number
of delegates from each division or county, some-
times varied, "but whatever the number was,
whether two, three or four," we are told, in
McMahon's history, "it was equal and uniform "
In 1692, the Legislature by law fixed the rep-
resentation from each county at four. Several
subsequent laws re-enacted this provision, and
when our ancestors in 1776 met in Convention
to form aconstitution for Maryland then emerging
from her colonial vassalage into a free and
independent State, they engrafted upon it this
same system of uniformity in representation, and
gave to each county four delegates.
This equal representation in the counties re-
mained unaltered until 1836. It was not adopt-
ed and could not have been adopted in reference
to population. The learning of gentlemen here
has not been successful in finding any historian
of Maryland, who has ventured the assertion,
that it was; and it can safely be assumed that
there is none. Need reference be made to the
first cencus taken of the inhabitants of this
State?
In 1790 a wide difference existed in the popu-
lation of many of the counties. In Charles coun-
ty the population exceeded twenty thousand,
while in Allegany it was but a little over four
thousand. Yet Allegany, now so clamorous, (if
we are permitted to judge from the views of some
of her delegates here,) for representation according
to population in the counties, was entitled to
the same number of delegates, as was any one of
the other counties. This system of equal repre-
sentation has been recognized in Maryland, in all
the vicissitudes and changes through which she
has passed from 1658 down to 1836—a period of
more than a century and a half.
How then, I would ask, can it be claimed that
representation according to numbers is recogniz-
ed as one of the earliest principles in the legisla-
tive history of Maryland? Upon what authority
is it possible to rest the claim? If any doctrine
may be considered as interwoven with the early
government of the State, it is the doctrine of
equal representation. The convulsions of the
proprietary and colonial governments left it un-
touched—the struggles of a long and tedious re-
volution harmed it not, and the patriot who had
dashed from him the yoke of bondage, was will-
ing to leave it unchanged. Yet it was altered
and the basis of 1836 adopted.
I will not stop to inquire into the circumstan- |
