And it was agreed to.
The question was then taken on the second
and remaining branch of the amendment,
And it was agreed to.
Mr. TUCK. I have the honor in behalf of the
committee on Revision, to present to the Con-
vention the Constitution of Maryland in its en-
grossed form, and to lay it upon the President's
desk for his signature, according to the direction
of the Convention. We have carefully revised
all the articles with the engrossed copy, and find
it to be correct in all respects.
The Constitution was laid before the Presi-
dent for his signature.
Mr. HOWARD. We have nothing more to do
than to make a provision that the engrossed copy
shall be deposited in the proper place.
Mr. SPENCER. An order has already been pas-
sed upon that subject.
Mr. HOWARD. When the orders are read,
the gentleman will see that it is not applicable to
the present state of things.
The orders were read as follows:
Ordered, That Mr. TUCK and Mr. GRASON be
isntructed to deposit the engrossed Constitution after
its signature by the President and Secretary,
in the office of the Clerk of the Court of Appeals
for the Western Shore.
Ordered, That this Convention adjourn sine
die.
Mr. SPENCER. I will merely suggest that we
have already passed an order that a committee of
three shall cause the engrossed copy to be published
and bound, and that the engrossed Consti-
tution and a bound copy shall be deposited in the
office of the Court of Appeals.
Mr. HOWARD. This order can do no harm.
It proposes that the original copy shall be placed
among the archives, and the resolutions of the
gentleman refers to printed copies.
Mr. CHAMBERS thought this an odd proceeding.
The Convention, within the last few minutes,
passed a part of the Constitution, and before he
had time to get back to the committee by whose
direction he had procured its passage, he found
the committee here. He had as soon expected
to see the stars fall. The paper is yet on the
clerk's desk, where it lies in sight of us all, and
Jet the committee enter the hall and say they
have an engrossed and perfect copy of the Con-
stitution.
Mr CONSTABLE. The committee tell us so.
Mr. CHAMBERS desired to know whether the
clerk was lo make what he thought a copy of
the Constitution, but which this Convention had
never seen or read, or heard read. It did not
sound right, that upon the mere ipse dixit of the
clerk, the President was to subscribe and the Se-
cretary to attest such an instrument, and send it
out as the work of this body. He did not desire
to interpose any unnecessary obstacle to rapid
progress, but in so very serious a matter as the
formation of a government for the people of the
State for all time to come It did seem to be a
most strange, careless and undignified mode of
proceeding. He did not think a case quite par-
allel could be found in the book which professes |
to give a history of all the Constitutions in the
Union. As to any matter of mere form, he was
willing to dispense with it, so far as be was not
made responsible, and be did not mean to be made
responsible for these doings. Whether in ether
respects it was or was not the Constitution which
the committee now presented, he could not tell, nor
did he suppose any one else could. Certainly
there lay a part of it on a scrap of paper on the
Clerk's desk.
Mr. TUCK said:
That the gentleman from Kent, and all the
members of the Convention knew very well that
that paper was not in the form in which it was
to be signed by the President. He had stated
this evening, under the direction of the com-
mittee, that as there was an anxiety felt on the
part of the members to adjourn this night, and
not to meet in the morning, every other part of
the Constitution would be engrossed during the
recess we had taken, if the Convention would
agree to accept, as an engrossment for the present,
of the Legislative and Judicial departments, the
printed bills which had been acted upon by the
Convention, in relation to those departments.
He understood that suggestion to be acquiesced
in, and it was so understood by the committee.
In accordance with that suggestion, (and he
thought it was understood so by the gentleman
from Kent,) he came in here with the committee
to make the report in that form, the understand-
ing being that the final engrossment as to the
legislative and judicial departments was to be done
during the night, and in the morning, under the
direction of the committe, in which the mode
proposed by the committee did not differ in prin-
ciple from the order of the honorable gentleman
from Baltimore county, (Mr. Howard.)
He was free to say that when he came out of
the Senate chamber, (where the committee had
been in session,) he did not know that the Con-
vention had passed the article to which his atten-
tion had been called. The Convention had re-
fused to hear him on the thirty-sixth article of
the Bill of Rights in relation to tests, and he sup-
posed they had refused to consider any amend-
ment, or any suggestion of an amendment to any
portion of the Constitution. The committee did
not know that that amendment had been passed.
They knew that the honorable gentleman from
Kent, under the direction of the committee bad
come in here to supply what they considered a
casus omissus in references to the contested elec-
tions of judges, but they did not learn from the
gentleman that that section had been adopted by
the House.
Mr. CHAMBERS, I have not left the Conven-
tion.
Mr. TUCK said:
That when the committee came into the hall,
they did not know that the gentleman had suc-
ceeded in obtaining the adoption of his amend-
ment, and he did know it until the gentleman
came to him and told him that the instrument he
had laid upon the President's desk did not contain
the article just passed. This statement was due
to the committee) and also to the Convention |
