tricts as it shall be entitled to send delegates,
and let the people in each district send one
man. That is my plan. That is the system
I will vote for. That is the system which is
right. That is the system which, more per-
fectly than any other, will give a direct
straight forward representation of the people.
I do not, as a representative of one of the
smaller counties, fear the representative of
Baltimore city. The danger we have to fear,
and I am perfectly frank about it, the-danger
all the smaller counties have to fear, is not
in the number of representatives Baltimore is
entitled to send here, but the fact that by the
constitution of the State they are organized
into a great political unit.
Let a county have 10,000 votes. Then
5001 can send here ten delegates, and the rest
of the county is disfranchised, and has no
voice. Suppose Baltimore city has 30,000
votes; then 15,001 can send the whole
twenty-one delegates here, and the rest are
disfranchised. In my own county it operates
in the same way. There is a part of my
county—It is all wrong, and I want it cor-
rected—which has not been properly repre-
sented, which has not been represented at all
in these halls for ten years, and never can be
if elections are held upon general ticket; for
the remainder of the county will control and
send all the representatives.
But arrange it otherwise; district the city
of Baltimore, and give her twenty-five dele-
gates if you choose; district the counties,
and give Prince George's three; and let each
district vote for one man, and that brings us
upon an equality. It makes a white man of
Prince George's, and a -white man of Balti-
more city equal to one another; bscause you
vote for one man as vour delegate, and you
become the constituent of one man only; and
you cannot control under that system of
election, more than one man.
The great advantage is that it brings the
people into an immediate, direct, and I might
almost say, neighborhood representation. It
is so in all the counties. What I have said
with regard to my. own county applies to
every county in the State. I am for dividing
up the city and the counties, so that every
section of every county shall have its voice
here, whether or not they agree with the ma-
jority of the people of the county. That ia
the system upon which I am desirous that we
should adjust this question.
Mr. CLARKE. It occurs to me that if we
go through the second reading of this report,
section by section, and adopt in sections, it
will not then be in order to offer a substitute.
The PRESIDENT. No, sir.
Mr. CLARKE. I have drawn up a substitute
expressing my views of the proper basis of
representation. I heartily indorse nearly
everything said by my colleague, who has
just taken his seat. When I came to this
convention I had supposed that there would |
certainly be one question here which would
rise above the mere trammels of party; that
in view of the fact that it ought to be the de-
sire of this convention to frame such a con-
stitution as would be lasting in its character,
however you might deal with the question of
slavery—however you might deal with the
duty of the citizens of the State to the fed-
eral government, looking to the general wel-
fare of the State, it would be the aim of gen-
tlemen coming from different sections of the
State to frame a representative system which
would be true and sound in principle—which
would not be brought in here as a mere arbi-
trary rule for which no particular reason hag
been or can be assigned, why it should be
adopted rather than any other system, which
would not be devoid of or wanting in prin-
ciple, except that one principle that it starts
out in the first place on a wrong basis,
namely, the basis of the white population as
the sole representative basis, excluding from
any representation here, in this hall, that
large population in the State, 90,000, who
have been free negroes for years and repre-
sented, and excluding further from represnta-
tion some 80 or 90,000 more negroes who
will be set free.
It is very plain why this system has been
adopted here. It has been said upon this
floor that the negro is a man, that be is born
with the same rights—all men being created
free and equal—the same right? to liberty,
and the enjoyment of peace and property,
with any other man. The gentlemen an-
nouncing this doctrine come in here, and not
only exclude from representation those who
are placed from a state of slavery into a state
of freedom, but deny representation to those
who were free before and entitled to repre-
sentation.
The chairman of this very committee .(Mr.
Abbott) offered an additional article to the
bill of rights, announcing, if it means any-
thing, I think, the true doctrine, that this
class of people are entitled to representation.
1 so construed it. Yet when you come to par-
cel out the representation you ignore this
principle which you have announced, you de-
part from it, and you not only exclude the
class which you have carried from a state of
slavery to freedom, but you exclude a large
class who have been represented heretofore.
It is not that suddenly, so soon as you re-
move slavery, these gentlemen become negro-
haters. I do not believe it is based upon
that principle at all. But there are a certain
class of persons in the State, and certain lo-
calities in the State, to which their hatred is
greater than their love for the negro. The
principle is departed from which they have
upon every other occasion announced. And
this was to do what? That those, counties
which have been slaveholding, and where
there will be this population may be shorn of
their representative rights, that those who |
