184,000 persons and 128,000,000 of property.
Have not they made a mixture of it upon the
mixed basis?
Mr. BERRY, of Prince George's. I thought
the gentleman got that unmixed.
Mr. SANDS I am trying to get it unmixed.
Now I will ask my friends if I have taken any
partisan view of this subject? I have tried to
treat it as any political economist would treat
it, if his home was across the water and he
had never been in the State, and had not a
dollar's interest in it, and of course no party
affiliation or interest. I have tried to view it
wholly and solely from the stand-point of
political economy. Republican government?
You have not got it. You never have had
it, and you never will have it until you get
it upon the ground of some principle that
approaches nearer the principle of represen-
tation according to population.
What would be the real difficulty of ap-
plying this principle even to Baltimore city ?
No real difficulty, I apprehend. It is urged
here that the city and the counties are antag-
onistic. I say not a bit more than the head
and heart are antagonistic, or than the brain
and stomach are antagonistic. I say that any
social or political disease which would affect
the county would affect the city just as in-
evitably as any disease of the stomach affects
the head. I hope we are not going to build
up a system of government based on antipa-
thies; because if we attempt such a thing we
shall have eternal discord. You must erect
your State government, if you want it to be
stable and harmonious, not upon antipathies,
but upon sympathies, not upon the theory
that your interests are diverse and clashing,
which they are not, but upon the theory
that your interests are alike and harmonious.
That is the only true principle upon which
a stable government can be erected.
I have said nearly all I propose to say
upon this subject. I should not have said
anything about it—I had made up my mind
to vote—if our friends had not seemed to
have got under the impression that we bad
settled all this beforehand and meant to do
our do without saying our say. So far as I
am concerned there is no such agreement,
My vote here will be influenced by the rea-
sons I have assigned. The very scene around
us to-day is convincing proof to me that no
system of government can exist in which the
minority have usurped the rights of the ma-
jority, The majority will sooner or later
learn its strength and its rights; and know-
ing them, and having power to assert
them, it will do it, as it is doing it here to-
day. What is this debate between the gen-
tlemen and ourselves, other than a declara-
tion upon the part of the majority of the
rights of the majority, and the declaration
on the part of the minority that they are
going to hold on, if they can, to their ancient
privileges? That is what it all amounts to,
20 |
nothing more nor less. If gentlemen will
give me some good reason why a man in one
portion of the State should have ten times the
amount of representation here that I have or
that any other man in the State has, I may
vote for the minority report. But believing
in republican government, and wishing my
native State to approach as nearly as she
may to the true theory of republican govern-
ment, not only in theory, but in the practice
and exemplification of the theory, I shall
vote, with some very slight modifications for
the report submitted by the majority of the
committee.
One statement was reiterated by my friend
from Prince George's, which I most beg for
the last time to contradict. He says that we
have stricken down the property of the
slave owner, and now wish to deprive him of
his political rights. Neither assertion is a
fact. I have not stricken down his property,
nor aided in doing it. I deny it. I repu-
diate it. Nor am I for taking his political
rights from him. The status which I aid in
fixing for him is exactly nay own not one
hair's breadth beneath or above it.
Mr. BERRY, of Prince George's. I under-
stood the gentleman that he was not a slave-
owner. I am.
Mr. SANDS. I told yon how I got rid of it.
Mr, BERRY, of Prince George's, Yes; and
how you acquired it.
Mr. SANDS. No; I am not very quiet;
anything else but quiet; the other side is my
fault. I wish to repeat that I claim no other
rights than I accord to the slaveowner. The
other doctrine has been asserted, that the slave-
holder has political rights that the non-
slave holder has not.
Mr. BERRY, of Prince George's. I said no
such thing.
Mr. SANDS. I did not refer to you.
Mr. CLARKE. I did not claim rights as a
slaveholder, but I claimed that the emanci-
pated slaves had rights as men.
Mr. SANDS. It is the same in my own
county; so that there is an exact equality
there.
Mr. CLARKE. How many slaves are there
in Howard county? You have not changed
at all under your basis of representation, but
you have as many representatives now as
before.
Mr. SANDS. If there are a great many ne-
groes in Prince George's it is not my fault at
all.
Mr. CLARKE. Yon have stricken down their
representation.
Mr. SANDS. No, sir; the slave has cot
been represented upon this floor except a few
years ago by Mr. Jacobs. Three-fifths of the
Maryland slaves were very ably and impar-
tially represented on that occasion. I repeat
the assertion, that I have had nothing to do
with striking down my friend's property or
taking away his political rights. I would |
