which is perfectly palpable. Baltimore has
connections everywhere through the State.
Its influence is not confined to those who
represent her in the council of the State.
There is not a county that has not an interest
in Baltimore. They own stocks there of all
sorts and sizes; they participate in all her
financial operations. There is not a county
in the State that has not of some sort or other,
some bond of contact or sympathy with the
city of Baltimore.
The PRESIDENT announced that the time of
the gentleman bad expired under the rule.
Mr. MARBURY. I did not intend when this
debate opened, to say a word upon this sub-
ject. But I have been so struck with the in-
justice of the course of the majority open this
subject, that I cannot refrain from making a
few remarks. The gentlemen of the majority
of this convention, whenever the opportunity
presented itself, have been from the com-
mencement of this convention, preaching into
our ears the inhumanity and injustice of the
institution of slavery. They have gone as
far back as the first slave-ship that introduced
slaves in this country; and said that there
was no foundation in law for the institution;
that there were no parties capable of con-
tracting, They have said that an institu-
tion, which every law of the State has recog-
nized as fixed upon a solid foundation, bad
no legal existence.
Now they have stricken down that institu-
tion; they have abolished slavery in the
State, and they bold out to the world the
idea that they have done a great and mag-
nanimous act, something that they have been
struggling for for years and years They say
to the slave—"Now, that you are free, every-
thing in the world is done for you that ought
to be done; you are now a great people; you
can now cultivate your minds; yon can now
rise to an equality with the other races of the
earth." Now, I appeal to these gentlemen,.
in all fairness, if they were enslaved, and
were offered freedom with none of the rights
of freemen, would they consider they would
then be much better off than they were be-
fore? I know it is a favorite doctrine with
gentlemen that this right of representation,
and the right to be a witness is, for a certain
class of men, a very small matter, a matter
not much to be considered. As long as they,
the apostles of liberty, the embodiment of all
that is just, and right, and good, are repre-
sented in the State of Maryland, everything
will be right, and fair, and just, and honora-
ble; the resources of the State will all be de-
veloped, and they inlend to hold an example
up to the world such as all the nations of the
earth will admire.
Now, we of these lower counties, do not
exactly see all the justice, all the light that they
intend to pour upon us, from what we have al-
ready had an opportunity of observing. I say
that when you strike down the institution of |
slavery, when yon make slaves freemen, to
be consistent in your course you must give
them representation. What good will this
freedom do them? Where is the justice of
putting Ideas into the minds of men. of put-
ting ambitious views into their minds; edu-
cating them and cultivating them up to &
point when they will become a rebellions and
restive people amongst us? Yet they are
not even to be heard here through white
agents or any other. I see no reason for
this, except what is now suggested to my
mind; that yon fear that if you allow these
slave counties to be represented according to
population, the white men of those counties
will still control the legialation of the State,
as they have done in times past. Now they
will come here with nothing but fairness and
justice and honorable principles to present
to the consideration of any legislature that
may hereafter convene in this State. They
will come, as they have always come, asking
for nothing but that to which they are justly
entitled. And I feel that that is the reason
why the majority are unwilling to allow this
population to be represented, while they still
have white slaves represented. Under' the
law of your State yon have apprentices rep-
resented here; and yet yon do not want to
let negro freemen be represented. Those men
whom you say were created equal to white
men. You do not intend that they shall even
be represented in your legislative halls. Now
where is the justice of that? where is the hu-
manity of it? the consistency of it?
I would state, moreover, that it has been
the policy, I think, of the party—if there ever
heretofore has been such a party in this State
as the majority represent—it has been the
policy of the delegation from Baltimore city
heretofore to struggle to get representation
according to population; the history of the
State for many years past will show that they
have continually harped upon that. They
have, to a considerable extent, impressed
upon the minds of the people of the State the
justice of the views which they have attempted
to enforce. And now, when for the first
time, the slave counties of the State come up
and meet them in all fairness, with the same
proposition presented to them by the slave
counties, they abandon the theory upon
which they have worked for years. I do not
see how those gentlemen can go back and
face their constituents and say to them: " It
is true yon have fought for this theory for
years and years; and when we were in the
convention the delegate from Prince George's
(Mr. Clarke,) one of the slaveholding conn-
ties that have always been voting against yon
heretofore, came forward and proposed what
yon have always demanded as a right, and yet
we rejected it." Sensible men will say that
hostility to slaveholders was at the bottom of
your rejection of this offer. Sift the whole
thing and you will find that it is nothing on |
