sight of our court-house who are anxious
that their district should make a part of oil
county. Residing within a stone's throw of
one court-house, they have to ride twenty or
thirty miles to go to another. If the question
were taken tomorrow in those three dis
tricts which lie along the eastern BORDER=0 of
the Patapsco, whether they should be cut off
from Baltimore county and made a part of
Howard county, the vote would be almost
unanimous.
There are other portions of Baltimore
county that might perhaps object. There are
ten other districts of Baltimore county, ly
ing more contiguous to their public build
ings and courts of justice, who might choose
not because they had any real interest in
doing so, to vote to take from them the right
to annex themselves to the county of Howard
where for civil purposes they would be almost
within sight of their public buildings. The
section as reported here, that the legal voters
residing within the limits of the territory
desiring to make the change shall decide the
question, it seems to me is the true principle
What business have the voters way off the
other side of Baltimore county, lying along
the eastern BORDER=0 of the county, to say that
the people of the western portion of the
county shall not make a change which will
so greatly conduce to their interest? It is a
question that does not interest them at all.
My friend from Allegany (Mr. Greene)
suggests that it may have something to do
with taxation. The people living along the
stream are willing to pay their own taxation,
to pay their own part of the expenses, and
they expect everybody else to do the same.
1 say that this amendment takes away from
the people immediately interested the settle-
ment of the question and gives it to those
who are not interested. I have merely cited
this illustration. The principle will hold
good everywhere, under all circumstances.
Suppose one portion of a county wishes to
make a change of county lines. Is it to be
that portion situated around the public
buildings, that portion of the county contig-
uous to them, where they are easy of access,
without trouble, labor and cost? They are
not going to make such change of county
lines. The people who are going to change
the county lines are the people who are so
situated that time, and expense, and trouble,
and travel are required of them in attending
their courts.
Now, the people along the Patapsco river
that live within sight of the court-house at
Ellicott's Mills, have to go across on horse-
back, or in a buggy, if you please, to Towsontown,
tenor twenty miles off, in all sorts
of weather, because that is the county seat
of Baltimore county. There is no other rea-
son. They have a court-house in sight of
them, in which they would be very glad to
have all their legal difficulties settled for |
them, without travel, without trouble. Why
not. do it? Why allow the people located
about the county court-house at Towsontown
to decide whether the people living in aremote
part of the county shall ask the general as-
sembly to have new lines made to accomo-
date them ?
I do hope this amendment will not prevail,
for the reason that it is a violation of prin-
ciple to take from the people immediately in-
terested, the settlement of the question, and
give its decision to those who do not labor
under the difficulties imposed upon those
upon or near the county lines. Why not let
the people who are interested decide? Why
give the power to those who may choose to
exercise it arbitrarily and to the detriment
of the people interested? I cannot imagine
why this amendment was offered, but it
seems to me that it certainly does contravene
the rule that the people interested in a ques-
tion are certainly those who should be al-
lowed to decide it.
Mr. CLARKE. It seems to me that the
amendment offered by the gentleman from
Montgomery (Mr. Duvall) is a very proper
amendment to be embodied in this article.
Tire result without that amendment will be
this: that whenever one particular section
of different counties may desire it, and the ma-
jority of the people living within particular
lines so vote, they can separate themselves at
will from the counties to which they may be-
long. The argument of the gentleman from
Howard (Mr. Sands) proceeds upon the as-
sumption that if these people should vote to cut
themselves from the counties to which they now
belong, they are the only people interested.
That is not so. The rest of the county, the
other inhabitants of the county from which
they propose to separate themselves, are just
us much interested in the question whether
their county shall be subdivided, as those who
wish to go off and form a new county.
There are questions of taxation, of county
debt, of support of county officers to be con-
sidered. As soon as you subdivide a county,
yon throw upon that part of the county
which remains, the support of all these pub-
lic officers. It is a question in which these
people are interested.
You change, furthermore, the political com-
plexion of the county. One portion of the
county says, we want to join another county.
They 'are not the only persons interested.
Yon leave the rest of the county to constitute
thereafter another county. By the action of
a small minority, you may control the entire
organization, and the entire future of the
rest of the county. It is in other words,
carrying out the idea that whenever the
people of one particular section of a county
or State choose to say, we want to go off by
ourselves and form an independent commu-
nity; we are the only ones who are to be
consulted. That is not the theory at all. |
