first section. I suppose that it will be con-
ceded on all hands that the real construction
of this statute will be this: that the general
words of the law covering these cases gov-
erns, unless there be specific exceptions to it.
The only exception which the law makes to
the general provision contained in the first
section is that it allows a senator or delegate
to be eligible to a seat in this convention. It
then goes on and says " that no senator or
representative in the Congress of the United
States, or judge of any circuit court, superior
court, court of common pleas, or criminal
court of the city of Baltimore, clerks of said
courts, register of wills, or sheriff, shall be
eligible to said convention."
That embraces, I say, the same thing that
would be covered by the general provisions
of the first section; but it does not annul the
language of the first section. It Joes not do
away with this provision; because an enumeration
of certain persons who shall not far
eligible cannot control or modify the general
terms of this first section, which cover the
whole class of persons. It is merely a defective
enumeration in the fourth section of a
certain class of persons covered by the gen-
eral language of the first section.
On that construction of the law, looking to
the law itself, I think there can be no doubt
upon the question. Then arises the great
question: is this law binding upon this con-
vention? Are we to be governed and con-
trolled by the provisions of this act? If we
are to be governed and controlled by them in
any one particular, it seems to me that we
must take the whole act. Now what power
bad the legislature to provide, as the report
of this committee says they did, that before
we took a seat in this convention we should
take and subscribe a certain oath. If this is
a sovereign convention, uncontrolled and un-
trammelled by previous legislation upon the
subject of the qualifications of members, what
shall be done by members of the convention
before they take their seats? If this conven-
tion is sovereign to that extent, I ask what
authority bad the legislature to put this pro-
vision in the convention bill? I say that any
member of this convention is estopped from
denying that the provisions of that law are
binding upon the convention. What right
have the legislature to prescribe that fifty
members of this convention shall constitute
a quorum to do business? And yet the con-
vention day by day has been sitting and act-
ing under that provision of the law. What
right had they to add the many other things
which are there? What right bad they to
prescribe that this convention should submit
to the people of the State for ratification the
constitution which we should adopt? Do
gentlemen consider that provision of the law
binding upon them? If they do, they must
take the whole law together, take all its pro- |
visions. That is the view which I take of
this case.
This idea of absolute sovereignty in this
convention I do not adopt, if we are in the
broad sense of the term a sovereign conven-
tion, representing the people of the State, in-
dependent of all legislative instructions, in-
dependent of all provisions in the present con-
stitution, or anything else, we have fall and
unlimited control of the entire State. We
could turn out the governor. We could ex-
haust the treasury. We could do anything
that the sovereign people in their majesty
could do. We could overturn all the exist-
ing institutions of the State, all the officers of
the State. Everything would be at the mer-
cy of the convention itself No one will con-
tend that this convention is so sovereign as
that.
There is some limitation, it has been con-
ceded, upon it. But what is the limitation"
I take it that it is the limitation contained in
this bill under which this convention was
called. We must take the whole of it, and
the whole of it together. I hold that the
people who have voted for or against this
convention, voted for or against a conven-
tion to be called under the provisions of this
hill. They had the hill spread before them
and knew what they were voting about.—
They put their interpretation upon it. In
some counties they put a different interpreta-
tion upon it from what they did in others.
But they bad their interpretation; and the
question for us to decide is what is the true
construction of the bill itself.
Gentlemen must come to that, and the ma-
jority of this convention must decide whether
they will now abide by the provisions of this
bill, or whether they will assume that we are
a sovereign convention unrestrained by any
provision whatever contained in that bill. If
they take that ground, then I say we have a
right to adopt this constitution without sub-
mitting it to the people, and make it the con-
stitution for the State. We have the right to
do a great many other things which this bill
says we shall not do, or about which there
are limitations in the bill. I ask gentle-
men how they get over this provision that the
qualifications of members of this convention
shall be the same as those of delegates to the
general assembly. If the legislature had pow-
er to restrict in any particular, they had pow-
er certainly to restrict in this, and say that
no man should come here unless twenty-one
years of age; that no man should come here
who was not a citizen of the United States;
that no man should come here representing them
who had not been for three years a resident in
the State; that no man should come here rep-
resenting them who at the same time was an
office-holder under the existing constitution
and laws of the State, or under the constitu-
tion of the United States. They bad the right
to say that, and they have said it in this bill. |
