of this State shall remain in our midst, it
seems to me that it will be incumbent upon
the State to educate them, even as a mere
measure of safety to the State.
Mr. PUGH. I do not understand the gentle-
man to contemplate that by his amendment.
Mr. CUSHING. It necessarily introduces that
restriction upon the legislature.
Mr. GALLOWAY withdrew the amendment.
Mr. TODD moved that the convention ad-
journ.
The motion was rejected.
Mr. MILLER. I propose to say a few words
with reference to the amount of taxation that
will be imposed upon the people of the State
by the adoption of this report as it stands, as
a part of the constitution of the State. The
sixth section provides for anannual tax of 10
cents on each $100 dollars of taxable proper-
ty, and this is a perpetual tax; it is to con-
tinue as long as the constitution itself endures,
Gentlemen will remember that such a tax will
raise $710.000 per year. Again, the next
(the seventh) section, imposes an additional
tax of not less than $300,000 per annum,
Mr. CUSHING. How do you obtain the
amount $710,000?
Mr. MILLER. I take it from the report of the
comptroller of 1863, in which the income from
direct taxes at 10 cents on the $100, as I understand
it, amounts to $710,000.
Mr. SANDS. That was at 25 cents on the
$100, I think. The last legislature reduced it
to 10 cents.
Mr. HEBB. Ten per cent. on the amount
of taxable property was $239,782 70.
Mr. MILLER. At any rate, there will be a
tax of $289,000.
Mr. CUSHING. Slave property will have to
be deducted.
Mr. MILLER. Provision will very shortly be
made for a re-assessment of property, which
will increase the taxable basis of the State by
a very large amount; so that this tax will raise
over $350,000 a year. Then in addition to
that, by the seventh section, the general assem-
bly are further to provide by law a fund for
the support of free common schools, by the
imposition of an annual tax of a not less an-
nual amount than $300,000. If in the pres-
ent taxable basis only $289,000 can be raised
by a direct tax of 10 cents on the $100, in
order to raise the $300,000 the general as-
sembly would have to levy an additional tax
of over 10 cents, making an annual tax of over
20 cents upon the $100, for the support of
schools.
Mr. SANDS. I think my friend from Anne
Arundel must be laboring under a mistake in
saying that it will amount to 20 cents on the
$100. There is a published statement here—
Mr. MILLER. The amount is different in the
different counties, and the statement given by
the gentleman only shows that the people of
the lower counties, Charles and Prince George's,
are more liberal in the support of common |
schools than the people of other parts of the
State. They pay 12 or 15 cents, and in Anne
Arundel county it is 12 cents. Now then we
are to raise at least $290,000 a year as long
as this constitution endures, for the support of
common schools. Then in addition to that
we are to raise $300,000 a year, until the fund
amounts to $6,000,000, which will take some
eighteen or twenty years.
There is no provision made at all for the
school funds of the separate counties. They
have large sums invested now, and there is
no provision made as to how they shall bedis-
posed of; the annual interest from the public.
works, and from the present school fund, which
the State holds in bank-stocks, Sic., is only
provided for. It seems to me than gentlemen
must desire to defeat this constitution, if this
school system which they are inaugurating in
addition to the annual salaries paid to the su-
perintendent, and in addition to the cost of
these various officers created by sections two,
. three and four, is to raise for the next fifteen
years over $500,000 a year, for the support of
'• this system of common schools in the State, it
seems to me that it will go a good ways towards
defeating the constitution. I do not know of
any State in the Union, not even Connecticut,
with so large a school fund. In Connecticut,
the school fund amounted only to about four
millions of dollars, and there was, I think,
still a small additional tax imposed on chil-
dren that went to the school. I do not know
of such an extravagant expenditure in any
State in the Union as this, which is now
proposed for the State of Main-viand.
I have no amendment to offer. I am in fa-
vor of a common school education, and of
making liberal) provisions for it; bull think
this is too liberal, too expensive to the State,
accumulating taxes for the few coming years,
when the State is already burdened with taxes,
and ought to adopt a more moderate scale of
taxation for this purpose,
Mr. CUSHING. The specious nature of the
argument we have just heard is I think best
displayed by the suggestion made to this
house that this proposed taxation will defeat
the constitution, when the gentleman that
made the argument has not think yet voted
for one article that we have put into the con-
stitution. Consequently that argument is
not at all a good argument coming from the
source from which it does come. I think we
may throw out of consideration altogether an
'' argument coming from that source to such
effect, because I think if it was liable to de-
feat the constitution we should find the gen-
tleman a most stringent urger upon. this con-
vention to put it in.
Now I want to show that this decreases
the taxation of the State below the tax paid
last year. It imposes for the formation of a
school fund, and for the support of the school
system, a tax of 20 cents on the $100. 1
will guaranty that there is hardly a county |
