man in the penitentiary with such evidence
before the people? Ought be not to have
the right to go to the executive of the State
and after showing the evidence of his inno
cence, he discharged from the penitentiary
I say that is a wise provision. It is scarcely
ever exercised without due precaution. I
think the governor should be vested with the
power of pardon in cases which should prop-
erly appeal to his clemency, I hope the
amendment will not be adopted.
Mr. STIRLING. This does not affect the
pardoning power at all. It does not say
that the governor shall not pardon; only
that the pardon shall not restore the right of
suffrage.
Mr. BERRY, of Prince George's, Would it
not be equally hard for him? In the one
.case he is distrained from his liberty, and in
the other case from the elective franchise. I
say the principle will equally apply; and I
hope the amendment will not prevail.
Mr. THOMAS. It appears to me that stri-
king out this clause will have this effect:
that in the case cited by the gentleman from
Prince George's (Mr. Berry,) when the man
upon due examination by the governor has
been pardoned out of the penitentiary, still,
because he has been put in the penitentiary
for an infamous offence, he is to have this ad-
ditional stigma hanging over him, and he
cannot vote.
The amendment was rejected.
The question recurred upon Mr. CUSHING'S
amendment, to strike out the first part of the
section.
Mr. STIRLING. I do not know whether it
is the temper of the convention to adopt this
amendment or not; but I wish very earnestly
to protest against it. I shall now support
the section as it stands in the report. The
penitentiaries of this State turn out one hun-
dred and fifty felons every year; among the
most reckless and degraded of the community,
not one-tenth of whom probably will
ever be reformed, if this amendment pre-
vails the result will be to restore those men
immediately to the right of citizenship. I
have had reason to know these men; and I
state as a fact that there is not one man out of
a thousand who is not sent to the penitentiary justly.
There is not one man out of a
thousand who is not sent for the third or
fourth offence committed, the others never
having been discovered. They are the most
desperate class of people in the community,
and their crimes strike at the very foundation upon
which society rests, I have known
only one or two instances in which any man
ever sent to the penitentiary has reformed.
Mr. MILLER. I will refer the gentleman to
the fact that the law of the United States
prevents convicted felons from other coun-
tries from voting.
Mr. STIRLING Certainly, No man who has
been convicted as a felon abroad can be nat- |
uralized here. No man convicted of felony
can serve in the army or navy of the United
States. I know a man in Baltimore who got
off from the draft by producing before the
commissioner a certificate that he bad been
sent to the penitentiary and served oat his
time. Will you allow the people who under
the law of the United States have not even the
privilege of suffering the hardships of war un-
der the flag of the United States to go to the
polls and vote. Shall the penitentiaries of
Maryland turn out one hundred and fifty new
voters every year ?
Mr. CUSHING. There are more unconvicted
felons that vote at every election, two to one,
than have ever been sent to the penitentiary ;
men notoriously known in the community to
be stained with almost every crime known
under the divine law. Yet there is never a.
particle of objection made lo their voting;
and they do not unfrequently decide the elec-
tions. As to throwing these one hundred and
fifty men from the penitentiary every year up-
on the State, it does not strike me as being
so tremendous. Many of them have learned
at the penitentiary what they never knew be-
fore, bow to work at a trade, and the.' have
a chance of making a living when they come
out which they never had before. They have
learned that crime brings its punishment, a
lesson that men not in the penitentiary have
not learned. The chances are better for the
man who has come out of the penitentiary
than for the main equally bad who has not been
in it. The influences of the penitentiary and
the influences of the jail, are two very differ-
ent things. A man in the penitentiary is not
forced to herd with other felons. He is kept
at hard work, and is not allowed to speak to
the people that are near him. It is mainly a
reformatory power. It gives him time for re-
flection; and under the present system tends
to his improvement.
But in most of the jails of the State, they
are herded together, and the influence of the
jail is very different.
The argument of the gentleman from Anne
Arundel (Mr, Miller,) in respect. to foreign-
ers, does not apply to this amendment at all ;
for the law of the United States was only
passed to prevent our country from being made
a penitentiary or a Botany bay for Other coun-
tries. But there is no law of the United States
that a man coming here, who has been a felon
in Great Britain and served out his time, may
not be elected to the house of representatives
if the people choose to send him there. The
law of the United States prevents the men
who are sent here as to a penitentiary, who
are deported from their homes by the action
of their own government from becoming nat-
uralized. There is no law of the United States
to prevent a felon in Great Britain, who has
served out his time and been pardoned, from
enjoying any privilege in this country that
any other foreigner is entitled to. |
