power in subverting the present government
and setting up the government of the traitors
in place thereof. I want no such man to
vote—I want no such man to hold office in
the State of Maryland, lam bold in avowing
it, because I do not believe any such man
has a right to vote or to hold office.
The gentleman from Kent threw out an in-
sinuation, to-day, a sort of threat or an inti-
mation at least that we would better mind
bow we made such stringent laws, because
Jeff. Davis might come in, and then we should
have to swear the same to him. I fear that
reason has operated a good deal on the other
side. I fear some other gentlemen are look-
ing to-day, and perhaps have a little expecta-
tion or assurance of such a result; and that
is one of the reasons why they do not want
to take this oath, for fear King Jeff. may ride
into power; and some of these voters and
office-holders would agreat deal rather swear
allegiance to his government than to ours.
I have no such fear. I have no such objec-
tion to taking this oath. And this is another
reason for the oath, because I say that any
man who could be induced to hold office un-
der Jeff. Davis' government is unfit to hold
office under Abraham Lincoln. We must
fight these traitors at home as well as abroad,
every man as he best can. Some of us can-
cot use bullets so well, but as was said to-day
we may use ballots, and we may, by our acts
here say whether those men who have since
this rebellion sympathized entirely with trea-
son shall use them, A good many of them
have not only sympathized, but have gone
further. I do not of course intimate that
any member of this convention has, because
they have all taken an oath never directly or
indirectly by word, act or deed, to give en-
couragement to this rebellion. But I know
there are men, plenty of them, outside, who
have done such things, and who would be the
very first to come up and vote, and many of
them to hold office in the State, if you do not
put in some provision of law to exclude them.
Gentlemen talk of spies, and informers and
detectives, and say that with all these things
we have all the guards we need. Do they
not know that with all our spies and detec-
tives and gunboats, there is blockade running
and communion with the south, by which
they are informed of all our plans and secrets,
and that the south are fed and clothed from
Maryland and other loyal States almost as
much now as before the war commenced ?—
Most certainly. We have constantly to be on
oar watch in this matter, in order that we
may, if we wish to protect, and defend, and
aid the administration, and protect and de-
fend the government of the United States,
trust none with power unless we know they
are loyal at heart, for the government of the
United States as well as for the government
of the State of Maryland.
I was a little amused at the inconsistency |
of the gentleman from Somerset (Mr. Jones)
this morning. It has been a common thing
around the house for gentlemen, after they
have denounced Abraham Lincoln as the
worst despot in the world, when they have
piled epithet upon epithet until the vocabula-
ry was exhausted in the descriptions of the
tyrannical despotism of Abraham Lincoln, to
acknowledge, many of them, that secession
is wrong and not to be justified by the con-
stitution. But never yet has one of them
uttered a word of condemnation of Jeff.
Davis for all his cruel acts, for his ruthless
conscription, for anything that he has done.
And when we attempt to pin this or that gen-
tleman, as we did this morning, he flies away
to the north and reads great homilies about
abolition. That is the answer we get when
we want them to be equal and fair and
just on all sides.
From such ardent, fervent lovers of free re-
publican government, we should expect to
hear something about this ruthless tyranny
exhibited in the south, something about the
abolition of the habeas corpus there, something
of the rights the citizens are deprived of there.
But not one word have I heard coming from
one of these gentlemen upon that side.
And here was the gentleman who was so
wonderfully consistent, denouncing Abraham
•Lincoln in one breath, and in the next breath
he was quoting to us his sayings and doings,
and calling upon us to follow. The gentle-
man came here this morning and read extract
after extract of what Mr. Lincoln had said,
that you never could compel the States by
force, that you never could maintain the government
by force; and we have bad quoted
what President Lincoln said about the aboli-
tion of slavery and about compensation) when
he was ready and willing to aid the States all
be could; and it has been thrown in our teeth
that we have been going a great deal further
than Abraham Lincoln.
Now it seems to me that there have been
many changes in this respect. Let me take,
as one thing, the policy of the President in
relation to domestic affairs, when he wrote
message after message recommending to the
BORDER=0 States to abolish slavery and promised
them, so far as he could by his power and
with the aid of Congress, to help them to do
it. Does any gentleman doubt that it could
have been obtained at that time if the slave-
holders had accepted it? Not at all. 1
rather think it is the gentlemen themselves
who have changed in regard to that. Gen-
tlemen spurned the offer. They would not
receive a cent for their slaves. Take their
property without their consent and then offer
to pay them? Gentlemen—slave-holders—
buried it back. I do not think they would
hurl it back now, if they could get it.
One of the gentlemen from Prince George's
has said here distinctly, and put it on record,
that he is against all compensation from the |
