accuser. You elect a man lo an office; but
before you will allow him to take it, you say
that he shall unbosom himself and reveal the
inmost contents of his heart. It is practical
self-crimination, for a man may be arrester
under the present system which prevails here
and which my friend says is all right; and
of coarse if he says it is all right it must be
so. He must expose himself to the annoy-
ance and the concomitants of all descriptions,
because he holds these unpopular opinions,
which are condemned in the midst of civil
strife and commotion at least.
Besides, as I before intimated, everything
with regard to the past history of the persons
who are elected to office, is accomplished
when yon provide, as has been successively
done in every constitution framed in this
country, that no person convicted of crime
shall hold office under the State government.
If the man who is elected has been convicted
of crime, the record of conviction would be
sufficient to exclude him, if he commits a
crime between the time of election and the
time of taking the oath, be can be prosecuted,
and that would be sufficient, upon conviction,
to exclude him.
Connected with this quite directly is the
consideration which goes to the policy of the
government in this war, 'in a very limited
way. I have always understood that the
object of this war, as is the case with all
wars, is to conquer peace. Peace is the end
of all fighting. All military matters tend
to the cessation of hostilities. The object of
the parent government, or the old govern-
ment, in a country like this in a time of civil
strife, is, or ought to be, to reclaim those
whom it says has wandered from its fold of
authority, and to bring them back; to bring
the States back, and to bring the people back
into the government and within the bounds
of their former allegiance.
This theory of war at the beginning is the
only theory prescribed for the end. If that
is the policy of the government, if that be the
policy of the people of Maryland, as apor-
tion of the people of the United States to-
wards armed rebels in the field, if your object
ever is to induce those rebels to lay down
their arms and become good citizens, to be
reinvested with their rights and to live good
Union men, and be brothers with us again,
how much the more ought it to be the duty
of the people of Maryland and the government
of the United States to seek to reclaim those
of our own fellow-citizens whom you suspect
to have had in the past disloyal sentiments?
My friend from Baltimore city said one
thing which struck me with great force.—
This war has disappointed everybody. There
are few men now on either side, in any sec-
tion of the country, north or south, who en-
tertain precisely the same views, opinions,
hopes and expectations from this strife. I do
not know what were his reasons, nor will I |
undertake to impugn the motives which actu-
ated him in taking this ground. Perhaps he
is personally interested in not having so
much importance attached to the first loyal
uprising at the time of the beginning of hos-
tilities. But let that pass. It is true as a
matter of fact that this new test will exclude
a great many gentlemen in Maryland besides
those for whom it is intended. What is the
practical effect of it? Whether it catches one
party or both, where is the justice of it? Is
it to be said that because at the beginning of
this strife, a tiring that was unlooked for and
unexpected, that broke like a thundercloud
upon the whole country, a man's unsettled
convictions then were even against the gov-
ernment, they are now to be reckoned against
him to the extent of excluding him from the
power of holding office at the request of fel-
low-citizens, no matter how loyal he may
now be ?
How many instances do each of us know—
bow many could I cite, if it were not impro-
per to mention private names in public dis-
cussion, who were secessionists in theory at
the time of the breaking out of hostilities,
but who subsequently) when matters took a
turn, and when reaction came, when the
strife had assumed a magnitude no one had
ever anticipated, changed their convictions,
said they were wrong and the government
was right, and that the quickest way to peace
was to put down by military power all resist-
ance to the authority of the government.
And shall such men be excluded from hold-
ing office as Union men ?
Another objection to this amendment
is its ambiguity, in the lines I have read.—
Loyalty devoted to the cause of the Union—
what is the cause of the Union? What. are
we to understand by it? How is the oath to
be interpreted? I suppose that there can be
no Union without the constitution; because
if I read the history of the facts and the law
aright, it is the constitution which makes the
Union. The gentleman from Cecil (Mr.
Pugh) it is true, went on this morning, at
considerable length to speak of a possible
Union apart from the constitution, as if he
supposed the constitution to be something
extraneous.
Mr. PUGH. Will the gentleman allow me
to explain? The view I took was simply
this, that in the course of this debate some
gentlemen upon the other side, forgot what 1
supposed to be the gist of this matter, and
that was that the existence of this people as
a people was at stake; and it might so happen
in the course of the war that their existence
would be to them a paramount consideration.
They seemed to have lost sight of that fact.
Then I suggested that the constitution being
the creature of the people, the people being the
creators of the constitution , it might so happen
that in defending their existence the constitu-
tion might be destroyed; or it might be only |
