meetings. Illegal voting and violence at
these meetings often perpetrates as great a
wrong as at the polls upon the day of the
election. To obviate that, for certain it is
that sooner or later 'we shall be under the ne-
cessity of regulating them by law, I will
offer this amendment to the 3d section, if the
motion to reconsider should prevail :
Sec. 3, line 13, alter the word ''State,"
insert the words;
"Or who shall be guilty of, or accessory
to any fraud, force, surprise, or bribery, at
any primary meeting or nominating conven-
tion, to procure himself or any other person
to be nominated to any office, national or
State, or municipal."
The motion to reconsider was agreed to.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE moved the foregoing
amendment.
Mr. THRUSTON. I do not see how we can
properly make that a part of the constitu-
tion. The meetings to which the gentleman
refers are held under no law of the State.
They are merely voluntary assemblages of
persons, governed by no law of the State. It
seems to me therefore that to attempt to pro-
vide a remedy in the organic law, to apply to
meetings held under no law in the State,
cannot remove an evil of that sort, and it
would be giving such wide scope as to intro-
duce a subject not properly before us at all.
I heartily 'agree with the gentleman that it is
desirable lo prevent fraud in the selection of
officers to be voted for; but I hardly see how
we can introduce it into our organic, law. I
do not see how we can regulate a meeting
where the citizens voluntarily assemble them-
selves together.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. It is a fact well known
to all the members of this convention that
nominations for an office are in point of fact
an election at all times; that is to say that
those who are nominated by one party or the
other, are the persons who are to be elected;
and if one party has considerable predomi-
nance, a nomination by that party is an elec-
tion. It follows as a necessary consequence
that if the nomination be forced at such an
election, either by illegal voting, the voting
of persons not qualified to vote, or by deter-
ring voters by violence from coming up to
take their part in the nomination, a fraud is
perpetrated on the electors just as really as
though it were done at the ballot-box. This
is the practical result everywhere; and yet
these are perfectly free and voluntary as-
semblages, as has been said by the gentle-
man from Allegany (Mr. Thruston.) They
operate to cause wrong; and the question is :
Shall these assemblages, operating to cause
this wrong be in any way subject to the con-
trol of the law. I believe the time has come
when they should be made so. These nomi-
nations were originally not know. When
the federal college for the election of the
President was adopted, it was supposed that |
they would be the persons to select the man
for the presidential office without a nomina-
tion; but now for thirty years no person has
been elected but as the result of a nomina-
tion. And that has gone down from one
office to another, even to the constable and
the lowest offices in the gift of the people.
Whenever unscrupulous politicians combine
with one another at ward or district meet-
ings, they will force the people to vote for
men who are unfit and unqualified. I have
known in meetings in the counties, of thirty
or forty persons, 150 to 200 votes to be cast,
Some in Baltimore city are regulated better
than that; yet the same thing is often done
there. Anything which interferes with the
justice and fairness of these meetings inter-
feres with the purity of the election. I de-
sire therefore to have these meetings in some
manner regulated by law. For that reason
I have offered the amendment and shall be
glad to see it adopted.
Mr. THOMAS. The amendment of my col-
league is a very good one if it can be enforced;
but it appears to me that we cannot control
the elective franchise in primary meetings.
You bad better at once put a provision into
the constitution making it illegal for any
man to become the nominee of any clique,
caucus, nominating convention, or primary
meeting of any kind; and say that if he does
not come out as an independent candidate, on
his own hook, he shall not be eligible to any
office in the gift of the people. Or you may
as well go further and say that every citizen
of Maryland shall attend the primary meet-
ings, if your primary meetings are to con-
trol the elections at the polls. There are a
certain class of men in Baltimore who always
will attend the primary meetings; and there
is a certain other class who always will stay
away from the primary meetings. It is their
own lockout if they do not go. I have heard
certain men say that they would not go to
primary meetings and rub up against greasy
mechanics. If they stay away, and the greasy
mechanics go and make the nominations,
they have exercised a right which you cannot
take from them. It is for every good citizen
to look this thing in the face. They should
go into the primary meetings and control
these bad men who make the bad nomina-
tions. Like the gentleman from Allegany,
I do not see that any good can be done by the
adoption of this amendment. It can have no
practical effect at all. If I thought it would,
I would most cheerfully vote for it.
Mr. CHAMBERS. The amendment, if I un-
derstand it, proposes to prevent illegal voting
at primary meetings. I ask the gentleman
from Baltimore if there is any standard by
which the legality of votes at primary meet-
ings is to be determined?
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. Certainly.
Mr. CHAMBERS. I know of no such law or
constitutional provision. |
