the legal voters of the State, the qualifica-
tions of whom are hereafter to be determined
and fixed? If the gentlemen who are op-
posed to this amendment will say that the
people are the legally qualified voters of the
State alone, then I will agree with them
But the ground they take places the power
absolutely in the people of the State un-
qualifiedly, in every man, woman and child
in the State; and the opposition to this
amendment and the 44th article will involve
them in the absurdity of voting against the
qualifications of voters, because they assert
the doctrine that the people, all the people,
have this unalienable right, and can exercise
it by a majority of that people.
Mr. MILLER, This Convention is involved
in precisely the same difficulty which our
predecessors of 1850 found themselves in, in
relation to the adoption of this first section
of the Bill of Rights. That difficulty arose
then, and it arises now, from the fact that an
attempt is made lo incorporate into this arti-
cle the latter clause; that the people "have
at all times the unalienable right to alter,
reform or abolish their form of government
in such manner as they may deem expedient."
Now in the old Constitution of 1776 the
first branch of this article stood alone:
"That all government of right originates
from the people, is founded in compact only,
and instituted solely for the good of the
whole." That was a declaration made by
our ancestors of 1776 as against monarchic-
al forms of government. It was a declara-
tion against the divine right of kings to
govern; against aristocracy; against the
right of mere birth or hereditary privilege ;
and it was not until the Convention of 1850
met that this new doctrine, was sought to be
incorporated info our bill of rights. When
the gentlemen who composed the Committee
on the bill of rights in the Convention of
1850, first drafted and reported it to the Con-
vention, they stopped where the original bill
of rights stopped—merely announcing the
doctrine contained in the first branch of this
article. The members of that committee
were among the most able and distinguished
men of the State—the Chief Justice of the
State being chairman—and adopted in their
report the old bill of rights alone.
Gentlemen of this Convention will find,
by referring to page 223 of the Proceedings
of the Convention of 1850, that the first arti-
cle of the bill of rights reads thus as re-
ported :
"That all government of right, originat-
ing from the people, is founded in compact
only, and instituted solely for the good of
the whole."
On page 228, Mr. Presstman, of Baltimore
city, moved to amend that article by adding
to it the following proposition :
—"and they have at all times the unaliena-
ble right to alter, reform or abolish their |
form of government in such manner as they
may think expedient,"
And that was the first time, as has well
been said by the gentleman from Frederick
(Mr. Schley) that such an enunciation had
ever been made in the Declaration of Rights
of Maryland. It created surprise at the time
that such a doctrine should be announced,
and Gov. Hicks, at that time a member of
the Convention, immediate ly upon the intro-
duction of that amendment, offered the fol-
lowing amendment:
—' 'and that any portion of the people of
this State shall have the right to secede and
unite themselves, with the territory occupied
by them, to such adjoining State as they
shall elect."
He offered it either in serious earnestness,
or with the view of throwing ridicule upon
the amendment of Mr. Presstman. The
amendment of Govs Hicks was, however,
voted upon in the Convention, and twenty-seven
gentlemen from the Eastern Shore
voted for it. The amendment of Mr. Presst-
man was precisely what we have now before
this Convention in this first article. That
amendment was adopted, and then the arti-
cle stood as follows;
"That all government of right originates
from the people, is founded in compact only,
and instituted solely for the good of the
whole; and they have at all times the un-
alienable right to alter, reform or abolish
their form of government in such manner as
they may deem expedient."
Then the difficulty before that Conven-
tion was that they bad before them also the
44th article of the old bill of rights, and
they wanted to make that conform to this
declaration. On page 232 the distinguished
and honorable gentleman from Kent, (Mr.
Chambers,) now a member of this Conven-
tion, moved to amend the amendment of Mr.
Presstman by adding to the end thereof the
following—''according to the mode author-
ized by the Constitution or laws of the land,"
and that amendment in substance was incor-
porated into the bill of rights. On page
238 Mr. McLane moved to amend the amend-
ment of Mr. Presstman by adding to the end
thereof the following:
"Provision ought therefore to be made in
the Constitution now to be formed, whereby
the exercise of such rights at seasonable
periods, and in constitutional assemblies,
would be secured and regulated."
Mr. Dorsey moved to amend the amend-
ment ley inserting after the words "they
have" in the first line the words, "accord-
ing to the mode prescribed in this Constitu-
tion, and the laws made in pursuance there-
of." That was adopted, and afterwards the
Committee on Revision modified it and put
it in the form in which it now stands in the
present Declaration of Rights of the State.
That is: |
