township corporations shall be perfected, all
officers provided for in this constitution, but
whose official functions shall have been su-
perseded by such organizations, shall be dis-
pensed with, and the affairs of such towns
and of the counties as affected by the action
of such towns, shall be transacted in such
manner as the general assembly shall di-
rect."
Mr. BARRON. Will the gentleman allow me
to ask him a question ?
Mr. CHAMBERS. Yes, sir; two of them;
any question but the previous question,
Mr. BARRON. Would the gentleman have
any objection to having a town upon his
farm ?
Mr. CHAMBERS. I would not let it go there,
if I could control the matter.
Mr. BARRON. Not if they paid you for it?
Mr. CHAMBERS. Not a town in this sense;
these towns have no houses in them. If the
gentleman means whether I would have a
town there in the character of a city, that is
another matter. But a township need not
have a hut in it; the people may live in straw
houses, or in huts quarried in the earth.
Townships are to be erected. But the gentle-
man does not suppose that the legislature are
to build houses' sin these towns. I will go for
that.
Now, I submit to my friends that no party
politics are involved in this matter at all. I
hope gentlemen will not be alarmed because
your humble servant proposes to offer an
amendment, as unacceptable as my proposi-
tions generally are. But do you gentlemen,
Marylanders, want to go to Boston, or Hart-
ford, or any other section of the northern part
of the country, to learn bow to manage your
own municipal affairs? Are you not satisfied
with what you have always been in the
habit of doing; with what your fathers have
been in the habit of doing ?
I would therefore in the most modest way,
ask leave to move so to amend this section
that it shall at least read, "The general as-
sembly may provide, by general law, for di-
viding the counties into towns, "&c., instead
of having it read, "The general assembly
shall provide," &c. Let the legislature have
some discretion in the matter. We are re.
ceiving more northern men every day, and
probably the time will arrive when we will
have such at number of them that the State
will be governed by them, I do not believe
that the people of our State would now know
how to manage townships of this sort, I
ask permission therefore to open this section
to amendment so far as to change " shall" to
"may," so as to allow the legislature some
discretion in this matter; not compel them,
bind them, oblige them to make this change.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. Is it competent to pro-
pose that amendment, in case this section is
opened to amendment? This report as it
came from the bands of the committee read : |
"The general assembly may provide," '&c.
On its second reading the motion was made
to strike out ''may" and insert "shall," and
the convention adopted that motion. I would
suggest that it is not competent now to move
to strike out that which the convention has
put in.
The PRESIDENT. If the convention agrees
to open the section for this amendment, it
operates virtually as a reconsideration.
The question was upon the motion of Mr.
CHAMBERS to suspend the rules.
On this question Mr. CHAMBERS called for
the yeas and nays, which were ordered.
The question was then taken, by yeas and
nays, and resulted—yeas 25, nays 42—as fol-
lows:
Yeas—Messrs. Billingsley, Blackiston,
Bond, Briscoe , Brown, Chambers, Clarke,
Crawford, Davis, of Charles, Dent, Duvall,
Hoffman, Hollyday, Horsey, Johnson, Lans-
dale, Larsh, Lee, Marbury, Parran, Peter,
Ridgely, Smith, of Dorchester, Sneary, Wil-
mer—25.
Nays—Messrs. Goldsborough, President;
Abbott, Annan, Audoun, Baker, Barron,
Brooks. Carter, Cunningham, Cushing, Dan-
iel, Davis, of Washington, Ecker, Farrow,
Galloway, Greene, Hatch, Hebb, Hopkins,
Hopper, Keefer, Kennard, Markey, Mayhugh,
McComas, Mullikin. Negley, Parker, Pugh,
Purnell!, Russell, Schlosser, Smith, of Carroll,
Smith, of Worcester, Stirling, Stockbridge,
Swope, Sykes, Todd, Valliant, Wickard,
Wooden—42.
The motion to suspend the rules was there-
fore not agreed to.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. The words "towns"
and " townships" are used interchangeably.
or promiscuously in this section. I would
therefore ask permission to move to strike out
the word " town" where it occurs, and insert
the word " township" so as to make this sec-
tion uniform in that respect,
The PRESIDENT. That is a merely verbal
alteration, which the chair will direct the sec-
retary to make.
Mr. DAVIS, of Charles, moved to strike out
the second section.
The question being taken, the motion to
strike out was not agreed to.
The report having been read a third time,
the question was upon its adoption.
The question was then taken, by yeas and
nays (under rule forty-three,) and the re-
port was adopted—yeas 48, nays 20—as fol-
lows:
Yeas—Messrs. Goldsborough, President;
Abbott, Annan, Audoun, Baker, Barron,
Brooks, Carter, Cunningham, Cushing, Dan-
iel, Davis, of Washington, Dellinger, Ecker,
Farrow, Galloway, Greene, Hatch, Hebb,
Hoffman. Hopkins, Hopper, Keefer, Kennard,
Larsh, Markey, Mayhugh, McComas, Mulli-
kin, Negley, Parker, Pugh, Purnell, Ridgely,
Russell, Schlosser, Smith, of Carroll, Smith, |
