tion, and shall wait for fifteen days after the
day on which the State vote is taken, so as to
allow the returns of the soldiers' vote to be
made, before the result of the whole vote is
announced. The governor shall receive the
returns of the soldiers' vote on said election
for State officers, presidential electors, and
members of congress, and shall count the
same with the aggregate home vote on State
officers and the aggregate home vote in each
district respectively for members of Congress."
Mr. STIRLING moved to amend the section
by adding thereto the following :
"And the governor shall exclude from
count the votes of any county or city, the
return judges of which shall fail to certify in
the returns as provided by this schedule,
that all persons who have voted have taken
the oath prescribed to be taken, unless the
governor shall be satisfied that such oath was
actually administered, and that the failure to
make the certificate has been from inadver-
tence or mistake."
The question being then taken, the amend-
ment was adopted.
The section as amended was then adopted
Mr. DUVALL. I move to add the following
as an additional section :
" The style of this State on the adoption of
this constitution shall be "South Massachu-
setts; and the committee on revision are
hereby authorized to erase — ".
The PRESIDENT. That is out of order.
Mr. EDELEN. According to notice already
given, I offer the following as an additional
section:
"Sec. —. The obligation of the judges
of election to administer the oath required in
section 2, shall only exist in those cases where
the vote of the person offering to vote may
be challenged."
Had not the previous question been called
when we were considering section two, I
should have offered this as an amendment to
that section. I do not know what ground
was taken by the chairman of the committee
on the schedule (Mr. Ridgely) in the discus-
sion last evening. But so far as I observed
the course of the discussion this morning, the
great bulk, I might say almost the whole of
it, was of a political character, and with the
exception of the argument of the gentleman
from Baltimore city (Mr. Daniel.) in my bum-
ble judgment very little of that discussion
was applicable to the question before the
house for consideration.
I understood that gentleman to base the
right of this convention to incorporate this
oath in this constitution, and make it opera-
tive upon the people when they came to vote
upon the adoption or rejection of this consti-
tution, he based it upon the sixth section of
the convention bill; the latter clause of it
where reads: "and the provisions hereinbe-
fore contained for the qualification of voters,
and the holding of the elections provided in |
the previous sections of this get, shall be ap-
plicable to the election to be held under this
section "—that is, when this constitution is
submitted to the people.
Now, while I do not concede the ground
taken by him to be true, valid, and tenable
ground, I make this point. And I insist that
the gentleman from Baltimore city (Mr. Dan-
iel) and those who hold the opinions that he
entertains upon this question, shall be com-
pelled, by logical consistency at least, to vote
for the provision, I now propose to incorpor-
ate in this report as an independent section.
My friend from Baltimore city (Mr. Daniel)
then proceeded to read the concluding por-
tion of section one of the convention bill,
which is in these words :
—"and the judges of election shall at
said election administer the oath or affirma-
tion to every person offering to vote, whose
vote shall be challenged on the ground," etc.
Now the sum and substance of the propo-
sition I have offered is, that it shall be the
duty of the judges to administer this oath to
a voter only in case where his vote is chal-
lenged. I plant myself upon the doctrine
that gentlemen upon the majority side of this
convention have assumed noon this question ;
that they derive their whole power and au-
thority to incorporate this provision in the
constitution solely from the concluding por-
tion of the first section of this convention
bill.
Now I need not tell my friend from Balti-
more city (Mr. Daniel) that it is a plain and
incontrovertible proposition of law that in
the construing of all penal enactments you
are lo be held to a strict construction. And
1 submit to him, as a lawyer, whether he can
take one part of this section and plant him-
self upon it, and in the very same breath re-
ject another and a very important part of
the same section. And I submit here that
all these outside oaths, which the judges in
the several election districts propounded to
voters on the 6th day of April last, were di-
rectly in the teeth of, and in contravention
of the language of this first section. For
this section makes it their clear and impera-
tive duty to administer this oath, and exclude
votes upon the grounds set forth, only when
the vote is challenged.
And I will remark here that in our county
cavalry came there with the written instruc-
tions, and they acted upon that ground in
two precincts, that they would . not require
the judges to put the oath to any man except
where he was challenged. And a refusal to
take the oath after challenge in two precincts
was made the ground for arrest. In another
precinct it merely deprived the man of his
vote, without causing his arrest.
; My friend from Baltimore city (Mr. Daniel)
'• in answer to a question which I put to him,
whether the oath which is required to be
taken by this schedule, differed from that |
