Mr. President: I should have preferred
that the gentleman from Baltimore city (.Mr.
Stirling), my friend, the chairman of this
committee, should have thought it consistent
with his sense of duty to pursue a somewhat
different course from that which he has taken
in bringing on this debate. Whether it was
the result of compact, or from whatever
source the understanding originated, still it
was the understanding among all of us that
the debate upon this article, and article
twenty-three of the bill of rights, should not
be entered into until after the exhaustion of
all possible debate upon other topics con-
tained in the report of the Committee on the
Declaration of Rights. The only practical
difference is this, that when this debate was
suddenly precipitated upon us, without a
word of notice to the Convention to remove
the impression in regard to the time when
this discussion was to commence, without no-
tice to us of the committee, who perhaps may
be regarded as more entitled to the notifica-
tion from the chairman of the committee than
other members of this House—we are hurried
pell-mell into the midst of a discussion for
which I was at the time, and am now, un-
prepared.
The diffuclty that one has in handling
such a question as this, as it would be if I
was called on to discuss and prove the assertion
that Maryland existed atall as a State,
or that we are here as a body, or that we are
here as living men and not wild beasts, or
any other equally plain and equally self-
evident proposition—the difficulty in discuss-
ing any merely abstract question of this sort,
is not what you shall say, but what you
shall not say. It is how to do justice, not to
yourself, but to those who are compelled to
listen to you. It is how to eliminate from
the discussion those matters not directly and
properly essential to it, and confine yourself
merely to the practical and leading consid-
erations which give point and efficacy to the
general view which you propose to take of
the subject. That is the principal injustice
done to my colleague, (Mr. Clarke,) to my-
self, to every gentleman who proposes to
speak upon this subject at all, by the sudden
manner in which this discussion has been
precipitated upon us.
And in addition to what I have mentioned
as constituting one of the disagreeable cir-
cumstances of entering into this debale, there
is another of a different character, and con-
cerning which the responsibility does not at-
tach itself to the chairman of the committee.
If I may be allowed to use an expression
which I do nut consider to be exactly within
the range of proper parliamentary courtesy,
but which I use because it is used here, this
disagreeable consideration arises from a
knowledge of the fact that those whom we
know here in debate as the political majority
of this Convention have evinced a deter- |
mination to incorporate this article into the
bill of rights. Therefore, whatever the hon-
esty and sincerity of our conviction, what-
ever of argument we who are opposed to the
introduction of this innovation may be able
to present against it—and I think that in a
large part of my argument I shall surprise
gentlemen on the other side by some of the
grounds upon which I shall oppose this arti-
cle, entirely aside from any political consid-
erations—we are met face to face in the out-
set with this solid wall of opposition to our
views, already resolved, predetermined, de-
cided, before any debate upon the expediency
of this measure shall begin; that it shall
pass whether it be right or wrong. And an-
other circumstance calculated to excite a dis-
agreeable sensation upon the part of any one
who undertakes to destroy a pre-conceived or
pro-arranged judgment of any kind, is this:
the gentlemen of the majority in arriving at
this conclusion before debate, in deciding to
sit here and hear us through courtesy merely
—and I am bound to admit that they have
always evinced a disposition to extend that
courtesy to me—this hearing us as a matter
of favor merely has already stripped us of
tire only excitement and force of argument
which otherwise we should have, because we
know from the tenor of what they say and
do that the subject matter upon which we
speak is already predetermined, in other
words, like the executioner in Timon, the
view they intend to take of their position
here, seems to be that
" their commission,
Is not to reason of the deed, but do it."
And there are one or two other preliminary
considerations which I will advance. The
first is, that a great deal of this ground has
been covered by my colleague, (Mr. Clarke )
and being confined in my remarks to one
hour, I wish at the outset to take advantage
of a great deal that was said by him. in re-
gard to that portion of my argument where
I would cite authorities, I had prepared cita-
tions from the Madison papers, the Federalist
Elliot's Debates, and other high authorities,
which I had proposed to read as a portion of
my argument. But the gentleman has re-
moved that necessity, and I will say here at
the start, so as not to be misunderstood, that
I find in Judge Upshur's Commentaries upon
Story, and in an essay recently published at
the North by a Mr. Throop, with whom I do
not entirely agree, that nothing new can be
said upon the subject. I find in these two
pamphlets, the old States' rights doctrines
which I hold, and which every one has held
who supports my theory of the Constitution,
stated with a degree of directness and a com-
pleteness of applicability that no one now can
hope to equal, let alone to excel. Those
views have that juxtaposition and that readi-
ness of reference in these two books, that I |
