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Proceedings and Debates of the 1864 Constitutional Convention
Volume 102, Volume 1, Debates 398   View pdf image (33K)
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398
an authority which I trust I may commend
still more strongly to the attention of this
House. I will read an extract from a speech
of Daniel Webster—a very short one but a
very comprehensive one. No man in any
age or anywhere, ever used the English lan-
guage with more terseness, and accuracy, and
beauty and power, than Daniel Webster.
He had the happy faculty of clothing his
thoughts in language that was clear and
conclusive. The extract is this:
"Free speech is a homestead right, afire-
side privilege. It has ever been enjoyed in
every house, cottage and cabin in the nation.
It is not to be drawn in controversy; it is
as undoubted as the right of breathing the
air or walking on the earth. It is a right to
be maintained in peace and in war; it is a
right which cannot be invaded without de-
stroying constitutional liberty. Hence this
right should be guarded and protected by
the freemen of the country with a jealous
care, unless they are prepared for chains and
anarchy,"
Now, sir, I rest this article upon these au-
thorities, and upon the good sense and sound
discretion of this Convention.
Mr. CUSHING. I have no objection to the
principle contained in the general proposi-
tion of freedom of speech. But our bill of
rights is already five articles beyond the
usual length. We have already forty-four
articles and I shall oppose the introduction
of any other article, unless it enunciates
some new provision in the political relations
of Maryland which we have discovered since
1776. During the speech of the gentleman
from Somerset, (Mr. Jones), I was continually
reminded of an anecdote I once heard. Af-
ter Mr. Pinckney of Maryland had once
argued from six to eight hours betore the
Supreme Court of the United States upon
elementary principles of law, to which they
had listened with great attention, at the
close of his argument, the Chief Justice mild-
ly suggested that there were some things
which the Supreme Court of the United States
might be presumed to know.
Now we in Maryland have lived for eighty
years without such an article in our bill of
rights, either of 1776 or 1850. And I have
never yet learned, either from the history of
this State from that period to this, or from
my own experience, that the freedom of
speech has been at all limited in the State of
Maryland. Not only that, but so far as I have
heard, it has gone to the extreme of license
on many occasions. And while I may have
voted for this proposition in a short form,
as the easiest way, I hold it to be unnecessary
to put in as a separate article that which
those who have gone before have held to be
a general and self-admitted truth. I see no
good to be subserved by putting this in, be-
cause no power under the Constitution of
Maryland can take away the freedom of the
citizens of Maryland in that respect: while if
there is any power above our Constitution
which may choose to take it away, we can-
not prevent it. I am willing to vote tor a
new article embodying a new principle, such
as the one which notice has been given of
by my colleague, (Mr. Abbott), to the effect
that all men are born free. As that is a new
principle, so far as the State of Maryland is
concerned, I shall vote for it.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. I am somewhat sur-
prized at the objection made by my colleague
(Mr Cushing), to the proposition submitted
by the gentleman from Somerset, (Mr. Jones.)
For though I consider—the gentleman from
Somerset will pardon me tor saying so—that
the proposed article is somewhat intelicitonsly
drawn, yet the doctrine it enunciates is not
altogether so new as my colleague supposes.
Mr. CUSHING. Not so new; but so old as
to make it unnecessary to state it.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. We have already, in
the thirty-ninth article, provided that the
liberty of the press ought to be inviolably
preserved. That preservation of the liberty
of the press, however it may be arrived at,
ought in some form to be secured against all
irregular remedies or restraints applied to it,
as well the regular, authorized, legal re-
straints. We have had in this State, and
very recently, great restraints imposed upon
the freedom of the press and the freedom
of speech also; and, therefore, it might be
well, if it be possible, by an article here to
secure it. If we take up our own code and
refer to the thirtieth article of that code, we
will find very stringent restrictions upon the
liberty of the press. It is true it is under the
head of "incendiary Publications." But,
then, those publications not being defined at
all in the phraseology of the law, we are
thrown back upon the discretion of the judge
—a thing aboat as certain as the length of the
chancellor's foot—to decide what is incen-
diary, And not only has this restriction
upon the freedom of the press stood as the
law of this State year after year, but within
the memory of persons who now hear me,
men have been indicted for taking from the
post-office some of the best commercial pa-
pers to be found in the country; papers pub-
lished in the great commercial metropolis of
the country, giving the best foreign intelli-
gence, discussing ably the most vital ques-
tions of the day—men have been indicted for
taking them from the post-office, simply be-
cause they did not exactly coincide in all
points with the notion as to what was, and
what was not, incendiary.
But this provision of our code goes farther
in its restriction upon the freedom of the
press. Not only does it punish those who
shall knowingly assist in circulating incen-
diary publications, but it makes the grand
juries in our State competent to bring before
them—not only competent, but it makes it


 
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Proceedings and Debates of the 1864 Constitutional Convention
Volume 102, Volume 1, Debates 398   View pdf image (33K)
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