have taken, They may repudiate everything
like identity with States' rights ideas, or with
the doctrine of State sovereignty, as it has
been avowed and announced by its fathers
and projectors. But the discussion of this
question here has relumed that subject before
us, and has presented that entire question of
States' rights sovereignty before us as a body
And in engaging in this discussion we cannot
be charged, any one of us, with trenching
upon the opinions expressed by gentlemen of
the minority upon this question. We have a
right to deal with the question as the discus-
sion presents it.
Here in the State of Maryland, in the hall
of the House of Delegates, that dead body of
States' rights and State sovereignty has been
exhumed It. is dead, sir. Its friend killed
it. But the favorable opportunity and the
precious moment has arrived in the midst of
the strength of the contest which is now being
waged between us, and under the kind aus-
pices of a beneficent Government, the friends
of States' rights are paying their final re-
spects to the resting place of that nondescript
and have brought it here on its funeral bier
with all the ??????? of the grave about It
They have gathered about that dead corpse
Various views have been expressed respecting
it. Various attempts have been made to re-
store that lifeless body; but they have proved
nugatory and ineffectual. Gentlemen have
differed in their opinions respecting the or
ganism of the body. Some have doubted
whether it be dead. Some have said it was
dead. Some have insisted that it lived
Nevertheless, sir, it is that same dead body
gone, gone, irretrievably gone, and all that
they can do to it now is to give it respectable
sepulture.
It is not without a considerable degree of
embarrassment that I approach the discussion
of this question. I know well that it is a
theme of contest between the most eminent
minds of this country. I know that it has
been discussed for many years, I am inclined
to the opinion—and I think I shall be sus-
tained in that by the opinions of all, by the
facts of history, and by the development
which are taking place all around us—that
the subject has been entirely exhausted. Its
seed cannot longer grow in American soil. I
am also impressed with the fact, and the pres-
ence which surrounds me warns me that it is
no trifling thing, and will be no trifling effort
on my part, to enter the arena of this fight.
I am admonished that there are around
me men trained from childhood who know
well how to wield the weapons of logic, men
around whose brow are gathered the sym-
bols of age, and whose light is known to his
tory. I am warned that one with the little
experience I have in matters of this kind, has
no small work to do, to encounter such men.
When I contemplate this whole question of
political science, and tee its barred doors, |
possessing no talismanic charm or magic
word by the utterance of which the doors will
open, and I may enter and permeate its se-
cret by-ways and enter its arcana, and there
get the information I need to sustain me on
this question, I feel its deepening, dampening
shadows resting upon me, and I shall not at-
tempt to enter it. I shall be guided by the
light of facts; guided by experience common
to all men.
Allow me here to say that the public place
afforded by the beneficence of the State, where
all may go and obtain the lore that they de-
sire for the maintenance of any views they
may hold or any opinions they may entertain
—the library of the State of Maryland—I find
that it has been depleted of all works apper-
taining to the subject under consideration.
I am inclined to make this reference for the
reason that when the gallant knight from
Prince George's county (Mr. Clarke) was
able to maintain himself with shield and buck-
ler, and bore around so fiercely with his lance,
he said he was not prepaired for the debate
that had been suddenly sprung upon the mi-
nority of the House; and the same thing was
echoed by pretty much every gentleman after
him. I should judge from the condition of
the library of the State of Maryland that they
were pretty thoroughly prepared. If they
are not the Lord knows the majority are not,
for none of them can get the books. I am at
a loss to conjecture, and I submit now to the
intelligent men who compose the minority of
this House, that were it not for the word
"paramount" in this article now before us,
the minority would have no argument at all,
because that has been the burden of their
complaint in the whole argument, if the
majority of this House could perambulate the
lexicon, and by any possibility find out
some word more potent, with more concen-
trated force in it than the word ' ' paramount, ' '
I apprehend that the minority would contend
for '' paramount '' as much as we contend for
it now.
We seem to be lowing them along step by
step. They are slow in their progress. They
are not inclined to take the lead, or to follow
on the crest of the wave, as the progress of
the age drives onward; but they are disposed
to be led. They are coming on, coming on,
step by step. The only difficulty is that the
majority of this House lead then) almost too
fast. They are so lame and feeble that they
stumble and fall as they follow.
I will do the gentlemen the justice to say,
that so far as I understand it, some of them
at least, have not insisted upon the States'
rights theory entire. They have acknowl-
edged and contended that it was the duty and
the province of every American citizen to owe
fealty and support to the Constitution of the
United States. The first gentleman who
spoke, (Mr. Clarke,) insists that they owe
fidelity and support to the Constitution of the |
