loving loyalty and good faith. What he is
now, I know not, nor do I care; but at that
time the State of Maryland cast its electoral
vote for him for the reasons I have named,
that we had full confidence in his loyalty and
fidelity to file best government on which the
sun ever shone.
But we held on and held firmly. The suc-
ceeding year we elevated to the gubernatorial
chair Thomas H. Hicks; and it was well in
the Providence of God that we did put him
there; for to-day this scene of carnage that
now devastates the State of Virginia, would
have swept in fearful surges over Maryland.
But Maryland to-day stands firmly anchored
within the pale of the Union; and before we
get through our work as a Convention, the
majority of which represents the loyal people
of the State, we have made up our minds that
Maryland shall rise above every power that
has heretofore kept her down, and lake a
position that will make her one of the proudest
and fairest of the sister States of the Onion.
In reference to the article under considera-
tion, let me say that I am in favor of it, first,
because a National Government founded upon
principles of liberty, capable of maintaining
itself at home and abroad, is essential and in-
dispensable to the promotion of the good of
any people.
No one, I presume, will deny the proposi-
tion that government ordained upon some
basis, possessing some elements of strength,
capable of supporting itself and compelling
obedience to its authority, founded upon true
principles, administering and dispensing jus-
tice and equity among all the people, recog-
nizing universally conceded principles of law
as established by the experience and judgment
of mankind and founded upon principles of
truth and justice, is indispensable to the hap-
piness and peace of mankind. Men may dif-
fer about the basis, forms, and machinery of
government, and men do materially differ in
that particular, but among all civilized people
there is no dispute as to the necessity of forms
of government combining the elements of
power and strength that will compel obedience
to its laws within itself, and be capable of
maintaining itself and people against invasion
or subjugation from abroad, whilst mankind
demonstrate, by the proofs of history, a ten-
dency thus to combine in masses and cen-
tralize power under appropriate restrictions.
The question of government has furnished a
subject of controversy for centuries, as to the
best mode of constructing it, how to render
it efficient for good, and promotive of the
happiness of the human race.
The primitive condition of a people at the
time of the formation of a government have
much to do with the character of the govern-
ment they may setup. The age of the world,
and the progress of things at the time that
marks the era of a people in history, go very
far to determine the forms of government they |
may desire. Greece and Rome, from their
nomadical state, passed through various gra-
dations before they furnished that compact
and well settled type of nationality that after-
wards marked their career. So has it been
with modern Europe. England originally
was inhabited by a race that. became totally
extinct, and the basis of its nationality was
constituted of mingled races from various
parts of the Continent of Europe. But its
territory and its position geographically fur-
nished the outline of national individuality,
and although the surges of civil war and the
unsettling effects of the devastation produced
by the change of masters which swept over
the face of England for centuries, it main-
tained its name and its marked features of
nationality down to the present time. Yet
its government passed through various grada-
tions, and was changed and altered as the
caprice or necessities of the times dictated or
demanded. But irrespective of its changes,
the forms of government at all times was the
government of England,
The people who settled the territory of
North America between the Lakes and the
Gulf of Mexico, and there established a gov-
ernment, differed from any other people in
history who have ever formed a government.
They were more advanced in the principles of
enlightenment—they came to a new country,
possessing the advantages afforded the old.
They came as intelligent men, equal in ca-
pacity to those who constituted the pride and
stability of the mother country. They came
to enjoy liberty not afforded them in the
country of their nativity. They also pos-
sessed the peculiarities of people jealous of
their liberties, and partaking to a very con-
siderable extent of the prejudices and spirit of
persecution against those who differed from
them that prevailed in the countries from
whence they came. It was also, Mr. Presi-
dent, that a people so remarkable as they
were, escaping from the persecutions and op-
pressions that existed at home, settling down
in a vast territory, that each particular com-
munity and colony should be jealous of each
other, and seek to set up an exclusiveness and
a peculiarity of rights that inured to them.
specially as such, that caused them to guard
those rights with a very jealous care. But,
sir, experience and a common interest changed
the practice of our people, if it did not
change their theories; and if their notions
traditionally have descended to their poster-
ity, they have no more existence now than
they had then, and are traditions and imprac-
ticable ideas still. They differed in their
colonial governments, and in the rights and
privileges of their governments.
Gentlemen insist upon State sovereignty;
insist upon States having never yeilded up
that right, and impliedly that the States have
nationality. How does a State get sov-
ereignty, and what is its capacity to enforce |
