this question; because in that consists the
only hope for their redemption and for the
salvation of our State. Let me conclude by
deairing gentlemen who are in the position of
the majority here not to come to hasty con
elusions, for hasty action is generally the ef-
fect of hasty conclusions; to hesitate long
before you give your sanction to a change so
deadening in its effects as this change must
be, upon our system of government. Hesi-
tate long; or rather, let well enough alone
Stop providing for war. Legislate for peace
Let us vote it down. I would recommend to
my brethren here to give their aid to restore
this Union into the fraternal embraces of well
regulated government. If gentlemen will
join me I will tike the lead; and I will ven-
ture to assert that I will not propose anything
that sound judgment will not dictate as the
course for us to pursue during the pressing
emergencies of this awful crisis, whereby
this government maty be again restored.
But perhaps the gentlemen do not want
the government restored. Certainly two of
the gentlemen from Baltimore city do not.
They want a change of government. They
want to strike down State lines, and build up
a consolidated government, I would sooner
live under the Czar of Russia than under such
a government as they would adopt now. But
I see that my time. has expired. I thank the
Convention for the patience with which they
have listened to my desultory remarks. I
only hope I have done my duty in the mat-
ter, It is a feeble attempt; but it has been
honest and heartfelt. I tell the majority
now, that upon them will rest the responsi-
bility of the adoption of this measure, and I
trust that they will see to it that they are
able to bear it under all circumstances.
Mr. SMITH, of Carroll, moved that fifteen
minutes further be allowed to Mr. Berry to
conclude his remarks, but—
Mr. BERRY stated that he did not wish fur-
ther to occupy the time of the Convention,
and—
The motion was withdrawn accordingly.
Mr. RIDGELY. If any member of this Con-
vention desires to be heard upon this subject
now, I will yield the floor, [A pause,]
I have no purpose at all, Mr. President, to
enter in detail into the discussion of this ques-
tion, and in advance allow me to say that I
owe an apology to the Convention for any
attempt whatever on my part to participate
in the debate now in progress. I certainly
come to it without any preparation, having
had no purpose whatever to take part in it
until this morning. I shall not attempt to
travel over the ground which has been occu-
pied since the inception of this debate, in
tracing the history of this question of State
rights. I confess that, notwithstanding all
that has been said—I speak it with great
deference to the gentlemen who have occu-
pied so much of the attention of the Conven-
32 |
tion—I have had no new light thrown upon
this subject.
This question has been a bone of contention
in this country ever since, and even before,
the formation of the Constitution of the
United States, and perhaps at no period in
the bistory of the government was it discussed
with more interest, with more vigor and
with more power, than in the first Congress
which met under the Constitution. It di-
vided the nation in its very infancy, and I
think I confine myself within the limits of
historical truth when I say it created a sec-
tional issue at the very moment of the forma-
tion of the government. It arrayed the North
against the South, and that conflict has been
persistently continued from that moment of
time down to this hour.
During the first two administrations of the
government the South solidly advocated and
maintained this doctrine of State rights;
coming up on the question of assuming the
State debts; on the excise question; on the
question of chartering a United States bank;
on the tonnage question, and on the question
of the alien and sedition laws, in the adminis-
tration of the elder Adams.
During the two following administrations
the North planted itself upon the reserved
State rights which were secured in the article
of the Constitution, which my honored
friend from Prince George's (Mr. Clarke) has
referred to. And without undertaking to
dwell in detail upon the circumstances con-
nected with the position which the North
then occupied, I may say generally, that, not-
withstanding it assumed precisely the same
ground of State rights the South occupied,
the South consecrated itself to the execration
of the whole North from that hour to this
day; and the name of the Hartford Conven-
tion is, and ever has been, a name of ob-
loquy and reproach in the whole South-
ern country. If you analyze the proceed-
ings of that Convention, growing out of
its opposition to the embargo; growing out
of its opposition to the war of 1812, you will
find that it was an opposition predicated upon
the same basis—their sectional commercial
interests, being crippled by the embargo, and
by the declaration of war which exposed their
ships upon the ocean, their marine and their
commerce to destruction by the enemy; and
if you will trace back the doctrine of State
rights in the South to its origin, you will
find that it was based upon the same theory
of sectional interests, because it was in the
very first Congress of the United States that
abolition petitions were presented from Penn-
sylvania, assailing the peculiar institution.
And my conviction is, from a careful read-
ing of the progressive history of our country
in connection with this subject of States rights,
that it has either contracted or expanded in
both sections according as their particular
interests were affected by it. Not by con- |
