rallying around the Constitution as she has
always done heretofore, then the policy of
those who are in authority in this State, and
out of this State, must be to preserve that
Constitution intact. Destroy the portion of
it that protects her citizens and their property
and you will at once strike a blow from
which, if she be not able to strike back, she
will at least imbibe that spirit of hatred which
is utterly incompatible with the successful
administration of a republican government.
The object for which this Convention as-
sembled was to frame a better organic law
for the State than the one she at present has,
I presume that there is no sane man who
would desire to touch one article of it if it
was presumed that we were to make a worse
one. The object is to make a Constitution
for the State of Maryland for all time to
come, which will do full justice to all of its
citizens. If so, I presume that there is no
gentleman in this Convention who will for a
moment assert that it is the duty of the mem-
bers of this Convention to frame a Constitu-
tion which shall raise up, elevate, and benefit
one class of citizens to the exclusion and det-
riment of another class. I suppose that there
is no gentleman in this assembly who would
advocate such a policy as would afford ample
protection to one species of property, and en-
tirely destroy another species of property.
And more especially would I consider that
no clear minded man would in his own con-
ceit, in his own judgment, suppose he had a
right to destroy a species of property which
had stood the test of time for centuries past,
which had had the support of all the beat
men throughout this continent, which had
had the universal support of all the people
in the State of Maryland; a species of pro-
perty, the title to which runs back so far that
there is no record evidence of the beginning
of it.
I say, then, the object for which this Con-
vention assembled is to make such a Consti-
tution for the State of Maryland as will pro-
tect the interests of all the people of the
State, and afford ample protection to all the
interests of all the citizens of the State. With
this preface I shall very briefly review some
of the arguments which have been offered to
show that the institution of slavery ought
not longer to exist in this State.
The gentleman from Caroline county, (Mr.
Todd,) and I believe the gentleman from
Talbot, (Mr. Valliant,) said that the great
argument—and they seemed to raise them-
selves up to the very height of the argument—
that the great argument against the institu-
tion of slavery was its immorality. But they
admitted also that although there was this
great immorality, this crying sin attending
the institution—although it was a great in-
cubus upon the people of the State of Mary-
land—although it was that Upas tree which
must be torn up by the roots, even though in |
doing so you must have no regard to the in-
terests of men, women, and innocent chil-
dren—although it was of such enormity that
it made him blush when be held up his head
before white men—although it was an enor-
mity of such magnitude that they even blushed
in the face of the civilized world; notwith-
standing they used all these epithets in re-
gard to an institution which has existed from
time immemorial in this State, they yet failed
to cite one single authority from the Bible,
from Genesis to Revelations, to show that the
Saviour, or any great teacher therein men-
tioned, had ever been able to perceive the
enormity of this evil. But they seemed to
rely with peculiar emphasis upon the partic-
ular color of the people of my portion of the
State, and of the Southern States generally,
in support of their argument. They seemed
to gloat over the idea that upon comparison
the Northern States would appear to much
greater advantage in this regard when com-
pared with the South, when the relative pop-
ulation of mulattoes was taken into consider-
ation. Upon that subject I would merely
ask the gentleman to go to the statistics, as
compiled by a man evidently sympathizing
with the abolition of slavery. They will
there find that the proportion of mulattoes
at the North was more than double that of
the South in the year 1860, and it is increas-
ing at the same ratio up to this time for
ought I know. As for my own county, I
challenge any man to go through the length
and breadth of that county, take any farm
on it, and if he does not find there is more
iniquity of that description in one single
county in Pennsylvania or New York than he
will find in the whole southern counties in
this State, then I will give up the argument.
If the Bible does not say this institution of
slavery is a sin, to what law or authority
will gentlemen appeal? That great writer
on ecclesiastical polity, Hooker, has said
''the law has its origin in the breast of the
Almighty, and its voice is the harmony of
the world." Now, sir, if that law does not
tell us that there is any sin in the institution
of slavery, per se, if that law on the contrary
clearly recognizes it as entirely compatible,
with good morals, as the authorities which
have been cited here on former occasions, au-
thorities which may be found cited in this
famous book of Bishop Hopkins, will abun-
dantly testify—that slavery has been univer-
sally recounted by the Bible and throughout
the world from the beginning of time; I ask
again, if God's law does not make slavery
sin, what law does? But if there is anything
wanting in the book of Bishop Hopkins upon
that subject, our own high dignitary in this
State has said that slavery rests not only
upon the feudal law, not only upon the civil
law, not wholly upon the one or upon the
other, but upon both—that its foundations
are coeval and coextensive with the common |
