in regard to the disposition of that question,
it would be on my part the excess of vanity
to suppose that a more favorable response
would be made to any effort of mine in the
discussion of the question which is now un-
der consideration. I do not rise with such a
hope. I do not rise under such an expecta-
tion. if any good can be accomplished, I
feel that it is not attainable by the humble
individual who now addresses you. if any
modification is to be obtained, it will not be
through my instrumentality; for in the lan-
guage of another, "I have neither wit, nor
words, nor power of speech to stir men's
souls." I have not the attributes of the fin-
ished rhetorician, that eloquence, that ele-
gance of language, that force and strength of
diction, which are calculated to enchain the
attention of any auditory, and carry captive,
as if by resistless force, the hearts of men.
No, sir, I am no orator. Would to God that
this day I were an orator I Would that 1
could catch the inspiration that fired the
heart of Paul, when in the proud city of
Athens, he declared the principles of the
great I AM. Would to God that this day I
had the language of living fire, the thoughts
that breathe and the words that burn, that I
might enter the temple of this mad fanati-
cism which has usurped the place of the liv-
ing God, and placed by its altar the image of
its idolatry. Would to God, to use a figure,
that I bad the power of Jove, to close this
Pandora's box, the source of all our ills,
which like a tempestuous torrent has swept
all over our land, and has rent in twain and
deluged with blood the fairest portion of
God's inheritance; which has arrayed man
against man, and brother against brother, in
fratricidal strife; which has torn the father
from the son, and the son from the father;
which has entered the holiest sanctuaries of
home, and caused even the wife of your bo-
som, whom God designed to be your solace
and comforter, to smoothe the brow of care,
and soften down the rough asperities of life, to
be your joy, your life, amidst all the changes
and vicissitudes of this ever sad and changing
world—to rend asunder, in some instances,
the unity of existence; which has entered
neighborhoods and alienated friends who
were once friends indeed, united by the holi-
est ties of friendship and of blood; still more,
has entered the sanctuary of God and per-
verted its holy purposes, prostituted its holy
objects, and refused the emblems of the dying
love of the meek and lowly Jesus to a certain
class of men; and not content with this, has
at last entered these balls, and for the first
time in the history of the State, here where
sat our fathers with love and patriotism con-
sulting together for the common weal, made
us strangers to each other, not met as friends
but as partisans.
Is this so, sir? Do we not all realize the
picture I have drawn, that we are not here as |
of old, consulting together as friends for the
public weal and the public good? But I
know that mortal man has not power suffi-
cient to stay the storm. It is reserved for Him
who sits upon the whirlwind and directs the
storm, in whose hands are placed the desti-
nies of nations, and with whom to-day, yes-
terday and to-morrow are the same, to solve
in his own good time this great problem of
the human race. You may ask, if I have not
the vanity to believe that I can make any im-
pression upon this body, why do I stand up
in my place here to-day, and uselessly con-
sume the time of the house. I say because I
am a freeman; and although you are not dis-
posed to do me justice, I nevertheless demand
my rights. I am here upon this floor a peer,
amongst the proudest of your peers; and I
am sent here as a delegate by my constitu-
ency to defend, if not to protect their rights,
a constituency, though much maligned, the
embodiment of honor and of chivalry. I am
here representing a constituency largely and
deeply interested in the question now before
us; and not unmindful of the relations which
Maryland has always sustained to this ques-
tion, which her bistory has no nobly, so glo-
riously and so proudly illustrated in the past
administrations, not only in the vindication of
her own self-respect, but in the vindication of
the constitutional rights of her citizens.
I feel upon this occasion that I should be
recreant to the noble instincts of patriotism
and of manhood, recreant to the honest con-
victions of duty and of justice, false to the
principles and to the opinions of an outraged
people, false to the honor, the integrity, the
justice, and the covenanted faith of once
proud old Maryland, did I not enter my most
solemn and indignant protest against the
passage of the article now under considera-
tion; an article which, to say the least of it,
is the emanation of a sickly sentimentality,
and offspring of a morbid philanthrophy
which is not native or natural to Maryland ;
no, sir, not to the manor born, but an ex-
otic sought to be incorporated into the bill
of rights where it never would have received
any favor, any countenance, or any encour-
agement, except for the accidental and ex-
traneous influences by which we are now
and have been unfortunately surrounded—an
article which. is unjust in all its provisions,
suicidal in its policy, sectional in its applica-
tion, destructive to the material interests and
the fundamental law of the land and the
constitutional rights of the people of Mary-
land.
I ask you, not in the spirit of factious op-
position, or fur the purpose of evoking angry
and embittered discussion, but in the frank-
ness and sincerity of a man of honor, had
this Convention assembled here three years
ago, and had such a proposition as this which
we are now discussing been submitted, what
would have been their feelings? There are |
