that my State should take any action what-
ever in the premises. You, my people, you
who have lived under the government of the
State of Maryland, your ancestors from 1776,
as a free, sovereign and independent State,
not only tolerating but sustaining the insti-
tution, causing many of us to invest our
money in slaves—do you turn round now
and deprive me of my property? And for
what, when it is practically dead? What do
you propose to accomplish by it? To put
yourselves right on the record to blot out the
foul stain of slavery from the statute book?
To cast a shade of obliquy upon your fathers,
Who are those that are foremost in the prop-
osition to deprive me and Southern Maryland
of this species of property? Do you owe us
nothing? I ask you again, in all serious-
ness, do yon owe us nothing? Who were
the men who consummated your great works
of internal improvement, for which, to this
day the lower counties of Maryland have been
taxed without receiving the benefit of one
dollar. Unfortunately for you, the very men
who inaugurated or rather who consummated
this system—this grand system of internal
improvement, most of them were located in
Chains and St. Mary's counties; Colonel
Wm. D. Merrick, of Charles county, Gover-
nor James Thomas, of St. Mary's, Richard
Thomas, of St. Mary's, and Colonel Howard.
I know very well the clamor that was excited
against the. measure;; and but for their pop-
ularity, it never could have been carried
through in those counties. Here is Baltimore
city built up, carrying not only our own pro-
ductions but the productions of the mighty
West, brought over these works of internal
improvement, permeating through every
channel and making her the third city in the
United State's, Yet, Baltimore city is fore-
most this day in inaugurating a policy to
bankrupt these very people who have been
the means of consummating that system.
Look at Allegany. What would Allegany
have been with her barren rocks, her moun-
tain ridges, her forest winds, but for the de-
velopment of her mineral resources? Who
did it? Why, sir, the people of St. Mary's
county and Charles county contributed more
to the development of your wealth than any
other counties in the State.
Will you under these circumstances, can
you under these circumstances undertake to
deprive me of my property and my people of
their property, when the properly is already
destroyed by the action of the government,
and we believe it will constitute a just claim
tor appropriation hereafter? Will you de-
prive me of that poor little pittance by legis-
lating upon this subject, by passing a bill
for universal emancipation? What do you
do it for?
I have shown that so far as the moral ob-
ligation or the religions obligation to take
this step are concerned, the authorities, which |
you cannot controvert, are apposed to it. I
have shown that it is not needed by the ne-
cessities of the hour. I must hasten to a
close by taking up the constitutional ques-
tion; and I hope to be as strongly fortified
upon that subject as upon the others.
I will conclude by receding some quotations
upon the powers of a State Convention from
"Nicholas's Conservative Essays, legal and
political."
" It may be taken then as proved that the
powers of a Convention are not unlimited as
to matters without the scope of the Federal
Constitution, but are necessarily limited to
objects within the purpose of its. own insti-
tution, Then comes what are those objects.
We need not look far to find them—they are
developed in the Constitution they are to form
a government which shall better secure the
rights and promote the ends for which men
enter into society and voluntarily organize a
government over themselves. Those rights
and ends are well defined by the preamble to
the Constitution to be the enjoyment of the
right of life, liberty and property, and of
pursuing happiness. With this view, all
conventions are convened in free States. Ex-
isting rights of persons and property are a
supposed pre-existing status. Conventions
are only used to secure them, they are none
of them derived bygrant, express or implied,
from either the conventions or the great body
of society at large. Conventions and writ-
ten constitutions are means used by the peo-
ple, not to confer those rights—for each man
brought them with him into society—but the
better to secure their enjoyment under a
properly organized government, adequate to
their protection. If a convention under such
commission to provide for the prolection of
the right of property, were to attempt arbi-
trarily to abolish the right altogether, they
would as clearly transcend their power and
attempt to usurp a power not given as a
physician who wilfully kills a patient whom
he has only power to heal. The proposition
is not therefore true, is not at all tenable,
that we hold our property by the good will
and pleasure of the present Convention, We
bold it by a right anterior to the institution
of government—a right above their reach
and what they cannot abolish.
" In Wilkison vs. Leland, (2 Peters, 657,)
that court also said: That government can
scarcely be deemed to be free when the rights
of property are left solely dependent upon
the will of a legislative body without any
restraint.
"The fundamental maxims of free government
seem to require that the 'rights of
private property and personal liberty should
be held sacred,' at least no court of justice
in this country will be warranted in assum-
ing that a power to violate and disregard
them—a power so repugnant to the princi-
ples of justice and civil liberty—lurked under |
