any general grant of legislative authority, or
ought to be implied from any general expres-
sions of the will of the people. The people
ought not to be presumed to part with rights
so vital to their security and well-being,
without very strong and direct expressions
of such intention. We know of no case
where a legislative act can transfer the prop-
erty of A to B, has ever been held a consti-
tutional exercise of legislative power in any
State of this Union. On the contrary, it has
been constantly resisted as inconsistent with
just principles by every judicial tribunal in
which it has been attempted to be enforced.
"Judge Story (3 Com. 267) says, it seems
to be the general opinion, fortified by a strong
current of judicial authority, that since the
American Revolution, no State Government
can be presumed to possess the transcendental
sovereignty, to take away vested rights of
property."
Mr. CUSHING. I rise to speak upon this
subject, inasmuch as it is important in the
minds of the constituency which sent me
here, not claiming more than the gentle-
man from St. Mary's, (Mr. Billingsley,) that
my lips have been touched by any coal from
the altar, but knowing that my voice, how-
ever weak individually it may be, is but the
distant echo of the murmur of the thousands
that are behind me in the city which sent me
here; knowing that however elevated, how-
ever pure, however educated may be the con-
stituency which sent the gentlemen here, the
one that I have the honor to represent is at
least equal to it. However those who rise upon
this floor to advocate the immediate emanci-
pation of the negroes in the State of Mary-
land may be said by the gentleman to intro-
duce here new doctrines; however they may
be said to be the doctrines of men not born
upon the soil of Maryland, which I do not
see is any argument against the views that
may be advanced by them, I take issue with
him upon the statement as a question of fact.
Luther Martin pi ousted strongly before
the Legislature of Maryland, against the
adoption of the present Federal Constitution
because it allowed slavery; perhaps the
strongest remonstrance that has ever been
made against the passage of any law, in
terms so strong that I much doubt if any gen-
tleman upon tine floor of this Convention ad-
vocating similar views will say anything
nearly so strong. And Mr. Jefferson has
used language which, if uttered three years
ago, at the time to which the gentleman from
St. Mary's county alluded, would have sent
him from the city of Annapolis with a coal
of tar and feathers, and possibly would have
gent his soul to his God.
From the first settlement of Maryland un-
til now she has travelled and groaned under
this social, political, and moral curse of
slavery; and to-day the representatives of
her people have assembled in Convention to |
utter a voice of freedom, to echo the tones
of the Almighty, lo bid the oppressed
go free. In the first days of our bistory there
were many warning voices uttered with re-
ference to the very question which is before
us to-day. When America, broke the bonds
with which the oppressor beyond the sea had
bound her, when she gang the song of lib-
erty and declared that all people were born
free and equal, because that out of one blood
God did make all nations of men for to dwell
upon the face of the whole earth, when she made
that Declaration of Independence, there was
in the minds of the framers of that instru-
ment a firm conviction that the generation in
which they lived would see the end of slavery.
They acted up to the best light of the age in
which they lived. The Constitution of the
country is due to them, and in my mind is
a monument more lasting than brass; for
though it has stood for so many yearn we
here to-day can find but two or three things
wherein we differ from it, after an experi-
ence of the working of the government under
that Constitution for some seventy-four
years.
Their ideas of the extinction of slavery
have not been realized. Contrary to all their
expectations slavery became first profitable,
then respectable, then powerful, until finally
it became the fundamental article in our po-
litical and religious creeds. It progressed
until in politics there was no voice, in reli-
gion there was no church, in society there
was no recognition for that monstrosity of
God's creation, an anti-slavery man, an abo-
litionist. All terms of shame, all terms of
blame, all anathemas of reproach, divine and
human, paled before that pre-eminent epithet
of scorn and contempt—an abolitionist,
It finally destroyed even free speech in
this State. Men no longer dared utter the
sentiments boldly maintained by their fa-
thers. Men no longer dared utter forth the
words at the Revolution, unless they made
sure as Holy Writ that slavery was not
meant in the words they used. Slavery pro-
duced its legitimate effects in every sphere of
life. The soil was worn out by careless, un-
willing culture. Manufactures were neglected;
for under slavery, labor was a thing of re-
proach. Education was neglected, tor learning
made abolitionists. The fact that under
the influence of the institution of slavery la-
bor has been a disgrace cannot be denied.
Tire very term that we find to-day, the fa-
vorite term of contempt, throughout the
slaveholding States, is the " mudsills" of the
North, referring to our laboring men, one of
whom to-day occupies the position of Chief
Magistrate of the United States. I have not
known, with all the boasted aid to poor men
in the South, of one laboring man in all the
Presidents that the South has given to our
country—not one who was originally a la-
boring man. |
