either with the section of "bigoted dotards'
or "shallow and reckless empirics." It is
my purpose, conceding that in some form,
the majority of this Convention have prede-
termined to abolish the legal status of ne-
gro slavery in the State, to inquire how it can
it be clone on sound and statesmanlike prin-
ciples, which will secure the rights of all
and leave no blot upon our State history,
engraven so deep that time will never efface
the stain, nor repentance restore the purity
of the State name.
And, firstly, in discussing the proposed
article I recognize the fact that we have to
deal with the real issues of the present, and
the coming events and changes already
foreshadowed in the future. It is, Mr. Pre-
sident, an idle task to be looking back at
the obsolete issues of the past. Let the
dead bury their own dead. Act up to the
demands of the living issues of the present.
In representing in part, as I do, the largest
slave-holding county in the State of Ma-
ryland, I am not here as a " champion of
slavery, as an element of political power,"
but I trust that in the views I am about to
express, I will be true to those principles
which are the basis of all our rights of pro-
perty, and which the great and good men of
the State and the country have announced
as unchanging—not yesterday to be affirmed
—to-day to be denied and denounced.
Slavery, as an "element of political pow-
er," has never been made the basis of popular
agitation in Maryland prior to the candidacy
of Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency. Un-
til that time there was no anti-slavery party
in the State. And it does shock me to hear
men who have been well known as the firm
friends of the Constitution—men who voted
to place the present article in our State Con-
stitution prohibiting the Legislature from
passing any law abolishing the relation of
master and slave—men who cringed to and
fawned and flattered all who were pro-slavery,
now not only change their opinions
professedly—for this is allowable—but they
have the effrontery to avow that they have
been emancipationists for years—nay, all
their lives. They have certainly moved
about in false colors, disguised robes and
with simulated faces—as wolves in sheeps
clothing, or sheep in wolves' clothing.
Mr. President, I cannot entertain re-
spect for the opinions and sentiments now
avowed by many Maryland men. Whence
comes this sudden conversion? A conver
sion which now pronounces those dogmas
which only a year or two ago were the |
height of "treason," to be the purest test of
loyalty and the highest standard of exalted
patriotism. Pardon us, gentlemen, if after
being indoctrinated by you as chief rulers
in the Synagogue of the Union with such
just principles, we have not so soon desert-
ed the maxims of our Gamaliels, and do not
so readily chime in with you in your plau-
dits and advocacy of a policy you so, recent-
ly taught us was "treason," and destructive
of all hope of a reconstructed and glorious
Union. When the 43d section of article
second of the Constitution of the State was
reported in the Constitutional Convention
which framed our present organic law, no
voice was raised against it. It was adopted
unanimously. Journal of the Maryland
State Convention p. 231, Debates of Con-
vention vol. 1, page 150. Slavery was not
then considered such a curse, nor did its
perpetuity in the State then, in the opinion
of certain gentlemen now high in public
positions, endanger the permanency of our
form of government. And the journal
shows that upon the same day when this
clause was adopted Governor Hicks, Shri-
ver. Fiery and others, who are now the ear-
nest advocates of emancipation were pre-
sent. In this same venerable building
where wo are now gathered, Governor Brad-
ford only a little more than two years ago
in discussing the "guarantees of national
success," expressed but "one apprehension
that could cause a doubt." He says: "It is
not so much the fear of any assistance that
secession is likely to receive from abroad,
nor the aid and comfort which treason at
home may convey to it, as the possibility of
a treason far more potent for mischief, and
which, if not suppressed, is calculated to
inflict: upon the cause of the Union the se-
verest blow it has yet encountered. I refer,
of course, to that emancipation policy late-
ly thrust so unexpectedly on popular atten-
tion." Contrast his message to the last
General Assembly in which the Governor
cannot omit allusion to tire question of
emancipation lest it might appear like an
indifference which he is far from feeling.
He says (page 28) "I have the less reason
for withholding any such opinion as it has
undergone no change, and is such as I have
frequently heretofore expressed. I believe
to-day, as I have done for years, that if we
had long ago provided for the gradual
emancipation of the slaves of the State, we
should now be, as regards all the material
elements of public prosperity, far in ad- ,
vance of our present position." |
