that no property can exist in anything
based on slavery, or which can be traced
back as the product or offspring of slavery,
and the Government in its work of " ad
vancing the great principles of human
rights and eternal justice" should destroy
this property without any compensation.
Suppose the Government, in all the in-
stances I have recounted will pay nothing for
these various kinds of property. They
advance, says some loyal man, the nation-
al cause, they contribute to the suppres-
sion of the rebellion, they aid the Govern-
ment. It is a badge of disloyalty to ask
compensation for any property winch so
materially contributes to the overthrow of
rebels. We will pay you nothing. You
surely are too loyal to demand compen-
sation for what so aids the national cause !
Would not the moral sense of the people of
the North he shocked? Aye I would you
not, gentlemen, be shocked at this action of
the Federal Government, if any action
taken by it could shock you? Would the
people of the States submit? Would not
New York, Pennsylvania and Massachu-
setts, nay, would not every State interpose
and say compensation must be the condition
upon which aleone the property of the citi-
zens shall be taken? And yet this is what
you propose to do, Mr. President, in order
to gratify the people of the North, viz , to
take away the property of the citizen of
Maryland without a tittle of compensation.
Is it asking anything more than justice that
compensation shall be the condition upon
which you surrender the wealth and domestic
institutions of her people? Congress has
pledged the Government to make an ap-
propriation. Is it doing too much to make
that a condition, which the Federal Government
by direct implication admits should be
a condition? Is it a wrong to lest the good
faith and sincerely of the proposition? If
Congress fails to make the appropriation,
then you have, Mr. President, secured your
citizens in their rights of property, and you
have not ruthlessly deprived them of that
for which you cannot compensate. But
adopt the article proposed by the committee,
and suppose Congress does not make an
appropriation; then the property of the
citizen is gone, you have no compensation
to tender, and we ourselves, as an aggregate
body, have clone that for which the peni-
tentiary would be the reward if we com-
mitted it as an individual act.
(The time having again expired, the
hammer fell.) |
On motion of Mr. MARBURY, the speaker
was allowed to finish his remarks.
Mr. CLARKE. I thank the Convention
for this courtesy shown to me. Before
proceeding, I will remark, that. if any
gentleman will say that he will now take
the floor, I will yield it to him and decline
to go on. But if no gentleman desires at
this hour to commence a speech, I will ask
the indulgence of the House a little longer.
But, Mr. President, if the amendment I
proposed should be adopted, we will not
fail to secure the appropriation. Let Ma-
ryland assume this position; let her say to
the party in power we will emancipate on
these terms and not otherwise, and the ap-
propriation will be made as surely as there
shines a sun above us. What is twenty
millions of dollars, nay what would be fifty
millions of dollars in these days when the
Government issues its promises as fast as
the manual work can be done, compared
with the failure of the scheme oof emancipa-
tion in Maryland? I have already shown
the reasons why the emancipation policy in
Maryland is a scheme of paramount impor-
tance with the Administration. Weighed
in the balances with these considerations,
the mere appropriation of a sum of money,
no larger than a week's prosecution of the
war involves, would be a mere feather.
And you, gentlemen, who on this floor rep-
resent slaveholding constituencies from Tal-
bot, Howard, Worcester and Caroline; and
you, gentlemen, from Baltimore county, all
of whom I have understood to express
yourselves in favor of Federal compensa-
tion—aye, pledged to secure it to your peo-
ple if your action can do it—you now have
the good faith of your principles and pledges
put to the test. Reject my proposition,
pass the 23d article, and fail hereafter to
obtain compensation for your constituents,
and I here arraign and charge yon with the
responsibility of having defeated their best,
nay. their only chance for compensation for
property taken from them. Yon had an
opportunity to redeem your pledges and
yon failed so to do.
Mr. SANDS. If the gentleman will per-
mit me to interrupt him, I will say now, as
I have stated previously, that I stand pledged
before the people of Howard county to
use all my efforts to secure compensation ;
but not as a condition precedent at all.
They expressly rejected placing it upon the
ground of a condition precedent.
Mr. CLARKE. My idea of the mode of
upholding the rights of my constituents is |
