the May Flower. They were men who lived
there soberly, righteously, honestly, and
shrouded a whole community in grief when
they died. Men whose character and posi-
tion is not indeed our boast, for we were
not taught in a school which prides itself on
the virtues of its ancestors more than its own ;
but which is ever our bright example, so
that we have no higher aspiration than to do
as much good in our day and generation as
they did in theirs; to live as widely honored,
and to die as profoundly regretted.
I say some of us, with such memories and
such aspirations, have left the spot of our
birth, and made our residence in Maryland.
And I wish it understood we came not here
as adventurers or mendicants. We came here
as pensioners upon nobody's-bounty, craving
nobody's hospitality; we asked and ask no
favors; we have brought something into
Maryland, and have carried nothing out.
Some scores of years, from our earliest man-
hood, we have labored here in our several
vocations, openly, seen and known of all
men. And we fearlessly challenge ascrutiny
of the record we have made for ourselves
thus openly, when we say with him of old
— "we have wronged no man; we have
corrupted no man; we have defrauded no
man." With our record fully known, we are
here at the command of our fellow-citizens to
act upon this great question, the peers in our
own right of every man upon this floor, and
peers in right of those who sent us here, and
whom we strive to represent.
The question then is submitted to this body
thus made up, and we are to meet it by rea-
son. Whatever may be our interests in the
past, the present, the Maryland of to-day is
ours in common, and the Maryland of the
future is ours. We, as well as the native and
to the manor born, are to live under the laws
which shall be made. And our children
who have been born here are to abide by. the
result of our acts.
And the great question now before us is :
Shall slavery longer continue to exist in
Maryland? Objections are raised; we are
met at the very threshold with the great and
paramount objection that we lack the power
to extinguish slavery. It is said that eman-
cipation is an interference with vested rights,
rights which are guaranteed by the fifth
amendment of the Constitution of the United
States. It is said that there is no law for the
action which we propose to take, that there
is no precedent for it. And this objection,
that we violate vested rights, guaranteed by
the Constitution of the United States, is urged
with apparent seriousness by the very men
who, ten days ago, were carrying to its ut-
most limits the doctrine of State sovereignty;
and who are also the very men who, time
out of mind, have taught the doctrine that
slavery is a domestic institution, under the
exclusive control of the States themselves, |
and with which the National Government
has nothing to do. Now, however, for a
present purpose, they teach that the State has
no power whatever over it, because the Na-
tional Constitution protects it. Now, I grant
to its fullest ex-tent that the United States
Constitution may restrain the National Gov-
ernment from appropriating slaves to public
use without just compensation; modified only
by its power and its obligation to " provide
for the common defence and promote the gen-
eral welfare," But the whole history of that
amendment to the Constitution shows that it
was designed as a limitation upon the power
of the National Government, but not at all as
a fetter upon the action of the States them- '
selves, to which was reserved the right and
power which we have reiterated in this bill
of rights, the sole and exclusive right "to
regulate the internal government and police
thereof." The fact is too plain for serious
argument.
And it is equally plain that in the work in
which we are now engaged, we are unfettered
by any previously existing restrictions of a
similar nature in our own fundamental law.
No law for it, Mr. President? We are con-
structing the lex legum, the law upon which
all the laws of our State are to be founded,
upon which they are to be constructed after
or when approved by the sovereignty of the
State, the people. It then overrides all laws,
and is itself the highest law which we can
recognize. No precedent? We are making
precedents. No precedent, I grant, in our
own State, but we are making one. And
there is precedent enough to guide us in this
matter in other States.
At the same time, while holding that we are
not fettered or restrained in our action in
any sense or form by the Constitution of the
United States, I firmly concede that that pro-
vision in the United States Constitution is
but the plain utterance of the doctrine of
common honesty; that it is true everywhere,
that no man, and no body of men, great or
small, has the right to take for its own use
that which belongs to another without just
compensation; that a State is unjust if it
takes for its own use the property of the
humblest citizen without paying for it. But
the question of compensation is not before us
in the preseat article. It is simply a ques-
tion at this time of the continuance of slavery,
and, therefore, I do not propose to discuss
that objection now. When we come to con-
sider another article of the Constitution, it
will be time enough to investigate vested
rights, and see to what extent they control
the rights of other human beings too long
divested of them, and whether it is to be the
law in this State that the right of person or
the right of property shall override, when
the two come in conflict. I, therefore, shall
not dwell upon that point.
We are met next with the objection drawn |
