not leave to him, if he accepts the commission,
to say whether be will resign or not.
As to the other little matter, about people
coming into the Legislature in order to get
into the Senate of the United States, I do not
know anything about that, and shall there-
fore say nothing about it. I shall vote
against this amendment.
Mr. MILLER I would call the attention of
the gentleman from Kent (Mr. Chambers) to
a provision contained in the first clause of
section three, article one, of the Constitution
of the United States :
"The Senate of the United States shall be
composed of two senators from each State,
chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six
years."
Is it not competent for this body to pre-
scribe to the Legislature of the State whom
they shall choose as senator, and whom they
shall not choose assenator?
Mr. CHAMBERS. In reply to that —
Mr. MILLER. The members of Congress, I
think, have different qualifications. But as
the Legislature of the State are to elect sen-
ators, I think that it may be competent for
this body, in framing a Constitution and
restriction upon the action of the Legislature,
to provide that such and such persons shall
not be eligible to be elected to the Senate of
the United States.
Mr. CHAMBERS. The gentleman asks me a
question, and then declines to give me an op-
portunity to answer it. That is not my way
of doing business. I will tell the gentleman
that he will find that this very question was
debated in the Convention of 1850, And I
think that he will find, by examining the
debates of that Convention, that I have the
honor of being just as consistent upon that
question as upon all others. I denied then,
as I deny now, the power of the Convention
to designate any such qualifications. It was
proposed in that Convention, by a member
from Prince George's, I believe, to insert in the
Constitution a provision requiring that one
of the two United States senators to which
Maryland is entitled should always be elected
from the eastern shore. Now, although no
man will contend more tenaciously for the
rights of the eastern shore than myself, I
felt hound then, as I do now, to conscien-
tiously express my honest, opinion that we
have no power to restrain the appointment of
United States senator by place, time, or cir-
cumstance, beyond what the Constitution of
the United States has said. . So the gentle-
man will find no reason in that respect for
me to qualify the opinion I then expressed.
Mr. CLARKE. I did not propose to enter
fully into the argument of this question. But
I was just about to quote in reply to the ar-
gument of the gentleman from Kent (Mr.
Chambers) the provision upon our statute
book, and which has been there for years past,
requiring that one United States senator shall |
be taken from one shore, and one from the
other shore. The gentleman says such a re-
striction is unconstitutional. The Legisla-
ture heretofore has not regarded it so. The
question has never been raised in this State ;
but so far as I am informed, I have always
supposed that was a constitutional exercise of
power on the part of the Legislature. And
if this Convention should undertake to as-
sume such a power, I think it would be a
constitutional exercise of power on the part
of this Convention; therefore I offered this
amendment.
My view of the matter is this: I admit
that if a person elected senator of the United
States in violation of such a constitutional
provision as this, should go to Washington,
and apply to be admitted to a seat there, the
Senate of the United States might well say—
"we as senators can go no farther than the
Constitution of the United States prescribes
in reference to the qualifications of this appli-
cant." Now, we do not undertake to pre-
scribe the qualifications of a senator of the
United States, or of a member of Congress.
All we, do is just what the code now does.
The code now says that you shall take one
senator from one shore and the other senator
from the other shore; and you shall not take
both senators from the same shore. So when
a person undertakes to serve the State of
Maryland, as a senator or delegate, our State
Constitution comes in and says you shall not
elect him to the Senate of the United States.
Why? From motives of State policy. And
the obligation we here impose applies to the
body that elects. There is no provision in
the Constitution of the United States which
says you shall send a State senator or State
delegate to the Sonata or Congress of the
United States. If there wag, then this pro-
vision would be beyond our power. But it
being left by the Constitution of the United
States optional with the Legislature whom
they shall elect, this State Constitution comes
in and says to the Legislature, this man shall
serve the State, and not Congress. We say
to the Legislature, our agent—you shall not
elect him to the Senate of the United States.
The constitutional question raised by my
amendment is just the same as that raised
now by our statute in regard to the election
of United States senators.
Mr. STIRLING. To show how perfectly nu-
gatory any such provision as this will be, I
will refer to a case in which this question has
already been decided. It was not a great
many years ago that the case arose in the
Senate of the United States, in this way :
The State Constitution of Indiana or Illinois,
contained a provision involving a similar
principle; that the State Legislature should
not elect a judge of the circuit court to the
Senate of the United States. The Legisla-
ture did elect a Judge of the Circuit Court to
the United States Senate, and the question |
