that some penalty should be attached to it.
A provision without a penalty, is no provi-
sion at all. Suppose you put in this provi-
sion that they should not do so, and attach
no penalty to it, what do sit amount to, sup-
pose they violate it to-morrow. Being an
offence not known to the common law or the
criminal code, being a very serious offence,
the convention of 1850 delined and declared
what should be its punishment; and why
should not we re-enact it? Are we to omit
it, merely because if we retain it, it will ne-
cessitate the going of Mr. A to the counter of
Mr. B, and saying: ''Please to accommodate
me," when striking it out may leave innocent
communities at the mercy of rogues? I do
not mean to say that bank officers are rogues;
but I do mean to say, that dishonest men
have heretofore been placed in those positions,
and that they have embezzled and swallowed
up the substance of the honest and upright
citizens of the State; and that it is our duty
to guard against it, if we can. For that
reason, I shall vote for its retention, seeing
that it can do no harm, and seeing that its
recision may do mischief.
Mr. MILLER, I am sorry to differ with my
friend from Howard county (Mr. Sands,)
with regard to the law he has laid down with
reference to this provision. I refer to his
assertion that a statute prohibiting a thing
to be done, is of no force unless a penalty is
attached.
Mr. SANDS. Of no effect.
Mr. MILLER.. I cannot agree to that. If
the constitution merely forbids the director
of any bank to borrow money from it, and
if any director should do that thing, although
no penalty at all should be attached to it, he
would be liable to be indicted and punished
by fine or imprisonment at the discretion of
the court. That principle of law has been
settled over and over again.
Mr. SANDS. I did not mean to say that a
violation of the law wag not a misdemeanor ;
but I say that it would be practically of none
effect.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. This does not operate
to produce the practical inconvenience that
seems to be apprehended by the gentleman
from Howard (Mr. Sands.) A person is no
under the necessity, in order to evade this
law, of going to some other bank to borrow
The gentleman from Howard, for example
is a director of a bank, and wants to borrow
some money. He will give me his note, am
I indorse it, and get it discounted by him a
his bank, and let him have the money. That
is no very complicated arrangement.
Mr. SMITH, of Carroll. That is indirection
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. The constitution says
nothing about indirection. The amendment
which is proposed, says that no director
"shall borrow any money from said corpo
ration."
Mr. SMITH, of Carroll. It speaks below of |
"directly or indirectly violating this ar-
ticle."
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. That amounts to noth-
ing whatever. It is the easiest thing in the
world to evade. This clause was put in here
without any public call for it. Banks had
been in existence in this State for a century
before this law was passed. When was the
practical call for it? When was the practi-
cal inconvenience resulting from the want of
it, anywhere? Who are the directors of
banks? The gentleman from Washington
county has had more experience than other
members in this mutter. Who are the direc-
tors of banks? Speculators? Men who have
no means, nothing to lose, and everything to
gain, playing the game of life in such a reck-
less way as he has described? Is it not almost
always the case, that they are the most relia-
ble and correct men in the business commu-
nity, that they are large stockholders whose
means would be imperilled by any bad
conduct of the bank, prominent and active
men in the business community?
Here is a man with $8,000 of stock in a
bank, and a sufficient good character and good
name in the community; and others who have
I property there, have seen fit to select him as
one of the directors to manage the affairs of
that institution. What is the prohibition?
In the course of events, which he might not
have anticipated at the time he was elected
and accepted the position of director of the
bank, after he has given days upon days of
gratuitous service to the other persons inter-
ested in the bank, he has occasion to want
$5,000. He cannot, without being liable to
punishment at the discretion of the court,
not by any fixed law, without a maximum or
a minimum, but absolutely at the discretion
of the court, liable to fine and imprisonment,
borrow that money. It is more serious than
an ordinary penitentiary offence, larceny, or
highway robbery, so far as the fact is con-
cerned.
There have been indictments under the
constitution, mere malicious proceedings in
this State. Men standing high in the busi-
ness community, from mere inadvertence, not
remembering this stern prohibition, supposing
they could act as they had done before, have
been brought before the courts and indicted
under this section of the constitution. Has
it done any good? Have the banks been in
a better condition since this was adopted
than before? I see no object to be gained by
it.
The gentleman from Howard (Mr. Sands)
has said in the course of his remarks that the
objection which I make against mingling the
criminal code of the State with the constitu-
tion does not prevail. Why not? Is not
this a provision, which, if it exists at all,
should stand in the code and not in the con-
stitution? Why not add a provision, as in
twenty other instances in the constitution, |
