For the gentlemen dare not assert a doctrine
and declare it does not go an inch higher up
or deeper down, but goes only go far as just
suits their case, I think my friend from Prince
George's (Mr. Belt) went as far in the support
of the principle of secession, if not in name
as any gentleman whose views I have heard
expressed upon this floor. I would ask if the
people of asingle State, setting at naught the
interest and peace and safety of an entire na-
tion, may sever their political connection at
will, may not half the State sever its political
connection on the same ground, and principle,
and rule of conduct?
Gentlemen must recollect that the conse-
quences and the considerations, the motives
that actuate and the results that spring from
the action, in the one instance affect a whole
nation of thirty millions of people, involv-
ing them in the maelstrom of a fearful civil
war; and that in the other case, if it results
in a war, it is a war of which both sides, old
and young, do not number a million.
I want my friends to understand that I do
not believe in their doctrine of secession. It
is wrong altogether; and all things spring-
ing out of it are, as it is, evil and wrong.
But they may force me to a choice between
two evils They may bring me to a point
where seeing that both these things are
wrong, I may have to choose which of the
wrongs is most endurable, and which I will
accept. While I have always held secession
to be unfounded in any legal or moral right,
I hailed with joy the separation of West Vir-
ginia from Bast Virginia, because I saw in it
one step towards the cure of the greatest of
all wrongs, the disruption and dissolution of
the Federal Union. I would accept the Be-
cession of West Virginia as an accomplished
fact politically, just as in certain diseases of
my own system I might agree that the doctors
should administer to me certain things in
certain doses which are poisonous in them-
selves.
My friend said that our cheeks ought to
mantle with the blush of shame at the bare
idea of accepting from Virginia a portion,
however small, of her territory. He spoke
of the ancient comity between the people of
these two commonwealths. That ancient
comity has been recently illuminated by a
very edifying commentary. They get up
bonfires, and do not mind making them out
of people's houses, to illustrate this ancient
comity. On their own showing, old Mary-
land is oppressed, down-trodden, tyrannized
over, gagged, bound hand and foot; and what
have they done? Finding her thus down,
they have kicked her because she was thus
down and could not resent the kick, and rid-
ing through her territory and robbing and
despoiling her citizens.
I do not pretend to say that Virginia is re-
sponsible for all this. I do not mean to say
it. I do not believe it; for it is my belief |
that in the Old Dominion there are hearts as
true as yours or mine to the land of their
fathers. She was kicked, cuffed, dragged
into the vortex of disunion I know it from
men who sat in her Convention; from whose
lips I learn that while they were sitting there
deliberating upon the condition of their State
and the country, ruffians were parading
around the hall, throwing handfuls of peb-
bles against the windows, and threatening to
throw rocks if they did not pass the ordi-
nance at once. Virginia is true, I pity her
from the bottom of my heart. She should
not have taken to her embrace that modern
Mokanna, that veiled prophet, eternally prat-
ing of the rights of States and of people, and
riding like Juggernaut over them all,
I am willing for one to accept West
Virginia, if she chooses to make the offer, as
part and parcel hereafter of the State of Ma-
ryland. I say their people are identical in
their feelings, their interests, their country,
their climate, their production. In every-
thing that constitutes the unity of a people,
they are identical. And I should not blush
to say to that State, which has an organized
government, executive, legislative and judi-
cial, and which has put its thousands of good
and true men into the army of this Union,
if you brave and true men purpose to unite
your political destiny with us in future, we
wilt give you a welcome such as the Scottish
poet indicated when he said:
"When death's dark stream I ferry o'er,
A time that surely shall come;
In Heaven itself, I'll ask no more
Than just a Highland welcome."
This is just the kind of welcome I stand
ready to give to West Virginia just as soon
as she says she wants to come. It is not
I based on the action of a few men in a cock-
loft, here or elsewhere, but the action of the
Union masses, who are now standing with
I sword in hand, and who may be anxious on
account of the vast interests at stake, to unite
their political fortune with us. I want her
to come. I think that that State which should
comprise what is now the State of Maryland
and what is now the State of West Virginia,
with a proper system of labor, and practical
enterprise, would soon grow into an empire,
of which even my friend from Prince George's
(Mr. Belt) would be justly proud.
On motion of Mr. DANIEL,
The Convention took a reccess.
EVENING SESSION.
The Convention met at 8 o'clock, P. M.
The roll was called, and the following mem-
bers answered to their names :
Messrs. Goldsborough, President; Abbott,
Annan, Belt, Chambers.Cunningham, Dan-
iel, Davis, of Washington, Dent, Earle, Ecker,
Edelen, Galloway, Greene, Henkle, Hoffman,
Hollyday, Hopper, Jones, of Somerset, Keefer, |
