Besides that, what right have we to tax
Baltimore city, that has no interest in slave-
ry, and take her money to pay the holders of
these slaves? Has not Baltimore city al-
ready lost hundreds of thousands of dollars
by this rebellion, although she had no instru-
mentality at all in bringing it on? If you pay
these slave holders for their negroes, you ought
to go and hunt out every instance where a
man has been damaged by this rebellion and
make restitution to him.
And the people in our county have a better
claim for remuneration, because there is no
doubt about their right to their species of
property. Nobody can come forward and
dispute their moral and legal right to their
property. But we do dispute the right of
these slaveholders to what they claim as their
property.
For these considerations I do think the
slaveholders in Maryland are not entitled to
one cent of remuneration. And there is no
injustice done any man; there is no violation
of moral principle, in refusing to saddle upon
the State of Maryland a debt in order to pay
them. It la their misfortune lo have had
such property. And it was our misfortune
in Washington county to have been invaded
by the rebels and to have had our crops
trampled down, and our horses stolen. That
is the misfortune of war. We of Washing-
ton have no right to come upon the State of
Maryland for payment for damages. If any-
body is bound to pay, it is the federal gov-
ernment. But the slaveholders have no
more right to ask the State to pay tor these
negroes, than we have the right to ask the
State to pay for the property, destroyed by
the rebels.
Mr. MILLER obtained the floor, but gave
way to
Mr. JONES, of Somerset, who moved that
the convention adjourn.
The motion to adjourn was not agreed to.
Mr. BROWN. When the bill of rights was
under consideration, I offered an amend-
ment in substance like the one I now hold in
my hand. I now renew it, in order that we
may not add inhumanity to injustice. I move
to amend the section by adding the follow-
ing:
" But shall by law, at the expense of the
State, provide for the support and mainten-
ance of such slaves so declared to be eman-
cipated as may be anable to support them-
selves."
The question was upon agreeing to the
amendment submitted by Mr. BROWN.
Mr. MILLER. I had not designed to say
anything upon this question, and should not
now trouble this convention but for some very
extraordinary positions assumed by the gen-
tleman from Washington county (Mr. Neg-
ley.) But for that I should have been willing,
60 far as I am concerned, to have left the con-
sideration of this question to the remarks of |
the gentleman from Kent (Mr. Chambers,) for
I think he has said almost all that can be
said upon this subject,
Now, the doctrine that private property
shall not be taken for public use, except upon
just compensation made to the owner, is the
eighth commandment of American constitu-
tional law. In order to get rid of the effect
of the clear justice of that doctrine, the gen-
tleman from Washington has said, has boldly
declared, that property in slaves is no property
at all; that slavery is a nuisance, and that the
State has a right to abate the nuisance with-
out compensation to the owner. That is the
ground upon which the gentleman bases his
argument. Sir, the property of the slave-
holder in his slaves a nuisance, a legal nui-
sance? When, where, and how did it become
a nuisance? Is that a nuisance which the
constitution of the United States declares to
be property? Is that a nuisance which the
constitution of your State declares to be pro-
perty—which for more than a century the
State has protected as property? Is that a
nuisance which at the time of the adoption
of the federal constitution, the constitutions
and laws of all the States of this Union, with
one exception, declared to beproperty? Why,
sir, it seems to me that the mere statement of
such a proposition as that bears upon its face
its own refutation. Were the great men who
framed the constitution of 1787, thieves and
robbers, as the gentleman from Washington
(Mr. Negley) has declared them to be, and
have they given to us only a thief's title to
this property ?
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE Does the gentleman
state it as a tact that the constitutions of all
the States but one declared slaves to be pro-
party ?
Mr. MILLER. At the time of the adoption
of the constitution of the United States slavery
existed in every one of the colonies with the
exception of Massachusetts; was recognized
and protected by their statute laws, precisely
as every other species of property was recog-
nized and protected. The gentleman from
Baltimore city (Mr. Stockbridge) in his argu-
ment the other day upon the emancipation
clause of the bill of rights, declared that
slavery had not legally existed in Massachu-
setts since 1641; and he quoted the old colo-
nial statute of Massachusetts upon that sub-
ject. What was that statute? I have an ex-
tract from it here before me, which I will read ;
''There shall never be any bond slavery,
villeinage, nor captivity among us unless it
be lawful captives taken in just wars; and
such strangers as willingly sell themselves or
are sold unto us, and these shall have all the
liberties and Christian usages which the law
of God established in Israel requires."
That was the statute of Massachusetts of
1641. They dealt in slaves at that time. The
slaves that were sold unto them were sold by
the mother country, by British merchants |
