sire to place a safeguard about every portion
of that Constitution. When it is submitted to
the people of the State for their ratification,
I want it to appeal to their judgment in such
a way that they will have some respect for
our judgment, and know that it required at
least 49 or 50 members to put each and every
article into tile Constitution. But I do not
want the business of this Convention to be
unnecessarily delayed. Already there are
complaints arising that we are sitting here
too long without doing the work we were
sent here to do. Our citizens are constantly
asking members—"when are you going to
get through?" And they are told by some
of their representatives that it will take us
at least a month, perhaps six weeks longer
to complete our labors, and if we do not com-
mence soon it will take six months.
if there shall be any good reason why this
report cannot be taken up to-morrow at one
o'clock, I will go for postponing it still
longer. But do not let us put it out of our
power to take it up at that time by postpon-
ing it to a week hence. The chairman of the
committee who made this report (Mr. Stir-
ling) is not here to-day, and out of due
respect and courtesy to him I move to post-
pone it until to-morrow, and if he shall not
be here to-morrow I will cheerfully go for a
further postponement. And when the time
comes, if any gentleman in the minority on
that committee shall not be here, or shall not
be prepared to go on with the discussion of
the subject, I will cheerfully consent to
grant tire same courtesy to him. But I do
want to have this Convention get to work ;
and I therefore must insist upon my motion.
Mr. KENNARD. I am anxious to have the
rules completed and adopted, as preliminary
to the business to which the gentleman from
Baltimore city (Mr. Daniel) has referred.
I, therefore, call for the previous question.
The call for the previous question was
seconded; and the main question ordered.
The PRESIDENT stated the first question to
be upon the longest time, being the motion of
Mr. Berry of Prince George's to postpone the
order of the day until Thursday of next week,
at one o'clock.
The question being taken the motion was
not agreed to.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. The motion I submitted
was to postone the order of the day until
the Contention shall have completed its ac-
tion upon tile repott of the committee on the
rules. The gentleman from Baltimore city
(Mr. Daniel) moved lo amend my motion so
as to postpone until to-morrow at one o'clock.
I suppose the question now recurs upon the
amendment to my motion.
The PRESIDENT. The question should be
first taken upon the motion involving the
longest time. It is a little uncertain which
motion that is. But the Chair will assume |
that the motion to postpone until the Con-
vention shall have acted upon the rules is
the motion involving the longest time, and
will therefore put the question for it on that
motion.
The question being then taken upon the
motion of Mr. Stockbridge, it was agreed to.
RULES OF THE CONVENTION—RESUMED.
The Convention then resumed the consid-
eration of the 43d Rule, which was declared
to be still open to amendment.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE moved to amend the last
clause of Rule 43 by striking out the words
"subject matter voted upon," and inserting
"article;" so that the rule would read—
—"and unless it shall thus appear that a
majority of the whole number of the mem-
bers elected to the Convention have voted in
the affirmative, the article shall be declared
rejected."
The question being taken, the amendment
was agreed to.
No further amendment being offered to the
43d Rule;
The 44th Rule was then read, as reported
by the committee.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. In order to make this
rule correspond to Rule 43 as amended, I
move to insert after the word "report," in
the fifth line, the words "or article;" so
that it will read—"but should a report or
article, on its final passage, be declared re-
jected," &c.
The question being taken on the amend-
ment, it was agreed to.
Mr. CUSHING. I move to further amend
this rule, by striking out, after the word
"negative," in the eighth line, the words,
"and no motion for consideration shall be
postponed or laid on the table."
My object in proposing this amendment is
to cut off the indefinite number of motions
for reconsideration; so that should the Con-
vention desire to cut off motions to recon-
sider by laying them on the table, it will
have the power to do so.
Mr. PUGH. I feel like objecting to the
proposed amendment, for the reason that we
have already provided, by Rule 43, that every
article of the Constitution shall receive the
affirmative votes of a majority of the mem-
bers elected to this Convention. Now it
may happen that we shall want a reconsider-
ation after we have adopted an article, or a
motion; we may want it two or three times.
That is my objection to the proposed amend-
ment.
Mr. CUSHING. If the majority want a re-
consideration they can vote down the motion
to postpone, or file motion to lay on the ta-
ble. The amendment I propose still leaves
it in the power of the majority to do what it
pleases. But, according to the rule as re-
ported, the majority may vote down a
motion to reconsider forty times, and the
motion can still be renewed. But as I pro- |
