the effort has been to establish the proper
parties to receive the compensation. So this
will be postponed from one year to another,
and at last the real parties who ought to re-
ceive it will; not receive it. But if the coun-
ties preserve the evidence of the original
owners it will enable the legislature hereafter
to distribute the fund, for they will know the
parties and can make a just distribution of
the losses.
As I stated, I offer this amendment as the
best thing I can do for my constituents in
the existing condition of things.
Mr. SANDS. I would suggest to my friend
that under the rules, with regard to the per-
petuation of evidence, they can go on and
make out the claims against the United States
or whomsoever they please, and go to the
proper sources and take the testimony neces-
sary to prove their claims and put it on re-
cord.
Mr. CLARKE. I will say as to that, that I
do not know whether the general government
would accept the proof. There is one class that
has run away, taken into the military service,
for whom no compensation has been received.
There is a large class of women and children
set free in the State. On what ground could
the evidence of title of these owners at this
time be carried and placed in the department
at Washington? There is no officer there to
receive and perpetuate the testimony if offered.
The officers would say they had no power,
that there was no bureau constituted for that
purpose, and in fact there is no law of Con-
gress recognizing our right to preserve this
evidence.
Mr. SANDS. There is a law providing for
commissions to take testimony.
Mr. CLARKE. Those enlisted in many cases
cannot be covered. Those set free by the ac-
tion of the State convention would be only a
small class. Filing proof would only reach
a small class of the cases which have gone
into the army. I will take the case of my
own county, one of the largest slaveholding
counties in the State, and yet I believe we
have only credit from the general government
for sixteen recruits.
Mr. STIRLING. Will the gentleman allow
me to suggest an amendment to his proposi-
tion? It is to add:
" And the general assembly shall also pro-
vide for the registration of all the horses
mules and cattle that were held in this State
on the 1st of January, 1861, and from that
day to the end of the war, and the title to the
same, so as to enable the owners of all such
horses, mules or cattle stolen, seized, or im-
pressed, to recover the same if any appropria-
tion shall be made for that purpose."
Mr. NEGLEY. Will the gentleman add
"fences and crops?" We of Washington
county have lost a great deal in fences and
crops, agricultural products, wood, &c
Mr. BERRY, of Prince George's. I would |
suggest also a statement of the names of all
the members of this convention who voted
for the odious proposition—who voted to take
the negroes without pay, and their pedigree
that it may be handed down to posterity.
Mr. BARRON. I want to ask the gentleman
a question about what he says is property.
I want to know if he did not go into Vir-
ginia and get a negro slave and put him into
the army as a substitute?
Mr. CLARKE. No, sir. I never did.
Mr. DAVIS, of Charles. I wish to ask the
gentleman from Baltimore city whether he
supposes that this constitution abolishes the
night of property as it abolishes the right of
slaves, that he proposes to have a record of
it.
Mr. STIRLING Certainly not.
Mr. SANDS. I am in favor of the addition
proposed by my friend from Prince George's
(Mr.. Berry.) If there is one thing remem-
bered of me in the future, I want it remem-
bered that I was a member of this conven-
tion and voted for the article of emancipa-
tion.
Mr. CLARKE resumed. I will state to the
gentleman from Baltimore city (Mr. Stirling,)
that I have really no objection to accepting
his proposition. It carries out very much
the idea embraced in the proposition I offered.
I do not accept it now, but when he shall
offer it as a substitute I have no objection to
accepting it.
I will only say in reply to the gentleman
from Howard (Mr. Sands,) that the mode be
suggests of providing for claims would not
cover the whole case. I was about to say
when I was interrupted, that in my county
thousands of slaves are gone away, able-
bodied men, and only sixteen are placed to
our credit. Why is it? Because we are just
upon the confines of the city of Washington,
and if a negro wants to go away he does not
go into the army but into the city of Wash-
ington; so that most of these negroe's are
there now and scarcely any of them in the
army. A gentleman states that the reason is
that the county commissioners have not paid
the bounty. That will not help the matter.
These negroes are not in the army; they will
not go into the army. The masters cannot
help that. So there is a very large class of
able-bodied men loitering around, and the
government does not, search for them but
drafts white men in our county to supply the
place when they might reach these people.
There they are, and we can never in any
shape or form make any claim against the
government for that. The question might
arise hereafter whether we shall claim com-
pensation for them as set free by the State.
I wish to say a few words about the prop-
erty spoken of by the gentleman from Wash-
ington county (Mr. Negley,) and embraced
in the amendment read by the gentleman
from Baltimore city (Mr. Stirling.) I do not |
