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I would also like to say again, although
it has already been said here, that the
majority of the Committee rejected the
idea that it follows as the night the day
that if you lower the voting age, you have
to lower the age of majority. It is true
that in the State of Kentucky when they
did lower the voting age they also lowered
the age of majority. However, this was not
true in all the states that lowered the
voting age. Most of them still kept the age
for the purchase of alcoholic beverages at
twenty-one.
Let me also say that in Maryland at the
moment there are ages for certain legal
documents or for the discussion of adult
status that have no relationship to what
our present voting age is. As you are well
aware, the age for marriage without paren-
tal consent is below twenty-one.
The Committee rejected the idea that one
had necessarily to be tied to the other. The
Committee also felt that the age of nineteen
was a meaningful level at which it should
be established.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Cardin.
DELEGATE CARDIN: I would like to,
if I may, correct one statement.
Males cannot marry in the State of
Maryland under the age of twenty-one
without parental consent. I believe that
only females can.
Also, I would like to add that of the four
states that have lowered the voting age,
three have lowered the age of majority.
This is not an accident.
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in opposition?
Delegate Key.
DELEGATE KEY: I am on the floor
because I am a little confused. I would like
to have these delegates think of a few
questions that are running around in my
little mind.
We speak of experience and responsi-
bility at age twenty-one as though it is
magical. We speak of college students, but
we admit they are dependent persons who
are still seeking wisdom and the necessary
qualifications for their chosen profession.
When we talk about lowering the voting
age, I would like to know how many young
people the Committee heard from who were
independently caring for themselves by
working. How many did you hear from who
are married at age eighteen and nineteen
and who have to care for their families?
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How many who do have to, for example, go
to hospitals where they have to wait with
their lives in jeopardy while their parents,
whom they no longer live with, have to
come and sign for them to be treated?
I have been studying education for the
past three months. Our present Constitu-
tion says the General Assembly shall by
law establish throughout the State a thor-
ough and efficient system of free public
schools. If this thorough and efficient sys-
tem of free public education is to prepare
our youth to care for themselves, to act as
responsible citizens, to take on the full re-
sponsibility of adulthood, if this is the pur-
pose of the free and efficient system of
education which we now have in this State,
then I say to you it ends at age eighteen,
grade twelve.
THE CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for
the question?
(Call for the question.)
The Clerk will ring the quorum bell.
The question arises on the adoption of
Amendment 2 to substitute the age twenty
for the age nineteen.
A vote Aye is a vote in favor of the
amendment, in favor of age twenty.
A vote No is a vote against the amend-
ment in favor of age nineteen.
For what purpose does Delegate Mitchell
rise?
DELEGATE MITCHELL: Mr. Presi-
dent, I rise to support the majority report
and to oppose the amendment, and I would
like to state my reasons.
THE CHAIRMAN: Speak.
DELEGATE MITCHELL: Mr. President
and fellow Delegates, it seems to me as we
listened to the arguments against lowering
the voting age to nineteen that we are
hearing the same arguments in the history
of the struggle for universal suffrage that
were used and presented in the early days
when the people who did not own property
sought the right to vote. Indeed, in 1831
after James Monroe had been President of
the U. S. for eight years, he wrote about
the danger that if the right of suffrage
were extended to the local population with-
out any qualification as to property, the
mass of poor, which would lie by far the
most numerous, would elect persons, and
would be instruments in the hands of
leaders who would overthrow the gov-
ernment.
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