Yet, we must not be too harsh with our
State's constitutional forebearers. We must
understand that in 1867 Maryland had not
yet recovered from the agonizing impact
of the Civil War that the wounds of
conflict ran deep that the memories of
past political abuses were still vivid. We
must remember, too, that in that early year
Maryland was a rural, gentle and compla-
cent State with but a single small com-
mercial center, and barely over a half
million residents a people who sought
little from their, state government but to
restore the peace and permit them to re-
cover in peace from the exhausting war.
They could not foresee the Maryland of
today with its population seven times the
number for which the constitution of 1867
was framed with its urban concentra-
tion embracing seventy-three per cent of
our citizens a Maryland where the pro-
found barriers of transportation and com-
munication would no longer be obstacles
to people and progress.
If the transition between clipper ships
and jet propelled aircraft seems phenom-
enal even more startling is the very
speed of incessant change. Our commercial,
industrial and population growth has not
been gradual but explosive. And its impact
on government has been no less dramatic.
The inability of the old constitution to
envisage growth and change is indicated
by the more than two hundred amendments
which have been grafted to the original
document. Even the fundamental construc-
tion was beset with flaws, not apparent
when state government was small, but ob-
structive now that it has grown to impres-
sive height. So distrustful were our prede-
cessors of political authority that they cre-
ated checks and balances not only between
the three traditional branches of govern-
ment but within them not merely hinder-
ing administrative action but virtually
strangling the implementation of bold
solutions.
Thus we have become a static state drift-
ing from a state of indifference to a state
of emergency. Maryland is not alone in.
this. Other states, perhaps even the major-
ity of them, have suffered the same break-
down of their political nervous systems.
The federal government, forced to fill the
vacuum created by the strangled state, has
grown out of all proportion to its constitu-
tional purposes. In turn, the cherished con-
stitutional balance between federal and
state governments has been disrupted, and
unless we act quickly and responsibly, it
could be permanently destroyed. |
State government has a special role as
the sovereign government closest to the
people. It is immediate and intimate. It is
the laboratory for political experiment, the
instrument to test and apply new political
solutions to new and old problems. State
government, tempered by its unique consti-
tutional safeguard of referendum, may yet
become the most creative, imaginative and
dynamic form of political expression.
In little more than three decades we will
enter the twenty-first century. By the year
2000 we will be six million citizens. Tradi-
tional political boundaries will be obscured,
be one vast metropolitan corridor between
Baltimore and Washington. Rapid rail and
air transportation will be commonplace. The
atmosphere we breathe will be cleaner, our
water will be purer, and our people will be
more educated and enlightened. It is not for
today, but for tomorrow, that you write
this constitution the sinew, soul and
spirit of the Maryland to be.
As you reflect on this singular task, know
that you write for not one isolated or es-
tranged people but for a Maryland which
is itself the very microcosm of America. In
the geography of our State, the geography
of our nation is cast in miniature. In the
thoughts of our citizens the great philo-
sophical cross-currents from north and
south, east and west, city and suburb meet
mix and merge.
Maryland reflects the diversity that gave
to America its greatness. We are many
people. We are many races, religions and
national origins. We are a tidewater people
and a mountain people. We are a people
born to rich farmlands and a people reared
in the teeming tempo of city streets. We
are different kinds of people, each indi-
vidual and unique, but united in our com-
mon love of freedom, our common respect
for human liberty, our common passion for
law and order, and our common faith in the
future. A constitution for the State of,
Maryland is in every respect a constitution
for each of the states united.
So now begin the great work knowing
that what you attempt has been tried be-
fore and that what you will accomplish
must serve as law and letter to a society
yet to come. Let principle be chapter and
verse of the new constitution and let brevity
attest to the clarity of its pronouncement.
Let every political passion be expressed,
but let logic, compromise and principle
prevail.
Let remembrance of the past give direc- |
