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Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1866
Volume 107, Page 1999   View pdf image (33K)
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REPORT.
The undersigned, a minority of the committee on Regis-
tration, to which was referred sundry memorials asking the
removal of the constitutional disabilities in relation to the
elective franchise beg Ieave to dissent from the position as-
sumed by the majority, and to urge upon the Home the ne-
cesity of taking such action as will speedily remove the dis-
qualifications under which a large majority of our people are
laboring. The disqualifying provisions of our constitution,
if imposed upon the people as punishments, would even un-
der the decision of our Court of Appeals, be clearly illegal
and void. Believing, as we do, that the deprivation of the
right of suffrage is the severest punishment that can he in-
flicted upon the citizens, and that the visiting of, such a pen-
alty for acts done, which were not criminal at the time the
offences were committed, is contrary to the spirit of free in-
stitutions, and repugnant to the Bill of Rights of Maryland,
and the constitution of the United States; therefore in our
and not punitive in their character. These odious disabilities
therefore in our opinion, those provisions in order to have the least shadow
of validity, must be regarded us preventive in the operation.
were imposed in the midst of a sanguinary strife, when pas-
sion had usurped the dominion of reason; when the barriers
of the Constitution were overleaped under the please of preserv-
ing the Government; but now all danger has passed; the
Southern peope have expressed an almost unanimous desire
to return to their allegiance; many of their chosen leaders

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Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, 1866
Volume 107, Page 1999   View pdf image (33K)
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