Having weighted representation in
the House, the convention sought to
recompense Baltimore to a limited ex-
tent by giving it extra representation in
the Senate where domination by the
city was not even a remote threat. This
was accomplished by allowing the city
to elect one senator from each of its
three legislative districts.63 Thus, hav-
ing expressly rejected the federal anal-
ogy, the convention consolidated its
position by refusing to establish the
House on a strict population basis while
simultaneously introducing a population
factor into the Senate by giving Balti-
more City multiple representation.
Closely tied to the question of the
proper basis of apportionment of the
legislature was the issue of whether
Negroes should be included, as they
were under the 1851 Constitution, in the
population counts used for determining
apportionments. At the time of the 1864
Constitution, the Thirteenth Amend-
ment to the federal Constitution abolish-
ing slavery had not yet even been pro-
posed by Congress. The 1864 Constitu-
tion, though, in Article 24 of the Bill of
Rights, abolished slavery within the
State. Having adopted the provision to
abolish slavery, the convention refused
to count any Negroes, even free Negroes,
for apportionment purposes.64 As in
1851, the issue involved was basically
not the rights of Negroes as such, but
the relative power of the rural slave-
holding counties versus the more popu-
lous counties and Baltimore City where
slaveholdings were relatively unimpor-
tant.65 The reversal from 1851 on
counting Negroes was a direct result of
63 md. const, art. III, § 3 (1864).
64 md. const, art. III, § 4 (1864).
65 For example, Baltimore City with almost
ten times the population of Prince George's
County had less than one-fifth of the number
of slaves in that county.
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the weakening of the southern oriented
counties referred to earlier.
As with previous reapportionments,
the reapportionment provided by the
1864 Constitution was to take effect
only after the next census.66 For the
interim period a temporary apportion-
ment was again provided: Baltimore
County, Frederick County, and the three
districts in Baltimore City, 6 delegates
each; Allegany, Carroll, and Washing-
ton, 5 delegates; Cecil and Harford, 4
delegates; Somerset and Worcester, 3
delegates; Anne Arundel, Caroline,
Dorchester, Howard, Kent, Montgomery,
Prince George's, Queen Anne's, and
Talbot, 2 delegates; and Calvert,
Charles, and Saint Mary's, 1 delegate.67
Assessing this temporary apportionment
on the basis of total population, rather
than white population, an astounding
result appears. Baltimore with eighteen
delegates and a population of 212,418
had 11,801 persons per representative.
Calvert, Charles, and Saint Mary's coun-
ties had 10,447, 16,517, and 15,213
inhabitants for their single representa-
tives, respectively. Thus on a total
population basis, Baltimore was approx-
imately equally represented as. compared
to the least populous counties, a situa-
tion that never has occurred before or
since.
THE 1867 CONSTITUTION
With the close of the Civil War and
the ending of the Union Army occupa-
tion of the State, demand for revision of
the 1864 Constitution became irresist-
ible. Accordingly, in 1867, another
constitutional convention was called.
In contrast to the long debate on appor-
tionment in the 1864 convention, the
60 Since it was replaced by a different ap-
portionment formula in the 1867 Constitution,
it never took effect at all.
67 md. const, art. III, § 4 (1864).
143
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