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1892.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 1023
La Plata, in said county, if the qualified voters shall
so determine, and to provide a Court House and Jail,
&c. I cannot concur in the favorable report of this
bill, believing, as I do, that it is hurtful to the best
interests of the people whom I in part represent, and
in violation of the known and expressed wishes of a
decided majority of the tax paying people of our
county, upon whom alone the burdens of debt and
increased taxation it proposes to create, will rest.
The question presented by this bill is not a new one
with our people.
The question of the removal of the county seat from
Port Tobacco to LaPlata was submitted to the popu-
lar vote of the county in the year 1882, with the re-
sult that only about 360 votes were cast in its favor
out of a total vote of over 3,000 cast at said election.
Again, at the last session of the Legislature, a bill
was introduced into the Senate by the author of the
pending bill, providing for the removal of the county
seat from Port Tobacco to LaPlata absolutely and
without submitting the question to the people.
The bill passed the Senate without objection, and
before the people of the county were aware that any
such measure was contemplated. It subsequently
passed this House, receiving exactly a constitutional
majority, which consisted of every Republican mem-
ber of the House, (excepting only Delegate Contee,
from Charles county), with enough Democrats to
make the requisite number.
The nature of the contest in the House at that time
is known to many members now here who were also
members at that time. At this stage of the case a
very large and influential meeting of the leading tax
payers from every section of the county assembled in
the Court House at Port Tobacco, upon barely two
days notice, and amid strong manifestations of earnest
indignation, adopted a series of resolutions from which
I will quote as follows :
"Resolved, By the citizens and tax-payers of Charles
county, in mass-meeting assembled at Port Tobacco,
this 17th day of March, 1890, that we have heard with
great indignation of the passage by both branches of
the General Assembly, of an Act to remove the county
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