434 State Papers and Addresses

government, lawyers have ever been the leaders. There have been many
critical moments, none so great as those which arose in the Constitutional
Convention itself, but through them all the vigilance which is the price of free-
dom has resolved every such crisis in favor of a sturdier, stronger and more
acceptable fundamental government. The Bar as a whole, and particularly its courageous leaders, can take pride
and credit in the development and growth of this document. The Bar today
must shoulder manfully its responsibility so that these achievements of its
predecessors may be not lost or impaired but kept bright and lustrous through
the years to come.

Gazing back to the days of the Revolution we remember that lawyers and

laymen, too, gathered around the conference table at Independence Hall to

append their signatures to that great paper which in another week we shall

, commemorate again in celebration throughout this land—the Declaration of

Independence.

When the war was successfully concluded there is no doubt but that the
several independent colonies would have lapsed into weak and disunited groups
had it not been for the patience and statesmanship of those great American
lawyers who framed, fought over, amended and finally passed the Constitution
of the United States. No reference to that document would be complete in any
presence, much less in this body, without a tribute to a great Marylander whose
dogged fight for the rights of small states resulted in the form of government
we have today. I refer, of course, to that early leader of our Maryland Bar,
who for twenty-nine years served as Attorney General of our State and took
part in all famous trials of his day—Luther Martin.

It was as a lawyer, probing the pros and cons of the matter, that he per-
ceived the inherent weakness of the Virginia plan sponsored by Governor
Randolph and his associates in the Constitutional Convention. He fought this
plan bitterly. At one time he stalked out of the convention in disgust and
headed for home. In the end he was victorious.

The plan put forth by the Virginia statesmen was not so much a union of
states as it was a complete nationalistic government. The most ardent of our
statesmen today would be perhaps somewhat startled to know that the original
draft of our Constitution would have given them much more power than they
now seek.

The gentlemen from Virginia pictured a Nation exercising all the powers
of government, with the states merely administrative districts or branches of
the national government. State barriers would have been practically eliminated.

If it had prevailed we would today have a House of Representatives elected
by the people, a Senate chosen, by the House and a President appointed by a
"national legislature. " Their supreme court was modeled on the Privy Council
of England. On all acts of the national legislature this court was to possess
the veto power. But it was not a judicial but a political veto, a veto based upon
the court's idea of the desirability of the law as a matter of public policy.

Luther Martin's fight was directed against this plan and in the fight he
had the support of a number of the small colonies. He pointed out that the