399]              Constitutional Reform Agitation.                 21

could no longer hope to retain if a convention, whose rep-
resentation was based upon popular numbers, as was urged
by Baltimore City, and the larger counties, assembled to
frame a new constitution.

The distribution of slave property in Maryland was very
unequal. The number of slaves was rapidly decreasing in
the northern and western sections of the State, especially
in those counties bordering on the free State of Penn-
sylvania. The proximity to a free State, and the conse-
quent facilities for escape, rendered slavery almost imprac-
ticable, and slave property almost worthless. In southern
Maryland, on the other hand, where agriculture was exten-
sively carried on, and slave labor productive, the num-
ber of slaves was constantly increasing.

The southern planters had the greater part of their cap-
ital invested in this kind of property. This interest which
they guarded with so much jealousy, and which formed so
large a part of their wealth, might be destroyed and the
wealth of the other part of the State scarcely feel the shock.
These considerations led the people of the southern coun-
ties to believe it would be dangerous to them and to their
interest to give the legislative authority into the hands of
the people of the north and west, especially to those of
Baltimore City, who were suspected of holding anti-slavery
sentiments. This group considered that they were not con-
cerned in sustaining the rights of the slave-owners. Though
there were no public manifestations of a wish for the im-
mediate abolition of slavery in the State, the tendency of
the times and the action taken by the northern abolition-
ists were well calculated to increase the apprehensions of
the slave-owners. This fear of agitating the question of
slavery in the State was one of the principal causes for the
legislature's resistance of the demands of the large majority
of the people for a constitutional convention.

The financial embarrassment of the State, due to the
failure of realizing the large returns which had been so
confidently predicted from the works of internal improve-